<Begin Segment 17>

SG: Where were you when you found out about Pearl Harbor?

BO: Well, I just happened to get a... let's see. I flew and landed in the hospital. As I lay in there, Pearl Harbor. Then they start to call me Jap, saying this and that, you know. I said, "The heck with it." So when the medic officer came by, I says, I want a, get out of there and return to my company. Why? Because if our outfit, a quartermaster, a heavy maintenance was attached to third infantry and third infantry is going to the last person, I have to go with them so that I could interpret the prisoners. There's no other guy in the company that could interpret the prisoners, so I want to be released and go return to company. And there was three medic officers, they got together and talk. And then I told them, "I promise I will report to my medics in my company and then go on from there." He said, "Okay. You promise you'll report to your company medic?" I says, "Yes, sir." So he signed that release, and I went back to company. That's Pearl Harbor.

SG: How did you feel when you heard the news that Japan had bombed Hawaii?

BO: Sick. After all the hard work we're doing from now, now we're by ourselves. We can't turn around and look at our folks or anybody. We got to do it by ourselves and face it and do it. That's how I look at it, and that's how we did it. I did it.

SG: When you say we, when you say we had to do it by ourselves, who are you --

BO: In other words, take care yourself. Then about a month or so later, you look around the company, you see the big stockade floodlights on, all three or four hundred Niseis all in the stockade, only fatigue uniform, not OD now, fatigue uniform with a guard around it, and I was about three blocks away from that. And I used to watch them go to the theater for orientation, stuff like that, just don't feel good, you know. But here I am corporal and I have care doing my duty. They sent me to, well, I'm not supposed to be in any maintenance of any kind, but they sent me to a [inaudible] which is where you tear the engine all apart and the overhaul, put it back together, and master sergeant says, "Come on, come on." See they had me take, I'm in charge of electrical coverage in department, no test equipment, nothing, just bare. But they asked me, come here. I said, "What's up Sarge?" They worked on the motor and they can't get it started. So I said you get up there and see, I want to see what it is doing. So I went, put my hand over the choke, no vacuum. You have to have vacuum to get a choke to operate and suck the gasoline over. So I look around for gas, missing gas. So I put my hand in between the block and the head intake manifold, there's a hole there. They forgot to put the plug in there. Well, the moment I put my finger on that, boy, it just started right up, and you should see that sergeant. He just fly out of the seat running around. If there was an oil spark, he would have taken a spill. But he didn't, he came running, and he said, "What did you do?" "Nothing." "What do you mean nothing?" I just put my finger between the block and the mouth, and there's a wash plug that has been left out. So he put his hand there, and oh, boy, you don't know whether he's mad or happy. Boy, he's really up in the air, and I laughed. I got nothing to do with the rest of it, just to diagnose that. All that time, they were trying to start it. They can't use the common sense. Here's where I think my folks sent me to school, and here I'm using in the army, helping them. That's one of the problem.

SG: When you heard about Pearl Harbor, you said you felt sick. Was there other Japanese in the military you could talk to about --

BO: You're on your own, nobody. That's how thin we were. You might find more in the medics or something like that or anti-tank, but that's where they get them I guess because I was in quartermaster, maintenance.

SG: So how did your, the Pearl Harbor affect your family?

BO: They were sick. They even made a trip all the way to Fort Lewis, come down and see me. And when they do, they tell me about, then I go to the commanding officer and I asked him, tell him that my folks are coming up. Then he will give an okay that he could come into Fort Lewis and come to quartermaster to see me. But not the state cop. So my brother, he drove up the highway and the state cop stops him says, "We're supposed to stop all the Orientals and ask why," and license is Oregon, you know. And I told him, "My CO's gave the okay, so they came," you know. If you're going to take him, well, you better take me too even though I'm in uniform.

SG: What happened?

BO: Nothing. They said, "Well, okay, you can go now, but I can guarantee you that you're going to get stopped many times on the way home."

SG: How did your parents feel about this?

BO: Well, they were scared, I guess. They were scared.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.