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RP: When did you leave Tanforan to go to Topaz?

TH: We left Tanforan on September 15, (1942), for Topaz. And it took two days to get to Utah by train. We were put into a real old early 1900 train with a straight-backed chair, and I think it was gaslight. But I knew we had two MPs on each car, and we had to pull the shades down and keep them down. And when we got to the Utah desert, there was a designated spot where they stopped the train, let us off, and we could walk around and shake our legs. Nothing in sight for miles, but it was designed that way, quote, "for our protection."

RP: That was the only time that the train stopped was that one...

TH: Yes.

RP: And were you confined to your particular car or could you walk...

TH: We were not allowed to go to other cars except during mess, when we were allowed to go to the dining car. And I can't remember what we ate then. It was, I'm sure, not memorable. But we were confined to our cars. If I remember, those seats folded down, and so there was four of us in our family group sitting opposite each other, we were able to make a bed somehow out of them and sleep like sardines, head and toe. So we wore the same clothes for two and a half days.

RP: Was there a restroom in each car?

TH: There was a restroom, but it was pretty foul.

RP: And the train went to Delta?

TH: Yes. Train went through Ogden and then went south through Utah to Delta.

RP: And you got off in Delta and then took a bus.

TH: Yes, then we took, not buses, trucks, army trucks, the canvas-covered trucks that we had to climb by way of a ladder, wooden ladder. But again, each truck had its own MP.

RP: With a rifle and a bayonet?

TH: Probably.

RP: So was Topaz any improvement over Tanforan?

TH: [Laughs] Well, I would say the only happy point when we entered Topaz was seeing my brother Jim's face. He had gone a week earlier to help set up the camp so we could, the rest of the family members can come. And so he was sunburned, red-nosed, 'cause he had done a lot of labor to make it easy for us to find our way.

RP: Where were you, what block and barrack were you assigned to?

TH: Our family was assigned to Block 5, (Barrack 5), Apartments C and D.

RP: And what impressions or feelings did you have those first few days in Topaz?

TH: Well, the vastness, the nothingness there in Topaz, dust storms, of course, and admonitions, be careful for the rattlesnakes and the scorpions.

RP: You just mentioned about Tanforan, that you felt like a prisoner the first day you entered there. Did you have a similar feeling about Topaz, and did you resolve yourself to, "I'm going to find a way to get out of here as soon as possible?"

TH: Topaz, at least, was a more open space, and the barbed wire fence was not right up against our block, our barracks, but they were there. The guard towers with the armed soldiers and the barbed wire fence, but it's a larger area, so I wasn't immediately aware of that.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.