<Begin Segment 3>

GU: When the war broke out, December 7, 1941, I was a senior at the College of the Pacific. And the college president called me into his office and there were some military people around. And I was asked to teach the Japanese language at the quartermaster base. I said that I was a very bad Japanese language student, because my mother was so insistent that I practice the piano, I was a music major. And I said all through high school and all that, I just couldn't do everything. You know how our immigrant parents all expected us to be honor students no matter what, and so I did convince my mother that I should give up studying the Japanese language. And when I explained that, the army folks said, "Don't worry about it. We prepare the lessons at the Presidio, all you have to do is follow the lessons." And so I did that until it was time to leave the town.

But the other part was because we belonged to the Japanese Christian Presbyterian church, and my uncle was the elder and my mother was very active, I, on December 7th, spent most of my day in church. In the morning I started playing piano for the Sunday school, then I played piano for the English-speaking service, then I played the organ for the immigrant group where the preacher spoke in Japanese. Then we went home, and that's when I heard all about Pearl Harbor.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1994 JACL Philadelphia. All Rights Reserved.