Densho Digital Archive - Russell Demo Interview (denshovh-drussell-01-0021)

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RP: So you were reclassified for regular service while you were at Manzanar or afterwards?

RD: Yeah, yeah. I was notified then that I had been upgraded to general service.

RP: You passed the weight?

RD: Yeah, like I weighed 145 pounds, then I'd grown a little bit. And anyway, like I said, I don't know when that happened, but that'd be in '43, and then after the first year is when... May or June, I guess, when they broke up the outfit and shipped us out. Like half of 'em went to... no, I don't know how many of us was there. There was a hundred, maybe two hundred was there. I'm not too sure how many was there, but I know sixty-nine of us were shipped to the Camp Haan and then went to Alabama, the infantry. And Bobby and the rest of 'em were all sent to the medical department. So evidently, they were on restricted duty, I imagine, for some reason or other.

RP: So Camp Haan and then you say you went to Alabama?

RD: Uh-huh.

RP: For what type of training?

RD: Mostly infantry there.

RP: Okay, and that was 263rd?

RD: Uh-huh. We traveled by train all the way from Camp Haan to... I forgot how many days it took. There were sixty-nine of us that left, and less than thirty of us made it. The rest, we dumped the first bunch we lost in Arizona, Douglas, Arizona, then we lost some more in Texas. And lost the biggest bunch in New Orleans. And I was about ready to stay there myself because I was pretty well liquored up. And Johnny was the one that drug me back to the, to the train, we had a little layover there.

KP: These guys just got off the train and never got back on?

RD: Yeah, they just took off.

RP: They took off?

RD: The train stopped for some reason or other, they'd take off. Like most of the, that's what the old-timers, most of those guys was always going AWOL all the time. We had one guy who said he was gonna head for the hills, I forgot where it was, up in the mountains there, he said he'd get lost up there, they'd never find him. [Laughs]

RP: So you had a few thoughts about doing that, too.

RD: Yeah. I got all liquored up, and I thought I was in love and everything else, I wasn't gonna go. But Johnny got me back to the train and everything was fine.