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JW: One thing that I don't think that my aunties ever said anything about, my mother's, my father's father, Matsunosuke Wakamatsu, was a sergeant in the Japanese army during the Russian-Japan War and he was in the Quartermaster Corps. My mother's father, who also was at Manzanar, was a, a first-second lieutenant in the Japanese Third Army and he fought up in, in famous battles like Port Arthur and, and he was part of the General Nogi's officer's staff, so.

RP: Can you give us his name?

JW: Yeah, his name is Shutaro Matsumura. And he was actually a camp guard at Manzanar. And we have a photograph of it. I believe the, you have that in the archives. My brother Peter Wakamatsu gave that to you. And he was actually an Imperial Japanese Army officer and he was a camp guard at Manzanar. So, neither grandfather spoke, were part of the Japanese Veterans Association so when it came time, they, the FBI, or nobody knew that they were military people so they didn't, they just went to regular camp with their families. And my grandfather, my mother's father received a medal, Kunsho, I'm not sure what level bravery, for fighting in Russian-Japan War. And I still have his service revolvers. So you, you can imagine that he'd been the first person to be sent to Crystal City or Texas, but he, he told my father when he was in Rancho Los Amigos, he had gotten tuberculosis, that he said that he had lived in America for so many years that you support the country you live in. And so it, so he felt that even though he was a Japanese army officer in a prior war -- he lived for many years, he came here in 1918 -- he said you support the country you live in. And he felt very strongly about that.

One thing I do have to mention is he is one of the few people, 'cause he came from a famous samurai family, they were actually generals in the warlord's army, they were from Kagahan which is Ishikawa-ken, and they're from Kanazawa city and his, his father was the police chief of the city of Kanazawa and my grandfather was also an Imperial University graduate after the Russian-Japan War. My grandfather lived in Tokyo and he lived with Kowashaku Mayeda who was the, the descendent of a warlord from the Kagahan... and it was a very large daimyo. And all I can say is that it's, so he had very strong military background. But he felt that wherever you live is what you support. Even though he was denied citizenship. I don't know if he ever became a citizen. But he felt that wherever you live is where you stayed. So, the grounds for Japanese people to be considered "enemy aliens" is, it couldn't be farther from the truth as far as my grandfather was concerned.

The other thing I wanted to mention to you that you probably don't know is that both of my grandfathers came to United States because, one of the reasons why they came here was because Japan was a very militaristic society and they had very little tolerance for people that had any questions against the government. My mother's father wrote articles against the Japanese government because he saw from the Russian-Japan War that many men were from low-status families and they did very well but they could never become officers. They could never do things in Japan because they weren't from famous families. And so he didn't like that. He wrote articles against the government and being a military person, his father being in the police chief, he basically was, basically, he went, came to America but he was basically thrown out of Japan. Because he wrote articles in the newspaper and that's not a good thing. So my mother, my father's father, Matsunosuke Wakamatsu, also didn't like the militaristic attitude and, and he and grandmother, they didn't like that. So our families are a little different than the other Issei. They didn't come here for, totally for economic reasons.

RP: Wasn't there a, one of your grandfather's brothers was a general?

JW: Yeah, my grandfather's cousin, my grandfather's cousin was Lieutenant General Wakamatsu, he was the head of Japanese Army in Southeast Asia. And so he was ordered to take Singapore and he a large fight, apparently, with Togo and he actually resigned from the army and General Yamashita took his place. So that is something we thought was rather interesting.

RP: Do you know anything about his basis of his refusal to do that?

JW: You know, I'm not a hundred percent sure of why he declined to do that. 'Cause it's very interesting that I'm not sure why he had a problem with that. And, of course, General Yamashita took Singapore and he was also, fought in the Philippines. But, it's, it'd be kind of interesting to find out what happened.

RP: Was he ostracized for his position in any way?

JW: Well, I'm sure that when you, when you refuse orders in the Japanese military you, you --

RP: Heads roll?

JW: I don't think he was killed, but you definitely are going to have problems because they, they have absolute obedience. My grandmother's uncle, who was a Matsuzaki, was commander of, he was major and he was a banker before the war, he was commander of a unit that attacking Nanking, China. And he was killed when they had the... they went into the city, they blew the bridge up and he was killed in the invasion of Nanking, China. And then my father's second cousin was a leading Japanese naval carrier pilot and he shot down thirty-seven U.S. aircraft. He probably attacked Pearl Harbor but at the end of the war he was, he was attacking squadrons of B-29s. He survived the war and he, and he moved to Brazil. And then my mother's cousin was an officer in the Japanese army, he guarded the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. And so I would say ninety-five percent of our family fought in the Japanese military. And you support the country that you're born and raised in and even, I found many, many Japanese American families who, brothers fought against brothers because the older brother stayed in America, the younger brother went back to Japan and like the Oka family that lived across from our family for more than fifty years, Isao Oka said that there were five of them in the military intelligence. The two younger brothers were in the Japanese kamikaze corps, they went back with their parents. And when they were in Saipan the two younger brothers were trying to blow up their ships because they were kamikaze pilots. And they didn't realize that until after the war ended that their younger brothers were trying to blow the ships up. But they didn't know. So, you can see that many families were split and, but what can you say? When you're an airplane attacking U.S. naval ships, you're not trying to ask "Who are you?"

RP: Yeah, who's on your ship?

JW: So I think American people have to realize that Japanese families of course were very very horrified because of the idea of fighting against your relatives is a terrible thought. My father thought initially that he would like to go in the army air force and, and fly aircraft but the Japanese Americans were not allowed to do that. And they were not allowed to join the navy and they were not gonna be used as combat forces against empire of Japan. My father knew that they, they weren't gonna allow that. So, Japanese Americans trying to get in the U.S. Navy, that's not gonna happen. They usually ended up in the U.S. Army. And so it was very clear cut that Japanese Americans were asked to, to be interpreters in the war before the, especially just after the war started.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.