<Begin Segment 10>

RP: Did you man some of the gates where Japanese were allowed to go out to the farm fields?

RD: Yeah, the "bat cave" back there, I was on that several times. I enjoyed that, I got to see a lot of the people and talk to them a little bit, especially the younger ones. And, of course, I've seen a lot of redheads and blondes and everything else coming out there, and the Japanese are really all black-haired, you know. And they fixed their hair up, they were all easy to get along with. Never had any problems with them at all.

RP: So you got to a chance to get to know them a little bit.

RD: Oh yeah, yeah. I talked to 'em all the time, asked how they were doing. They seemed to be, most of 'em seemed to be in pretty good spirits at the time.

RP: Tell us what, in terms of arms, what did you have up in the tower with you?

RD: We had a rifle, no ammunition, and a telephone.

RP: And what type of rifle was it?

RD: Enfield. English Enfield.

RP: And no ammunition. Why was that?

RD: Well, I guess in, what was it, the year '42, December the 7th, they had an outbreak in the camp there, Japanese started... way I got it, rioting a little bit. So they opened fire with machine guns, and there were some civilian workers in there, working there, teaching and stuff like that, several of them were killed. I forget how many were killed altogether, but there were thirty or forty, I guess, I don't know. It's hard to remember. So then after that they took the ammunition away.

RP: So the only time you had live ammunition was when you were practicing on the range?

RD: Well, I think, as far as I can remember, when I was on gate duty, the main gate coming in, I, we wore a revolver. I think I had ammunition there, but why, I don't know.

RP: But not in the tower?

RD: Not in the tower. And I could have been wrong there, too, but it seemed like I had ammunition.

RP: Were you operating the searchlights that were located up on the top of the tower during the time you worked there?

RD: No.

RP: You never did?

RD: Not that I can remember. I guess there were searchlights up there, I don't remember too much about it.

RP: You mentioned there was a field phone in the, in the tower.

RD: Yeah, there were a phone in there, we could call, call into the sergeant of the guard, corporal of the guard, report anything going on or anything. And they'd come around about every hour or so, checking on us, every two hours, something like that.

RP: Well, I guess the next question is, how did you stay awake up there or did you stay awake? Did you ever fall asleep in the tower?

RD: [Laughs] Oh, yeah. The main... well, I don't know whether I should be saying this or not, but we had, you come up to the tower and have a trapdoor. And we'd lay over that, and they can't catch you for sleeping unless they actually see it. And they have to push that up in order to get to you. And, of course, most of the time we were awake, once in a while I'd get a little drowsy and stuff, lay down and go to sleep. I don't know whether they can do anything about that now or not.

RP: So they never caught you napping.

RD: No. Like I said, there wasn't much reason for us being up there anyway, we couldn't do anything, couldn't stop anybody.

RP: Were you aware that people were sneaking out to go fishing quite a bit?

RD: To go fishing?

RP: Yeah. People were leaving the camp on the west side.

RD: I don't know whether...

RP: You never saw anybody with a fishing pole or anything like that?

RD: No, no, not that I know of, no. I can't remember. And I don't know where right up there in that area where they would go to fish. I can't remember anyplace close by that they'd go fishing, either.

RP: How did... what was... you're up forty feet off the ground in these towers, you're looking down at the camp, did you have any feelings or thoughts about, you know, as you looked and you saw that expanse and the barracks and ten thousand people?

RD: I probably did. I can't recall anything, I know this, it's kind of discouraging to see all of that down there, you know, the way they were put in the barracks there, cramped in there and everything else. But as a whole, I guess they got along pretty good. They had some civilians, like I said, they got along good with the civilians, they treated them real nice. They had their school there and what have you, I assumed.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.