Gender

Male

Birth date

1919-12-21

Place of birth

Penngrove CA, U.S.A.

Inducted

1941-12-6, Presidio of Monterey CA

Enlistment type

Volunteer

Service branch

Army

Service type

War

Unit type

Combat

Units served

12th Air Force; 97th Sq. - 47th Bomb Gp.

Military specialty

Airplane Armorer Gunner

Stationed

Monterey, CA; Biloxi, Miss.;Lowry Field, Denver, CO; Hill Field, Ogden, UT; England; North Africa; Italy; Corsica

Separated

Ft. Logan CO

Unit responsibility

Bombing enemy personnel - Installations and supporting our own troops - mostly in Italy.

Personal responsibility

Aerial gunner on A-20 (attack bomber) and taking pictures of our bombing attacks.

Major battles (if served in a war zone)

Naples, Foggia, Normandy

Awards, medals, citations (individual or unit)

Air Medal with 1 Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster (OLC); completed 50 combat missions; Good Conduct Medal; American Defense Service Medal; European Africa Middle Eastern Service Medal.

Living conditions

Overseas - We slept in tents with wooden floors. Four men in each tent with a stove for heat. We fly-boys had clean cots with sleeping bags. We made our own shower stalls and got water from 50 gallon drums. Our food was the same as any outfit overseas. Only we were fed three times a day all year. For entertainment, we saw movies - several times a week - saw Martha Raye entertaining troops.

Most vivid memory of military experience

Being the only Nisei wherever I was stationed, I was always treated as one of the boys. Never was I called a 'Jap' during my entire Army stint. Never felt any prejudice during my time in Service (3 yrs 8 months). During my stay in Denver, CO around 2/42, I often went to a Japanese restaurant called 'Manchu Grill'. The first time I went there, I got the cold treatment. They thought I was Chinese because they didn't know any Nisei in the Air Corp. After that , I was treated royally. While stationed at the base of Mt. Vesuvius, from where I flew 33 missions, I saw Mt. Vesuvius erupt. We evacuated from there. But the planes that were stationed on the other side were damaged or lost. From there we went to Naples.

Missed most whilst in the military

Rice and tsukemono

Most important thing, personally, to come from military experience?

Being in the Air Corp, I now realize what a clean life we led. I visited my cousin in Northern Italy and felt sorry for those guys as they slept in pup tents in all kinds of weather and died in the mud. My buddies who lost their lives went down so fast we never felt the pain seeing our comrades killed, not that I didn't care.

Additional information

Being a gunner during the war - it was nothing I could use in civilian life. But during my time in the service - I traveled across the U.S. and went overseas on the Queen Mary. Got to see parts of Scotland, England, North Africa, Naples, Rome, Isle of Capri (R & R) and finally finished my missions on the Island of Corsica.