Densho Digital Archive - George Hara Interview (denshovh-hgeorge

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GH: And then we shipped cross-country all the way to California to a place right outside of San Francisco called Pittsburg, and that was a place where the army transport ship was docked, and we were assigned to a large army transport. Now at this time, the war with Japan is still going on and our group, all Niseis anyway, again were, you know, in a group by ourselves, and our place where we bunked was right at the bottom of that huge ship. And I remember first few days out, the weather was pretty rough, and the sea was pretty, and the Hawaiian boys in particular were getting more sick and were, you know, laid out in their bunks down below, and we used to just razz the dickens out of them. But one of the pastimes that was popular among the Nisei, you spread out a blanket, and you dealt cards, and you're playing, you know, 21. I don't know where the money came from; the money flew. So that was one way to pass the time. And it was going across, we weren't sure where we were headed. We knew we were going west towards, you know, Philippines or somewhere, and the scuttlebutt; that is, the rumors on the ship because we had a lot of Hawaiian Niseis in that group, was we were going to stopover in Honolulu. I've never been to the Hawaiian Islands. Gee, that would be great. They're going to, you know, wine and dine us, and then we get back on the ship and continue. So as we thought we're getting close to Hawaii, geez, I would rush up on, climb around three or four flights and get up on deck and look for land, Hawaii, and never saw it. The time I did see land, it was just a blown-out barren with palm trees that hardly had any leaves. There were just blown up by artillery, and the place was called [inaudible], and that was where one of the big battles was fought, and this look like nothing. Anyway, goodbye Hawaii and Honolulu.

And the next thing we knew after time -- and during the course of our travel, we didn't go straight, we zigzag, and at night, the portholes were covered. War time, you know, condition, we finally landed in Manila. And then our group, the Nisei, were taken to the outskirts of Manila, to a repo-depot where other Nisei translators and interpreters were stationed waiting for assignment, and this was at the grounds, Santa Ana Racetrack in Manila, and I was assigned a tent with five other Niseis. I think it was a six-men tent. And then about, after a week, before I was assigned, two of them, my tent mates were assigned. And I thought, "God, you're lucky guys. You get to see combat and get your infantrymen's badge," and you know, so I was thinking. I wasn't, but you know, we learned two days or so afterwards that they were involved in a plane crash, and all members on that plane were killed, taking off from Okinawa. And Jesus Christ, this was wartime, I'm in the army, you can get killed, this is serious. And anyway, we get, leave from Santa Ana to go out with the atmosphere outside among the, you know, Filipino people. They were all anti-Japanese because of the way they were brutalized by the Japanese army during their occupation. And even though we wore American army uniforms, you know, they thought maybe we were spies or something and some people, they were threatened. There's always all this sunshine in the Philippines. I darkened very quickly. And I got to know some of the Filipino kids that hung around the camp, you know, helping us with laundry, and they taught me Tagalog, and I learned some phrases like, you know, "I'm not all Japanese, but father's Filipino, or Ilocano," you know. He said I look Ilocano, so I might get away from sort of a testy situation that one might encounter. But anyway, for the most part, and Manila itself was blown up pretty bad [inaudible] and met other Nisei..

And finally I got my assignment, and I was assigned to a language team, and we were, got out of Manila, and the next place I was stationed was living in a tent on the sea cove in a small town called Lawang as part of the 33rd Infantry Division, and they organized the, from Illinois National Guard, and this was all hakujin outfit. But one time, while we were still stationed there on the sea cove, our company leader got a jeep, and we drove up the mountainside to Baguio which was about 30 miles away and that's a mountain capital of the Philippines, a resort and everything, and we met Niseis from the 32nd Division that were stationed there. And at that time, the war in the Philippines in the hills were still going on. General Yamashita and a group of his troops were still hiding out in the mountains up there. And when we were in Baguio, we saw how the Nisei contingent there had taken over a nice summer home, and they lived apart from the rest of the troops, had their own car, had some pesos for spending money and some Filipino girls working for them, you know, and there were pretty nice living, I thought. Here I was, you know, just out of high school, thinking, god, this is great. Anyway, back we went to the 33rd Division.

And after a time, the war ended, and that was my chance to get a infantryman's badge but that was no more. I didn't mope about that because the next thing we knew, our unit was assigned to go to Japan as a occupation U.S. Army troop. And that was a moment I really looked forward to going to Japan because of what my folks told me, the articles in the magazines, and they emphasized the good part of Japan, the scenery, the food, you know, all the good things. They forgot about some of the hardships that they had. But I was looking forward, because it was like going home and seeing, you know, like that movie, the Roots, establishing my roots again. And interesting enough, our transfer from the Philippines to Japan, we were ordered to prepare full combat gear, and we were on the tail-end of a typhoon, and there was an armada of troop ships, you know, just like we were going to land invading the beach. The war was over, and we landed on the beach in Wakayama, and it was interesting. In order to get on a proper vehicle, landing craft from our big troop transport, you had to climb down cargo nets with full troop, you know, full combat gear, a backpack, a rifle, and I for some reason, I got ahold of some machine gun that I never fired. Anyway, carrying all that equipment, I was frightened to death because there was a drop of about ten to fifteen feet from the time the wave brought the landing craft up and the time the waves went down, and so you had to time your leap. And fortunately, I got through that phase and got on the beach, and we didn't meet any enemy troops. There were just a few scattered old men and young kids, you know, that was wondering what the hell is going on, and there was confusion. We were separated from each other. It took time before we got organized, but the army had arranged to use the Japanese railway system to transport us to more permanent quarters.

And one of the amazing things, first night in Japan we stayed in a large dormitory-like room of a factory where the workers stayed, the men workers. It was a tatami room, and we laid our blankets or sleeping equipment gear and about ten of us went to sleep in these tatami rooms. And during the night, we were invaded by a whole horde of insects. And we woke up in the morning, we found that the tatami was an ideal incubation grounds for fleas, and you can actually see thousands of fleas jumping around. And those that, you know, managed to get it on their clothes, were infested with flea bites. But the army was prepared for this contingency, and they gave us, you know, insecticide bombs. We just bombed the hell out of the tatami, clothing, and everything. And the next night, no more fleas.