Densho Digital Archive - Isao Kameshige Interview (denshovh-kisao

<Begin Segment 16>

AC: So you went to this FBI school, and then you got posted to New York Harbor Patrol. How was that?

IK: We didn't learn nothing. [Laughs] We stayed at a camp over there in New York. I don't remember the name of the camp, but we had to report eight o'clock at this tugboat. It was a tugboat that we were supposed to be studying, and we were let out at five, and we'd go to Times Square or wherever we wanted to go. We had 'til eight o'clock the next morning. And on the tugboat, we were supposed to be taking lessons on harbor patrol, but we drove around the Statue of Liberty and all around the bay there. But we didn't get much lesson on that. We just rode around and looked. We did that for two weeks. We didn't have any complaints, but the trouble was we didn't have any money either, so we'd go into Times Square, we sure made use of the USOs.

AC: So you and your group were training to go to Europe, and all of a sudden, peace breaks out in Europe. How did you feel?

IK: Great. So we thought, well, gee, we won't see no combat then over there. But they said, well, we still got this other war we got to contend with, so that's the reason they sent us to school.

AC: So you ended up, from New York you went to Fort Lewis, and you were just awaiting orders. Did you say you guess you were an agent by then? [Laughs]

IK: Yeah, I guess I was. We never had any graduation or anything. Well, they have a classification in the card, see, they tell you what class you are. And then the camp over there, they called it Camp K. Well, that was the section that it was. All the buildings were alphabetical order, you know, I was in Company H, there was Company A, B, C and D and H, and I was in Company H. And Company K was the gathering place. And then from there they sectioned you out to whatever school you should be going to. And like I say, I went to classes, and I spoke in front of the classes and things like that, but I just, I told them I couldn't hack it, I couldn't see all that. Because we had to learn all the names of the ships, and the airplanes and the ships, by the size and the silhouette. You had to go by that and you had to name 'em all. I says, heck, I wasn't going to do that. I couldn't see no use in it. So me and this other kid, well, let's do this, so we did that. We joined the regular army.

AC: Yeah, so you said you could reenlist, so the regular army was where you were not draftees. That was the Army of the United States was draftees, but if you reenlisted and you volunteered, then you became a member of the regular army.

IK: The regular army, yeah.

AC: So what was the, you know...

IK: Difference? There was no difference. It was the same thing. And then they put us, from New York, I went on a troop train all the way across to Fort Lewis in Washington, and then from there we boarded the ship to Japan.

AC: You had mentioned that you got on a victory ship. What was that like?

IK: Victory ships are just steel. They're made out of steel, and they're just basically a floating tub. And they have no amenities to it. They got bunks in the hold all the way down to the bottom, they had different levels, and they're all bunks down there, and they had a kitchen and a latrine, that's all there is to that thing. And so there was nothing to do on there, just a ship. That's what they call a victory ship. They were built rapidly so they could ship all the people from, even to Europe, that's what they used. But coming home, we was in the general class, and that was a lot better. We had fresh water for showers. Well, I did, because I worked in the infirmary coming home, this guy stopped me and he says, "How about picking up a couple guys and working in the infirmary, so I said sure. So I picked up a couple guys from the Portland area, and we worked in the infirmary, all we did was take care of the person that lost it. And we had him in a padded cell, and we had to supply him with food and water, whatever he wanted, watched over him. And then we watched over the lavatory, is all we did. But we had fresh water for showers. [Laughs] And the rest of them, they had salt water. And that salt water shower is just, they doesn't have it. It doesn't even feel like you took a shower.