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

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RP: And what were you assigned to do for MIS in Japan?

HN: We were all billeted at the NYK building and it was strictly the MIS group. And it was, what it was was just all of us were there. And any company regiment or any group that needed interpreters, interrogators, requisitioned for it and then they would ship us out.

RP: Huh. You were kind of on call.

HN: Huh?

RP: You were kind of on call.

HN: On call, yeah.

RP: And what did you get sent out to do?

HN: A couple of times we went down to Sugamo prison with an American attorney, interrogate prisoners. And these attorneys, these lawyers were strictly lawyers for the defense. We had to convince these people that we're working for the defense, not for the prosecution. But then later on, I got assigned a regular job where we every day go to all of this where we interrogated Japanese prisoners that were coming back from Siberia. We tried to get whatever information we could on Siberia. Oh, they really suffered in Siberia, because of the weather, bitter cold. They were building that Trans-Siberian...

RP: Railway?

HN: Yeah. And coal mining.

KP: They were prisoners of war of Russia?

HN: Japanese prisoners.

KP: Of war of Russia?

HN: Yeah. They were sending them back to Japan. And then we were interrogating... they were, I don't know how they picked them, but they would pick whatever and they would send 'em to Tokyo for interrogation. And every day they would assign us to... well, we'd go to this one interrogation room. And we'd have to interrogate sometimes, mostly just one a day, at least we'd try to stretch it out to interrogate one. If we finished early they'd give us another one.

RP: Were they, were these POWs willing to talk to you?

HN: Oh, yeah.

RP: I mean, did they share information?

HN: Yeah, yeah.

RP: You were mostly interested in, you know... what kind of information were you looking for? About Russian military installations or...

HN: What were they doing? What was it like? What... and it's mostly, they were either coal, in the coal mining, or on that, working on that railroad. I think that railroad went all across Siberia to Vladivostok. And we got whatever information we could find or get. And we'd do at least one a day. I think these guys that got picked... I don't know if they got... I think they probably, the military must have gave them enough money to come to Tokyo. I guess they got a little money for meals, had transportation back to home. I'm not sure, but I think, I'm sure they didn't come on their... I think they got, they got money.