Interviews

1. My father’s business in America (Japanese)

2. School life in Japan (Japanese)

3. Identity (Japanese)

4. The horror of Hiroshima after the atomic bombing (Japanese)

5. Feelings upon listening to the imperial rescript (Japanese)

6. Returning to America after the war (Japanese)

7. Enlisting in the U.S. Army (Japanese)

8. Working tirelessly after the war (Japanese)

9. What I wanted to pass down to my children (Japanese)

10. Father owned a café in Minot, North Dakota

11. Japanese in Minot

12. Didn’t speak Japanese until moving to Japan

13. Being enlisted into the Japanese Army

14. Wasn’t told he was being trained for kamikaze bombing

15. Experiences in Hiroshima after the A-bomb

16. Reaction to the Emperor’s surrender

17. Worked for the occupation force in Japan after the war

18. Fitting back into American life

19. Speaking about his wife

20. Comparing basic training of US and Japanese Armies

21. Helping youth in the community

Henry Suto

(1928 - 2008) Drafted into both the Japanese Imperial Army and the U.S. Army.

Working tirelessly after the war (Japanese)

(Japanese) After the war, when I started working for the Allied Occupation forces, my English was just terrible. I completely forgot it all. But after interacting—after talking with everyone, like the American G.I.s—I picked it back up fairly quickly. This word, that word… Honestly, looking back, I should’ve been studying harder at that time, but I was just frantically trying to [know enough to] get by. So when I was interpreting in Yokohama, I just said blah-blah-blah and got through it, and even after I entered the U.S. Army, you know… Even my education in Japan, I graduated junior high but never attended college. Now after moving to the states, I didn’t have a chance to attend an American college either, since I started working right away after the war. So I kind of regret leaving my education halfway, unfinished. Then again, I was able to raise my kids, and all of them made it all the way to college, so I was very happy about that.

education languages postwar World War II

Date: June 17, 2008

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Yoko Nishimura

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Henry Eiichi Suto was born on February 5, 1928 in Minot, North Dakota to Issei parents. After the death of his father and younger sister, his mother returned to Japan with Henry and his brother. Henry was 7 years old and since he knew little Japanese, he worked hard to learn and try to fit in with his classmates. When he was approached by his teacher to sign up for the Japanese Army at the age of 17, he accepted—knowing he wouldn’t be able to afford to go to college. After basic training, he was 1 of 34 selected to train under a special unit, which he later found out was a “suicide” unit to man a one-man torpedo boat. He was in this unit when Hiroshima was bombed and was one of the first soldiers to arrive with aid, thirty-six hours after the bombing.

When the war ended, he returned to the United States and lived with an uncle after his mother passed away. He enrolled in Belmont High School, but 3 months later was drafted into the U.S. Army to fight in the Korean War. He was trained to become an interpreter and was taught the Korean language at Camp Palmer. He was to go to the front lines in Korea to interrogate, but while on their stopover in Japan, he was asked to stay to serve as an interpreter there instead.

He returned to the U.S. after being discharged from the army and went to Los Angeles City College where he majored in foreign trade. He found a job at the Otagiri Company and worked there till his retirement in 1993.

He passed away on October 17, 2008 at the age of 80. (January 30, 2009)

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