Gender

Male

Birth date

1923-04-12

Place of birth

Marysville CA, USA

Inducted

1944-03-13, Camp Atterbury IN

Enlistment type

Volunteer

Service branch

Army

Service type

War,peacetime

Unit type

Combat

Units served

Aberdeen Proving Grounds Specialized Counter Intelligence School, Ft. Holabird 441st Counter Intelligence Corp, (CIC), Niigata, Japan and Tokyo, Japan.

Military specialty

Military Intelligence P.O.W. Interrogation Counter Intelligence

Stationed

USA: Camp Atterbury, IN; Ft. Lee, VA; Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD; Ft. Holabird, MD Other Countries: Philippines; Okinawa, Japan

Separated

Ft. Sheridan IL

Unit responsibility

Interrogate P.O.W., evaluate and disseminate any information and evidence to higher command.

Personal responsibility

Reading and interpreting Japanese armament documentation. Interrogating returning Japanese soldiers. Credentialed as a Special agent and served overseas as an interrogator of POW's. Interpreted any communist movements in the labor organization by Koreans Nationals living in Japan.

Major battles (if served in a war zone)

Philippines; Okinawa; Japan.

Awards, medals, citations (individual or unit)

Southwest Pacific Command Philippines Resurrection Okinawa Campaign Unit Citations Army of Occupation Japan) Medal American Theater Ribbon Victory Medal Purple Heart

Living conditions

Stateside, everything was provided in the barracks. Over-sea, battalions and companies used whatever facilities that construction battalions set up. Showers with cold water, bathing outside in the streams or during rain storms. Meals were K-rations and C-rations. When battalion moved up, they provided hot meals, used local supplies. Exchanged products for fresh fruits and rice. Rest and sleep was the best entertainments, also letter writing.

Most vivid memory of military experience

I never realized how much Japanese I had learned while I attended Nihon Gakko in Marysville from Goda sensei and Yoshizaki sensei. At Aberdeen Proving Ground, I was able to read the nomenclature of the Japanese armaments.

Missed most whilst in the military

Freedom, my wife and family interned in Topaz, Utah. The many friends in Marysville.

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

We are all humans, the horror and pain of war are real, the suffering of human beings can not match any progress lost.

Additional information

Residence San Lorenzo, CA (1)I returned to Marysville to visit my classmates and they acknowledged that this type of internment should never happen again. One of my team players in school spent a day looking for me in Italy when he heard that Japanese Americans were there in the hospital. He was with the 34th division ... a hakujin class mate that played football. (2)I joined the Army at Ft. Atterbury, IN. Sent to Camp Lee, VA for Infantry Basic Training. Very few JA soldiers. After basic and tests for advanced training, a Caucasian Capt. in charge of evaluation for advanced training, spoke to me in Japanese and learned that I studied Japanese at the Japanese Language School in Marysville. I read from a printed card in Japanese and served four months at the Aberdeen Proving Ground reading captured Japanese armament nomenclature. Then I was transferred to Specialized Counter Intelligence School at Ft. Holabird and after 6 months received my credential as a Special Agent and served overseas as Interrogator of Prisoners of War. At the end of the war I was reassigned to 441st CIC Detachment in Niigata, Japan and evaluated field reports from other agents. Later I served in the Tokyo area. (3) I am very active in Veterans of Foreign War Organization. The need to tell our story as a US soldier in WW II is important. We fought the enemies overseas, prejudice at home. We are Americans. This is my country - my home, the US of A.