I think he was drafted I’m not sure. He must have been about forty four but maybe he volunteered. He might’ve because it might’ve been easier way to get us out. I never really asked him about that by that time. Anyway, they sent him to language school and I had all his papers from there. He was correcting all the papers that they were giving out to teach them the Japanese language to the teachers, so they got rid of him naturally. Anyway he ended up as an interpreter then. MacArthur had I believe eight interpreters and they were all kept separate so he always had an interpreter. So when they signed the peace treaty they had each of the interpreters all on a different boat. So my father was on the wrong boat, but he had asked me, did I want General MacArthur’s autograph? Who want the autograph of a general? It was dumb I should’ve said “Yeah!” [laughter] And I said, “no.”
Date: August 27, 2012
Location: Washington, US
Interviewer: Cindy Nakashima, Emily Anderson
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum with support of NITTO Tires Life History Project. Courtesy of the USC Hapa Japan Database Project.
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