Sexo

Male

Birth date

1925-5-16

Local de nascimento

Delhi CA, U.S.A.

Inducted

1944-7-14, Fort Logan CO

Tipo de alistamento

Draftee

Ramo das Forças Armadas

Army

Tipo de serviço

War,peacetime

Tipo de Unidade

Support

Unidades onde serviu

MISLS (Graduated Snelling, Dec. 1944) Allied Translator & Interpreter Section APO 500, Far East Air Force Hq., Pacific Air Command, US Army, Fifth Air Force Hq.

Military specialty

Military Intelligence Translator and Interpreter

Stationed

USA: Camp Savage, MN; Fort Snelling, MN; Fort McClellan, AL Other Countries: Manila, Philippines; Tokyo, Japan

Separated

Camp Beale CA

Unit responsibility

Translate Japanese Air Force documents to English and interrogate Japanese Air Force officers.

Personal responsibility

Same as unit's responsibility.

Living conditions

While stationed at the Santa Ana Racetrack in Manila, P.I., we slept in twelve men tents. Since it rained almost every day, we caught rain water with the flaps of our tents, poured it into our helmets and brushed our teeth and washed our face with it. There was no entertainment to speak of.

Most vivid memory of military experience

The war in the Pacific ended with the dropping of the atomic bomb on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. I passed through Hiroshima on a train in October 1945. I could not believe that a single bomb could cause such damage and devastation. In 1985, I visited the Peace Museum in Hiroshima and felt devastated, looking at many of the remains of the people and the city. The world's leaders should make it a point to visit the site and Museum.

Missed most whilst in the military

I missed the freedom of being a civilian.

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

Any and all wars are terrible and should be avoided at all costs. There must be a better way to settle issues.

Additional information

Our Company Commander at the School Battalion at Fort Snelling's Military Intelligence Service Language School was Captain Spark Matsunaga from Hawaii. He has been a role model for all of us who had known him. He was very compassionate, understanding and just a super person. He later became a US Congressman and a US Senator. Whenever he had the time, Spark would talk to many organizations in the mid-west, telling them about the injustices of our internment and of the heroic soldiers in both the European and Pacific Theaters of Operation. We truly miss him. There were 550 of us and we were the largest class to ever graduate from MISLS. They rushed our training so that we could be placed in every unit that was going to invade the Japanese islands towards the end of October 1945. We were very fortunate because just as we were about to ship out to overseas duty, the war in the Pacific Theater came to a close.