Densho Digital Archive - Alfred Miyagishima Interview (denshovh-malfred-01-0021)

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TI: So after you finished high school, then what happened?

AM: Well, about a month before I graduated, which was in May, I got a notice in the mail to report to a preinduction physical here in Fort Logan, Colorado. So there was one other Japanese kid, Henry Hayano, and lot of the boys from around the valley would get on the train and come to, come to Denver for our preinduction physical. And we stayed overnight and then they sent us back. And my draft status at that time was 1-C, and I don't know whether that was "undesirable alien" or whether, because I was still a student...

TI: Or was it 4-C? I think it was 4-C.

AM: Is it 4-C? But mine was a 1-C, I'm pretty sure.

TI: Oh, 1-C? Okay.

AM: Well, I think it was 4-C, but then, you see, I didn't have to register until I was eighteen, so I think the previous ones that registered were 4-C, "undesirable aliens," I think. I think mine was a 1-C, and I think they, they kind of laxed the requirements, and I think 1-C was a student. I think a couple days after I graduated, which was the end of, towards the end of May, I get this notice in the mail that I'm supposed to report to Fort Logan, that I'm qualified as a 1-A, and I passed my physical and all that stuff. So I think about June, June the 2nd or something like that, I was already on the, on the train coming up here to Denver. And we were sent to Fort Leavenworth, and from Fort Leavenworth was were sent to Camp Fanin, Texas, which is near Tyler, Texas, where our, our training, basic training, and that lasted for seventeen weeks. All through summer in that hot Texas sun, that was... when you got out of there, you was ready for anything.

TI: And about what year or what, what time was this? This was what year?

AM: What year?

TI: Yeah, what year?

AM: Oh, '45, 1945.

TI: So the, at this point, the war in Europe had, had come to an end.

AM: Yes.

TI: But you were still fighting the Japanese? This was, I guess, summer of '45?

AM: Yes. I believe that in May the, early part of May, I think, it was, the Germans had surrendered. It was probably over sometime in April, but I think officially it was over first part of May. So we was kind of relieved of that, but then they were still fighting in the Pacific. So when we were taking basic training, they kept telling us, "We're still fighting over there, we're still fighting over there." And so, you know, do your training real hard, no goofing off and all that kind of stuff. Of course, I think August, before our basic training officially ended, why, the war with Japan was over. So we was quite relieved. At least, at least it cut the options down. [Laughs]

TI: Right. So after you finished training, where were you stationed? Where did they send you?

AM: We went to Germany on the ship, I think it's the USS United States, big troop ship, I think, it was like ten thousand of us on the ship. Went to Europe, landed in France, La Havre, stayed there three or four days or longer, then they, we got on these boxcars and they shipped us probably through Belgium and ended up in Germany. And eventually we ended up in Augsburg, Germany. So I think we got to Germany, let's see, we spent, I know we spent Christmas in Augsburg. And then by the next Thanksgiving, they had sent us home. So it was a little short of two years.

TI: So I'm curious, while you were in Europe, did you ever, did people ever ask you about the 442nd?

AM: Yes. Matter of fact, we had a sergeant... what was happening at that time was a lot of the divisions were being rotated, sent home, and lot of it was on the point system. So we used to see these other GIs that's been there before us counting back how many months they've been there in service, and how many points you got and all that. So they were sending a lot of the GIs home that had been there during the war. We had one sergeant, his name was Isao Nishi, he's from Seattle. He joined our unit because the 522 Field Artillery Unit, the field artillery unit that he was in was being sent home, but he decided he wanted to stay in the service. So they sent him to us for a little while, and then I don't know where he went after that. Somebody said that he went, he wanted to go to Japan or something, but I really don't know. But when I came back and went to work here in the Denver, and I met some of the fellows that were in the 522 because I was in the American Legion here. "Oh, Sergeant Nishi? Yeah, I know him." And so that was quite an experience to meet somebody that everybody knew from the 522.

TI: Did, did Sergeant Nishi ever talk about what the 522nd or 442 did during the war?

AM: Well, I know that, I think going through France, they backed up the 442 in lot of their artillery things. But I do know that at the end of the war, they were in Dachau, and they were one of the first ones there to release the prisoners that were there at the concentration camp.

TI: Did Sergeant Nishi ever talk about that?

AM: No, because the first thing they did, they shut everybody out and they wouldn't let nobody in there even though they were the first ones in there. They put a guard around it, wouldn't let nobody else in there. And I suppose it was security reasons, they had special MPs and stuff to do all that, and they wouldn't let anybody in there.