Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: George T. "Joe" Sakato Interview
Narrator: George T. "Joe" Sakato
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Denver, Colorado
Date: May 14, 2008
Densho ID: denshovh-sgeorge-01-0019

<Begin Segment 19>

TI: And then, okay, so pick it up there. Then what happened?

GS: So I, the Camp Shelby was already done, and they were getting ready to go overseas. So I volunteered and I was going in the Air Force again. So I signed up for the Air Force and I got on a train and I got out to Camp Blanding, and I'm looking out and I says, "Where's the Air Force?" "You're in the infantry. The 100th Battalion needs replacements for the wounded that was killed, and they need soldiers to replace them." So I'm it. So then therefore I was in Camp Blanding, but then at that time, the first draftees that were drafted before the war like my brother, George Kanatani and all these others had sergeant stripes and corporal stripes, and they had to take their basic training over. They too would become replacements for 442.

TI: Okay. So already there had been a wave of, of soldiers who, first the 100th, and then the original members of the 442 had already been trained, and they were shipped. And so now it's your group is next, and you're saying that some of these people, the early draftees before the war started, and the new, the new members are now training together.

GS: Right.

TI: So that's interesting, so you're training with older, more experienced...

GS: There was only fifty of us recruits that volunteered to join. We were put in Camp Blanding, and then the first draftees, they had to take their basic training over again, so they were taking their basic training with us.

TI: Okay, so have the, kind of the, kind of older draftees. Were there any newer draftees also?

GS: No, not yet.

TI: Not yet, okay. So you're...

GS: So we were still in, in this unit. And then we took our basic training over again, took our basic training that we went, the day we were shipped to Camp Shelby, the first, then the draftees after that drafted, were drafted and went to Camp Blanding. Two, we were the 232nd, they were the 208, and Camp Blanding, they were the draftees for replacements. So then after we were in Camp Shelby, then we went overseas, and then the...

TI: Okay, so let me, let me see if I understand this. So your group was the group right before the newer draftees from places like the camp and things like that. So you're going, and then they followed you at Camp Blanding to do their basic, and then they would be sent to Shelby a little bit later.

GS: Right.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.