<Begin Segment 11>

LT: Well, you lived at Minidoka for five or six months, and in Fife, you had, you were a member of a class where it was half Japanese American and half white Americans. Now in camp, you were living with all Japanese Americans. What was it like to be in an all Nikkei community?

KY: You know, I never thought of it that way. Like I explained before, our parents taught us to respect the law. And we felt that the government was doing the right thing, and it never did bother me that way. It may have influenced someone else, but not to me. I thought that this will end, the war will end, and things will go back to normal. In the meantime, in December of '43, they asked for volunteers, and I was one of the first ones to volunteer with my friend George Komoto and his mother and father didn't like me because I influenced their oldest son to volunteer.

LT: And this was for the draft?

KY: Yeah. After the war was over they apologized to me, but at that time, I know they were, they didn't like me for that.

LT: Well, the government was incarcerating you and your family behind barbed wire, and they were also asking you to participate in a draft in the military to support our country. Why did you decide to do that?

KY: Because I wanted to volunteer to serve our nation (to) protect it from foreign countries or our enemies, and that I could, I'll be just as good soldier as the next guy, no better, no worse, but the same.

LT: You mentioned that George's family was not keen on George participating. How did your family feel?

KY: My family didn't say a thing. My brothers and sisters, they were in favor of me doing this, because I told my brothers, "You'll be next to get drafted," and I was right because they were, after about six months, they were drafted. Then when I was in, my father didn't say a thing when I volunteered. But when I was in France, he wrote me a letter, and he congratulated me for being in service, and to protect it from your enemies. He says, "You did the right thing."

LT: How many brothers, how many sons all together from your family were serving in the military?

KY: There were five boys. Four of us were in service. The oldest wasn't because he was farming, and actually he was important to farm to feed us, because we needed the farmers. But four of us were in the army.

LT: You were inducted in March 1943. What do you remember about basic training?

KY: That was tough. You know, as good shape I was in, I think it was the climate. Camp Shelby, Mississippi, the climate was real bad. It's hot and muggy, and our drill sergeant was Jim Onchi. Jim was in the army before, way before. And he served as cadre for 442nd, and he was the guy that drilled us though our basic training. Basic training was about two months. He was our drill sergeant, went through all the exercises and everything.

LT: What was the toughest part of basic training?

KY: You know, basic training is to condition the men to be good fighters physically and mentally. That was the idea of basic training, 'cause you're from civilian life, now you're in the army. So it's two different worlds. It's altogether different from the civilian life. It's all discipline and training. So it's different.

LT: What about those hikes?

KY: Huh?

LT: What about those hikes?

KY: Oh, you know, five mile hike isn't bad, ten miles isn't bad, fifteen miles isn't bad, but twenty-five miles, that was tough. I weighed a hundred and twelve pounds, the pack weighs sixty pounds, and that was pretty hard. Sometimes I could hardly make it, but we had to.

LT: So how did you serve our country in the army?

KY: What?

LT: How did you serve our country in the army? What regiment were you in and where did you go?

KY: No, no, I took all my training in Company C, Charlie Company I was assigned to. And just before we... then when they asked for more men... I want to go back a little bit. We trained for one whole year, went on two twenty-five mile hikes, two maneuvers, and there wasn't a commander in Germany, Eisenhower didn't want us, and that's the reason why we trained as hard as we did. Government didn't know this, but they were doing us a favor. The reason why we were so successful in the war is because our training, instead of being only a couple months, (...) one whole year. That made us better soldiers. And I think I have to attribute our success to our extra training, and that's what I believe, and I asked them, we have a general here, General Thayer, I asked him about that, he said, "You're right. The extra training you guys got made you a better soldier."

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.