Densho Digital Archive - Henry Nishi Interview II (denshovh-nhenry

<Begin Segment 20>

RP: So how did you end up getting taken for Military Intelligence Service? Were you initially with a different unit?

HN: When we were, when we were enlisted, there was a questionnaire, "Would you be willing to go to the Language School?" Evidently I wrote "yes" because when I had, when I finished basic training, I had orders, our whole group had orders to go to the point of departure on the East Coast to go to Europe. Then they got, at the last minute I got orders, change orders to go to Fort Snelling in Minnesota. I went. So that's how I got there.

RP: What do you remember about your training at Fort Snelling and just life in general there? What memories do you have?

HN: Well, we had... always going to school all day long, from morning to night, evening. I forgot, about three or four o'clock, I think we came back. But early in the morning we had to march to the classrooms.

RP: And did you concentrate on a specific area? I know there were writing propaganda and interrogation and all these different little areas...

HN: It's just a language school.

RP: Just...

HN: Just plain, just, just strictly language school, yeah.

RP: Minneapolis is a pretty cold place.

HN: Oh, boy. Yeah. Fort Snelling is a beautiful, beautiful military installation, and old buildings. Right, I remember it was right near that, right near the bridge. You go across to the other side of the bridge was Twin Falls... no...

RP: Twin Cities?

HN: Was it Minneapolis?

RP: St. Paul, Minneapolis?

HN: St. Paul, yeah.

RP: So it was very much like going to school, wasn't it? You got tested and examinations, that kind of thing?

HN: Yeah.

RP: Did you have buddies? Did you make, have any close buddies in MIS or....

HN: Yeah, yeah.

RP: Who were they?

HN: I can't even remember those, remember his name. But it so happened that when we got back and living here in Los Angeles, Amy's relative had a party and we were there and one of the people there that I met, he mentioned his brother's name. I said, "Oh yeah. That was about my buddy at Fort Snelling." And there were some other guys. Another... when we came, when he got discharged he came back. He went to work for the postal department. He was a mailman.

RP: So when you were going to MIS school, was the war nearly over? Is this 1945 or...

HN: While I was in school, just before graduation, it was over. But we were still... I got sent to Seattle to go overseas to Japan, the occupation at that time. But when we got to Japan it was just after, just after the war had ended. Yeah. It was still, it was still in rubbles. Like we came in to Yokohama, that's the docks. We went by ship. It was flattened out, just flat. And we were... from Yokohama we went to Tokyo because that's where General Headquarters are. General Headquarters is where they kept the military MIS. Which was right in the heart of Tokyo. Tokyo itself was untouched because I think they purposefully kept all the... we stayed at the NY, NYK building, which was a Japanese shipping company. It was right... and Dai Ichi Hotel was just down the street. That's where General MacArthur was. And there was another hotel there, it was... oh, the hotel that General MacArthur stayed was one of a famous architect that... the American architect. He designed that building anyway, that architect. And right on the other side was the Imperial Gardens. And we were just a block away from the main Tokyo, Tokyo station. You just go there, you could go just about anywhere from, on the subway or the trains.