Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Isao Kikuchi
Narrator: Isao Kikuchi
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: May 15, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-kisao-01-0012

<Begin Segment 12>

RP: One of the other advantages of volunteering to some of the other folks who went up is that they could drive their own vehicle and take more items with them.

IK: Well, I guess so, but I had no other thought.

RP: Just the job, having a job?

IK: It was a job, so I took, took a hammer and nail gun, saw. That was all I needed.

RP: What else did you take with you?

IK: Just some, the clothes I had.

RP: You didn't load up your truck, or vehicle?

IK: No.

RP: What were you driving at that time?

IK: At that time, I think it was a 1933 Plymouth, a convertible. There was very few, they mostly were the nursery guys, landscapers and such. A lot of their trucks were in line.

RP: Did you see tools and plants and thing like that?

IK: No plants, just tools. But there were boxes or suitcases and such. I don't know that, what the other people took. They took bedding. Yeah, I had bedding, and that was about it.

RP: Can you describe to us the military presence in the convoy?

IK: Well, we were following the... and I've forgotten what kind of truck or whatever they did, but it was the army, and tailing, picking up the rear was a state trooper, I believe.

RP: So you were kind of in the middle? Middle of the...

IK: Somewhere, I don't know and I didn't... I was just following my friend. We were old friends so I just, we stayed together.

RP: In your, in your narrative you talked about the, sort of the governor of the convoy was one of these old Model T cars that...

IK: They, that Model T set the pace. It had probably thirty miles an hour at the most, so it was a... I was in first or second gear half the time.

RP: They wanted, they wanted all those vehicles in the convoy to be in good running order.

IK: Didn't hear a word about that.

RP: Did you see other, where there any cars or vehicles that broke down on the way up there?

IK: Not that I recall. For as slow as we were going, anyone could have broken down and they could've stopped and it wouldn't have made any difference 'cause we were going so slow in the first place. 'Cause I think it, I think we started around six o'clock in the morning, and I think we ended up at Manzanar well after midnight. There were no freeways and there were no fast cars, so they had no... just, just a boring, boring time going up.

RP: You made one stop for gasoline?

IK: Well I did 'cause I was tired of sittin' there going under thirty miles an hour, so I just pulled out of the convoy at a gas station, and I let my dog to the potty and I went and... Kei, oh it was Kei, that was his name. Kei went to, we did everything and checked the tires and checked the oil and checked the water, and up came the rear end state cop. Oh, he was mad. He was ready to pull his gun like a cowboy, like we were tryin' to escape or something. And he says, "What are you doing?" I said you have to have the point, point of the car, you know, like a dummy. And the dog was pissin' on the tank, so he was getting' madder and madder. He didn't know what to do, either. And I knew what I was gonna do. I just wasn't gonna hurt him, and that's all there was to it. So anyway, he got mad and spun his wheels in the dust and covered us with that and took off. And we waited and waited and waited, and then we started again so I could undo my car, just hit, just floored the throttle. And I caught up with him very quickly, but I just passed up most of the convoy, doing about ninety miles an hour on this one lane highway, and up comes this cop behind me. He's gonna capture me, or us. And so all we could do was stop and pull back in the, in the convoy. But we had our satisfaction. I ran it out. And I could stick my tongue out at the cop. Nothing he could do.

RP: Get a little, little excitement.

IK: Yeah.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.