Nisei in His Imperial
Majesty's Service
Japanese Americans Who Served the Fatherland
During World War II
Approximately 20,000 second-generation Japanese (Nisei), born
in the United
States, spent World War II in Japan. There were at one time some
50,000
Nisei in Japan; see
excerpts below.
Even though they were American citizens, because of a special
law the
Japanese Government regarded them as citizens of Japan. Incidentally,
many Nisei in the United States had dual citizenship; in the
Territory of Hawaii alone, some 60% of the Nisei were also Japanese
citizens (i.e. over one-third of Japanese in the territory were dual
citizens). Per a US Navy Dept.
intelligence report: "Out of a total Japanese population of 320,000
in the United States and its possessions, it is estimated that more than 127,000 have dual citizenship.
This estimate is based on the fact that more than 52% of American born
Japanese fall into this category." Per Roehner's
research (2014):
For the 158,000 residents of
Japanese ancestry in the Territory of Hawaii, the figures (in 1940)
were as follows:
- Japanese aliens: 38,000
- Dual Japanese-US citizens:
55,000
- Non-dual US citizens: 65,000
For the 162,000 residents of Japanese ancestry in the continental
United States, the figures (in 1940) were as follows:
- Japanese aliens: 38,000
- Dual Japanese-US citizens:
62,000
- Non-dual US citizens: 62,000
Hundreds of Nisei in Japan worked for
the
Imperial Government as translators and interpreters, some as guards
at POW camps, and some even
fought in the Imperial Japan armed forces. Official Japanese figures
state
that 1,648 Nisei had joined the Imperial forces; other estimates are as
high as 7,000, but the true figure would be much higher if one
considered the many other areas of sub-contracted work that supported
the military. After the war, only 10,000 Nisei were
allowed to return to the United States; quite a number remained in
Japan and worked for the Occupation Forces. The US Military
Intelligence Division produced in Aug. 1945 a 430-page document (names A-J,
K-O,
S-Y)
listing Japanese, including a number of American-born Nisei, who were
"reported to be loyal" and "expected to cooperate" with the Occupation
Forces (N.B. the Nisei were "reported to be loyal," yet there is no
record of their being interned in Japan).
Duplicity
was normal then and no one thought it strange -- but to most Americans
suddenly confronted with an aggressive Japan, it was paramount to being
a traitor. The trial of "Tokyo
Rose" is well known, and there were several others who were tried for
their anti-American actions. The whole subject seems to be somewhat a
taboo topic -- to many, no doubt, it is embarassing to talk about their
chameleon-like past. You will not find this data on any other website,
and even
Wikipedia's page on Japanese-Americans will not sanction such data to
be disseminated.
It is, nevertheless, a historical fact. You will find here an
assortment of news articles and archival material which reveals the
other
side of these Nisei who were in Japan during WWII (alphabetical index here). This list is only a
fraction of the total. I have also included below some who were
probably not directly connected with the Japanese military. Further
research is
being conducted by author and professor-emeritus Hawaii, John Stephan,
who is
hoping to publish his massive work on the Nisei, Call of Ancestry: American Nikkei in
Imperial Japan, 1895-1945; when he does, it will
be noted on this page as the go-to reference book on the Nisei in
Japan.
For further info regarding the numbers of Nisei in Japan, here this
from my page on Civilian
Internment Camps in Japan:
Figures
do not include Japanese-Americans (Nisei), who, in accordance with
wartime directives issued by Japan's Ministry of Home Affairs, were to
be treated as Japanese nationals. As for the numbers of Nisei in Japan,
"Japanese figures show that in 1937 there were 50,000 American citizens
of Japanese ancestry residing in Japan" ( Gentlemen of Japan
by Haven, 1944) -- the Japan Foreign Office urged these kibei
shimin (American returnee citizens) to return to the US.
Approximately 20,000 Nisei were
living in Japan in 1940 ( Zaibei Nihonjinshi,
1940). According to an estimate by the U.S. Consulate in Yokohama, some
15,000 Nisei were residing in Japan at the end of the war, 10,000 of
whom were eligible to return to the United States ( Rafu Shimpo,
March 22, 1947). See Were
We The Enemy? by Rinjiro Sodei for further
information. See here
for number of resident aliens of Japanese descent as of June 1942.
Forthcoming book by John J. Stephan will cover this subject in detail.
For further info and extensive data on ethnic Japanese and Japanese
Americans in the US prior to and during WWII, see my EO9066 website, The
Preservation of a People, dealing with the
evacuation and relocation of people of Japanese ancestry (assembly and
relocation centers, internment camps, etc.).
From Were we the enemy? American survivors of
Hiroshima by Rinjiro Sodei (1998):
The Japanese
Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimated that the number of Nisei from
both the U.S. mainland and Hawaii who were living in Japan for family
reasons or for education reached almost 30,000 as of January 1929. Of
these, 4,805, or sixteen percent, were living in Hiroshima Prefecture.
Their ages ranged from one to thirty, but 3,803, or some eighty
percent, were attending elementary and middle schools. According to the
same statistics, 11,312 Nisei in the United States, excluding Hawaii,
had parents who came from Hiroshima, while Nisei residing in Hiroshima
numbered 3,404. When 2,759 of the latter group were asked in 1929
whether they wanted to go back to the United States, only 755 answered
yes, while 2,004 said no. In other words, seventy percent expressed no
desire to return.
After the 1924 revision of the Immigration Act
prohibited Japanese from immigrating, only Nisei possessed the right to
enter the country without restriction. A book published in 1929 about
Hiroshima immigrants in the United States emphasized, "From the
viewpoint of the development of the Yamato race overseas ... some
measures must be urgently taken to encourage the Nisei in Japan to come
back to the U.S."
The foreign ministry survey was made that same year,
twelve years before Pearl Harbor. In the intervening years, how many
Nisei returned to the United States? A history of the Japanese in
America, published in December 1940 by the Association of Japanese
Americans in San Francisco, states: "As a result of a nationwide
movement that was started around 1935 to encourage Nisei educated in
Japan to return to the United States as the only real successors to the
Issei, it is estimated that about ten thousand Nisei have returned at
the present time." This statement is qualified, however, by the
observation that "around twenty thousand Nisei are believed to still be
in Japan."
How many of the latter were living in Hiroshima in
1940? No statistics are available, but if we assume that the sixteen
percent of the total that prevailed in 1929 remained consistent, we get
an estimate of around 3,200 for the number of Nisei in Hiroshima. Most
of these would have been living in and near the city of Hiroshima
itself.
The US Consulate estimated there were 15,000 Nisei residing in Japan at
the end of the war, and 10,000 of those were eligible to return to the
US. In May 1946, the GHQ ordered the J-Govt. to produce a list of all
Nisei who lived in Japan during the war, including those who served in
the J-military or in J-govt. Sodei says approx. 5,000 Nisei returned to
the US after the war.
Some thoughts:
What made the difference between pro-Japan and pro-US Nisei? It could
have been the home environment, where the parents were always talking
about their motherland, reading news and literature from or about the
motherland, with very little Americanism being absorbed in their lives,
except perhaps through the American schooling their children were
receiving. These Nisei children would then be receiving mostly news and
views from a Japanese perspective via their parents as well as from the
Japanese language schools (if they were attending) which were teaching
not only the language but also the culture and ethics of Imperial
Japan, all so that they would not forget their heritage. Compounding
this with the fact that many of the Nisei had dual citizenship, it is
no wonder, then, that there would be Nisei with a strong attachment to
Japan, or at least ambivalence. This could be one of the reasons many
in the US military were concerned about the Nisei's loyalties.
Further data:
Up to 7,000
Nisei in Japanese military -- excerpts (PDF) from Michelle Malkin's
book, In Defense of Internment.
18,000
Nisei in Japan in 1933, per Horne book.
From a very enlightening work, The
Pacific Era Has Arrived: Transnational Education among Japanese
Americans, 1932-1941 (PDF), by Eiichiro
Azuma:
The precise number of Nisei
students in Japan during the 1930s is difficult to estimate. According
to some contemporary sources, there were 40,000 to 50,000 American-born
Japanese in the island country in any given year during the decade. The
vast majority of them, however, probably resided in Japan permanently
with their parents, who had returned home for good. Only about 18,000
Nisei were considered "Americans" by the Japanese police, who had kept
a close eye on any "foreign" elements. Still, most of them had spent a
substantial amount of time in Japan, receiving much of their formal
education there rather than in the United States. In 1940, a survey of
Nisei students over eighteen estimated the presence of 1,500 in the
Tokyo area. This is probably the most reliable ballpark figure for the
Nisei youngsters who are the subjects of this study. See Nisei Survey
Committee, The Nisei: A Survey of
Their Educational, Vocational, and Social Problems (Tokyo:
Keisen Girls' School, 1939), 2; and Yuji Ichioka, Beyond National Boundaries: The Complexity
of Japanese-American History, Amerasia Joumal 23 (Winter 1998),
viii. For the general statistics of Nisei in Japan, consult Yamashita
Soen, Nichibei o Tsunagu mono
[Those who link Japan and the United States] (Tokyo: Bunseisha, 1938),
319-334.
See here for more on the 50,000 figure.
See also Chapter 5 re the Nisei in Japan in Japanese Americans and Cultural
Continuity: Maintaining Language through Heritage by
Toyotomi Morimoto.
Nisei_in_Japan_211_G-2_FEC_Jan-Dec_1946.pdf
- List of Nisei employed by the Japanese Govt. and desirous of
repatriation to US. Mention is made of 4,500 Nisei who were granted
Japanese citizenship (possible correlation with number of renunciants
at the relocation centers, viz. Tule Lake). Note also that Japanese
nationality was NOT a pre-requisite; some even were advised not to
acquire Japanese citizenship.
For more information on the Kibei, see this WRA article, Japanese Americans educated in Japan: The
Kibei.
Transnationalism
in education: the backgrounds, motives, and experiences of Nisei
students in Japan before World War 2 by Yuko Konno
Beyond Two Homelands Migration and
Transnationalism of Japanese Americans in the Pacific, 1930-1955
- Enlightening paper by Michael Jin (2013) on the "50,000 American
migrants of Japanese ancestry (Nisei) who traversed across national and
colonial borders in the Pacific before, during, and after World War II.
Among these Japanese American transnational migrants, 10,000-20,000
returned to the United States before the outbreak of Pearl Harbor in
December 1941 and became known as Kibei." A number of Nisei mentioned
by name in this work.
See Densho.org's article, Stranded: Nisei in Japan Before, During,
and After World War II, review of the book Midnight in Broad Daylight by
Pamela Rotner Sakamoto. Densho.org Archives (guest login required) has
a number of interviews relating to Life
in Japan -- During WWII.
Books on this topic - much to be gleaned from these, esp. re the issues of loyalty and collaboration:
Nisei
in Japan -- interesting excerpt from the Far Eastern Survey, Apr. 19, 1944
See Kabuki's Forgotten War: 1931-1945
by Brandon (2009), p. 390 note: "Ministry of Health and Welfare in
1943... called on Nisei to resist assimilation and 'remain aware of the
superiority of the Japanese people and proud of being a member of the
leading race.'" See also sections dealing with dual nationality Nisei
and their inner conflict (search).
Additional Notes:
Image: Banquet
for Nisei, Kaigai Doho Taikai (Overseas Compatriots' Convention), Tokyo
1940-11 (image courtesy of John Stephan). Also related organization
Nisei Rengokai (Nisei Union).
"Bushido is the very core of the Nisei" -- Terry Shima, executive
director for the Japanese American Veteran Association
A number of interpreters are mentioned in the Tokyo War Crimes Trials
(IMTFE) Reviews. A search within this file for "interpreter" may give
possible leads to more Nisei involved at the POW camps:
See further Assorted
Notes at end of this page.
Alphabetical
Index of Names
Akune, Saburo and Shiro
Domoto,
Kaji
Fujimoto
Fujisawa, Meiji
Fukami, Yasukuni Frank
Fukuhara, Harry
Funatsu, Toshiko
Hamada, George
Harada, Yoshio
Hikita, Toyokazu
Hirano
Honda, Chikaki
Imamura, Shigeo
Inoue,
Kanao
Ishio, Jack
Iwatake,
Warren
Jibutsu, Fumitane
Kameoka, Masaji
Kanai, Hiroto
Kano, Toshiyuki
Kawakita, Tomoya
Kido,
Shigemi
Kotoshirodo,
Richard
|
Matsuda,
Jimmy
Matsumotos
Matsumura, Kan
Miho, Fumiye
Mikami, Yoshie
Miura, Kay Kiyoshi
Morishige, Torao
Murada
(Murata), Hisao?
Muroya,
Mary
Nakahara, Jiro
Nakatani, Kunio
Nakayama,
Michael
Niimori, Genichiro
Nishi
Nishikawa,
Mitsugi
Nishimura,
Kay
Noda, Eiichi
Nonin
Okada, Haruo
Okimura,
Kiyokura
Onishi
Ozaki, Harley (Toyonishiki)
Ozasa,
George |
Sakakida,
Richard
Sako,
Sydney
Sano,
Iwao Peter
Sasaki, James
Shinohara,
Samuel
Suzuki, Jerry
Takamura, Clifton
Takeuchi, James
Tasaki,
Hanama Harold
Tateishi, Kei
Toguri,
Iva
Tomita,
Mary
Tomita, Masao
Tsuda, Taihei
Ueno, Harry
Uno,
Kazumaro
Buddy
Uyeminami, Fred
Wakatake, Clyde
Yamada, Shigeo
Yamanaka, Bob
Yamane, George
Yamashita
Yamauchi, Kunimitsu
Yempuku
(Empuku), Toru, Goro, and Donald
Yoneda, Karl
Yonekura, Mary and Alice
Yoshida,
Jim |
Saburo and Shiro Akune
Per article, MIS
Members with Brothers Serving in Japanese Imperial Forces during WWII:
Harry and Ken Akune served in the
MIS and their two brothers, Saburo and Shiro, were drafted into the
Imperial Japanese Navy. After the death of his wife, Ichiro—father of
the Akune boys—took his nine children to settle in his hometown in
Kagoshima Prefecture. Later, before WW II, Harry and Ken were sent to
California to work and send remittances to their family.
Following Japan’s attack of Pearl Harbor, Harry and Ken Akune were
among the 118,000 persons of Japanese ancestry who were placed in
internment camps against their will. “Then, one day an Army recruiter
came with news that the government now wanted young men from the
internment camps to join the military. I didn't care what the
government had done to us," Ken Akune said.
"When they came around, it was a chance for me to do what Americans
were supposed to do, go out and serve their country. When they opened
their door, for me, I felt like my rights were given back to me. I also
thought about if I met my brother out in the field, what would I do?"
Ken Akune said. "You don't want to kill him, but if he points his rifle
at you, what can you do?"
Ken and Harry graduated from the MIS Language School in 1942 and were
deployed to the Asia Pacific war zone, Ken to Burma to work for the
Office of War Information to conduct propaganda against Japan. Harry
was sent to New Guinea and the Philippines to interrogate Japanese
prisoners and to translate documents. Harry, who had not made a
parachute jump before, joined his colleagues of the 503rd Paratroopers
to jump onto Corregidor island. Their brothers in the Japanese Navy,
Saburo was a spotter of American targets for the kamikaze pilots and
Shiro, just 15, served in the training program for recruits at the
Sasebo Naval Base.
After the war, Harry and Ken, while serving in the demobilization of
Japanese armed forces, visited their family in Kagoshima Prefecture.
The four brothers, two on each side, got into a heated argument as to
which side, Japan or America, was right. The confrontation was stopped
by their father, who reminded them the war was over.
Saburo and Shiro returned to live in America, where, ironically, Shiro
was drafted and fought in the Korean War.
Kaji Domoto
From Foo
Fujita's
book:
From Kaji Domoto - Nisei at Omori camp - US News Hiroshima.html:
"The news came much quicker to
Sgt. Frank Fujita, a Japanese-American
held eight blocks from the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. Kaji Domoto, a
U.S.-born Japanese who liked to serve up anti-American diatribes, told
the assembled POWs that the "murderers" had destroyed an entire city
with one bomb. The GIs scoffed. Domoto was notorious for fanciful
tales, including one about a U.S. plane downed by a rice ball. He
convinced them this time by producing Western dispatches on Truman's
announcement."
Domoto
at Bunka camp with Cousens 1946-09-27.pdf - Sydney Morning Herald
article: "Cousens said Domoto had been instrumental in saving the lives
of three officers."
Fujimoto
See Otten
testimony, Nagoya POW Camp #10: "Civilian Interpreter
Fujimoto (Thug)
strafed [punished] POW's, was American born
and educated." He was at the Osaka Chikko POW Camp first, according to this
site.
Meiji
Fujisawa
Oeyama POW camp interpreter
(From Bamboo People by Chuman):

Lengthy chapter here about Kawakita (Chapter Four) in which Fujisawa (Fujizawa) is mentioned, Kawakita's childhood friend:
America's Geisha Ally by Naoko Shibusawa, 2006
Yasukuni "Frank" Fukami
Per Statement
of Sachio Egawa (from bottom of page 26) of Fukuoka POW Camp #18
(Sasebo):
"About March or April [1943]... a
seamen name FUKAMI, Yasukuni came to our camp. FUKAMI used to say that
he was born in AMERICA [San Francisco, 1915] and indeed, excelled in
speaking English.
However, he was of an ugly temperament, and he often hit the young
service personnel and workers. In spite of his behavior, he was liked
by the superior, SAMEJIMA, and SAMEJIMA once used him to obtain
blankets and towels from the prisoners against their will... I reported
the matter to a superior named TAKAHASHI... [who] made FUKAMI return
the articles to the prisoners... I heard of FUKAMI committing a great
deal of outrages against the prisoners... WATANABE [Navy unit
commander] learned of FUKAMI's acts and wildness and had him
transferred about July or August."
Harry
Fukuhara, brothers of (Frank, Pierce, Victor)
Second Lt. Harry Fukuhara left his native Seattle as a teen when his
mother took him and his siblings to her hometown of Hiroshima following
his father’s death in 1933. He returned to the
United States for college; his three brothers remained in Japan. He
served in the US Army; they served in
the Japanese Army. His mother and oldest brother suffered radiation
sickness, with his brother dying
before the end of 1945. “‘Futatsu no sokoku’ hazama ni ikite” [Living
Between ‘Two Fatherlands,’], Tokyo
Shimbun, 11 June 1996, p. 28.
From Nisei Linguists review:
Toshikawa
Takao, “Nikkei nisei, Beigun joho shoko ga hajimete shogen shita:
‘Futatsu no sokoku’ rimenshi,” [“Nisei, U.S. Military Officer Testifies
for First Time: The Inside Story of ‘Two Fatherlands’”], Shukan Posuto,
3 March 1995: 219. Many Japanese histories, memoirs, and media reports
tell the stories of Nisei in service to one country or the other. One
history of Japanese Americans is Kikuchi Yuki’s Hawai Nikkei nisei no Taieheiyo Senso
[The Pacific War of Hawaiian Nisei] (Tokyo: Sanichi Shobo, 1995). A
story of Japanese Americans on the other side is Tachibana Yuzuru’s Teikoku Kaigun shikan ni natta Nikkei Nisei
[The Nisei Who Became an Officer of the Imperial Navy] (Tokyo: Tsukiji
Shokan, 1994). As Nisei who were living in the United States at the
start of the war joined the US military and intelligence organs, so
many of those in Japan at that time served as linguists in the IJA and
IJN, the Foreign Ministry, and the official Domei News Agency which,
like the BBC, monitored foreign media broadcasts.
--------------------
U.S. Officer Feared Worst For
Family Living in Japan /
Brothers split by war and circumstance
August
05, 1995
By Tara Shioya, Chronicle Staff Writer
In the summer of 1945, U.S. Army
Lieutenant Harry
Fukuhara was assigned to the Philippine island of Luzon as a
linguist with the 33rd Infantry Division. The end of the war was near,
and Allied forces were preparing to invade Japan. Fukuhara's unit would
head the invasion.
And for the first time since he
joined the Army,
Fukuhara thought of what that could mean for his family in Japan.
Before the war, his mother and his
three brothers had
returned to Hiroshima from the United States, where Fukuhara was born.
He had not heard from them in four years, since the war broke out. When
the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, on August 6, Fukuhara assumed
the worst. There were no survivors, he was told. In Hiroshima, nothing
would live for the next 100 years. Still, he knew he had to go see for
himself.
He was not expecting what he found.
"I thought I should go to Japan and
at least see if I
could find them," recalls Fukuhara, now 75, a retired Army colonel who
lives in San Jose. "But I figured there was no chance that they would
have survived."
He arrived in Japan a month later,
having been
reassigned to the American occupation forces in Kobe. With the Army's
permission, he and a driver set out for Hiroshima in a jeep one morning
before dawn.
They drove all day and night, using
train trestles to
cross rivers where bridges had been destroyed. The next morning they
reached Takasu-machi, the Hiroshima suburb where Fukuhara's family
lived. The houses appeared to be intact, but on the streets there were
no people. Through the neighborhood, the usual early- morning murmur of
waking families, children's squeals, chickens in the back yard -- the
sounds of life -- were not to be heard.
The Fukuhara home was among those
standing. A row of
shrubs had been charred, their silhouettes superimposed on the back
wall of the house, which faced the center of the city. Inside the
two-story house, daggers of glass jutted from the walls -- the windows
and doors were gone. Fukuhara stood in the hallway and called out
"moshi moshi" ("hello, hello"). But there was no reply.
As he surveyed the damage, his
mother appeared.
"I was pretty surprised," remembers
Fukuhara, a quiet
man who seems to yield to his emotions only reluctantly. "We just stood
there looking at each other."
His mother and her sister had
survived the bomb by
hiding in an underground shelter. At the time of the blast, his mother
was rinsing her feet outside the house. Her oldest son, Victor, 32, had
been less fortunate. When the bomb hit, he was on his way to work at a
factory in Hiroshima. The radiation had left him scarcely able to talk
or eat. The day after the bomb, relatives had found him wandering
through town, dazed and with his shirt burned to rags, and had brought
him home.
At first, Fukuhara's mother did not
recognize her
American son. His complexion had turned sallow from medication he was
taking for malaria. She had not seen him since 1938 and was confused by
the U.S. Army uniform.
After her husband's death in 1933,
Kinu Fukuhara had
left Washington state -- the family's home for more than 20 years --
and returned to her hometown of Hiroshima with four of her children.
But Harry had come back to the United States soon after graduating from
high school and had gone to California, following a sister. In the
intervening years, the family wrote letters. But then, after Pearl
Harbor, the letters stopped.
Now, from his mother and aunt, he
learned that his other
two brothers had also survived. They had not been in Hiroshima at the
time of the bombing but on the southern island of Kyushu, preparing for
what was expected to be imminent invasion by American troops.
Fukuhara learned several months
later that while he was
studying aerial attack-plan photographs of the island, his youngest
brother, Frank, was digging
foxholes for the Japanese army in the
Kyushu mountains in expectation of the U.S. landing.
"That was pretty ironic," said
Frank Fukuhara, from his
home in Komaki, Japan. "We could have met up face to face, fighting
against each other."
Now 71, he laughs as he recalls his
army training --
learning to crawl on his stomach with a dummy bomb strapped to his
back, to slip beneath the American tanks.
During most of the war, he says, he
had avoided military
service by enrolling in an engineering college. Eventually he was
drafted, in April 1945, and was assigned to the Western Second
Battalion Infantry and sent to Kyushu, like the fourth brother, Pierce.
By the time Harry returned to
Japan, Frank and Pierce
had gone back to Hiroshima to work as interpreters for U.S. forces just
outside the city.
"When Harry showed up, I was really
shocked," said Frank
Fukuhara. "I thought that he was a prisoner of war, and that he had
been sent back to Japan."
After several hours, he understood
that his brother was
in fact a U.S. Army officer and that the tall, blond soldier who
accompanied them on the jeep ride home was not holding Harry prisoner.
The last Frank had heard, Harry was
working as a
houseboy in Glendale, Calif. He had heard nothing of the Japanese
American evacuation and the internment camps. He had no idea that Harry
and their sister, Mary, and her 2- year-old daughter were relocated to
a camp at Gila River, Ariz., and that Harry had volunteered to join the
Army -- or that circumstance had placed them on opposite sides of the
war.
For Frank, who had always hoped to
return to the United
States, the choice between "American" and "Japanese" had been made for
him when he was drafted into the Japanese Imperial Army. But for Harry,
that decision was a conscious one.
"I felt I had to make up my mind to
stay as an
American," he says of his decision to volunteer. "I had no feeling of
loyalty to Japan."
Today, Harry Fukuhara still spends
considerable time
thinking about the war, as president of the Northern California
Military Intelligence Service (MIS) -- a 400-member association of
Japanese Americans who served in the war in the Pacific.
He says he still believes that
dropping the A-bomb
shortened the war and ultimately saved lives, despite the price his
family paid. His brother Victor died of radiation sickness in 1947. His
mother died of similar causes in 1968.
Frank Fukuhara is unable to say
whether he believes that
use of the bomb was justified, especially when he thinks of their
13-year-old cousin Kimiko. On Aug. 6, 1945, she had just finished her
wartime work duties at school and was on the roof of the building when
the bomb struck. Blinded by the flash and badly burned, she crawled
half a mile to a temporary hospital. Minutes after her mother found
her, she died.
"I thought the atomic bomb was
really miserable," Frank
Fukuhara says, his voice faltering for a moment. "But it ended the war.
It could have lasted much longer."
But the memory of Hiroshima is
painful for both
brothers.
Despite Harry Fukuhara's apparent
pragmatism about the
bomb, it was not until 1989 that he returned again to Hiroshima.
"I guess I wanted to avoid going
there," he says. "I
didn't even want to think about it. There was nothing positive about
the time I was there in 1945."
See also this review
of book on Fukuharas, "Midnight in Broad Daylight," by Pamela
Rotner Sakamoto. The Japan Times had this article, The unbelievable true story of a Japanese
family that went to war with itself.
From essay by Fukuhara, Military
Occupation of Japan (WWW.NJAVC.ORG):
About two weeks after arriving in
Japan, I was able to get permission from my division commander to
travel by Jeep to Hiroshima to look for my family. I arrived in early
October and found my mother and brothers in our partially-damaged
family home on the outskirts of Hiroshima City. My mother had survived
the atomic bomb because she had been in a bomb shelter, but my older
brother Victor had been
injured by the bombing. He was to die a few months later from radiation
poisoning. Many of my relatives had died or disappeared in the atomic
blast.
I was overjoyed to see my two younger brothers, Pierce and Frank. They had been
drafted into the Japanese Army, and had returned home just a few days
before I arrived in Hiroshima. Frank
had been assigned to a suicide unit in Miyazaki Prefecture. He had
been training to blow up a U.S.
military vehicle by running up to it and detonating an explosive strapped to his back.
I shuddered when I heard that he was supposed to guard the beaches of
Miyazaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu. That was where my division
had been planning to land on November 1, 1945. I was glad that the
atomic bomb had ended the war.
.....When I was first assigned to the Toyama CIC office, in September
1947, I met a young Nisei girl who became my wife two years later. Terry Yamamoto had come to Japan as
a teenager before the war. She was working as an interpreter at the
Toyama Military Government Team.
Japanese book:
日本軍兵士になったアメリカ人たち 母国と戦った日系二世
門池啓史, 元就出版社, 発行年月: 2010年02月
Americans who became soldiers of
Japanese military - Nisei who fought against their motherland
From Chapter 2:
Frank Fukuhara - brother
in US
Army 「二つの母国」 (Two Motherlands)
Toshiko Funatsu
Per Stephan, possibly worked as a communications monitor for the
Imperial Army or Navy. After war was English instructor in Yahata,
Kyushu (PDF).
George Hamada
Nisei? interpreter at Zentsuji POW Camp (photo). Affidavit
by POW Nelson says that Hamada lived in the US for 20 years. Photo
shows "Bibb County, Georgia" location.
Yoshio
Harada
On island of Niihau, helped Japanese pilot who
crashed there during attack on Pearl Harbor. See Robar
p. 340 and Malkin
p. 2+, photo on p. 289.
From Wiener
testimony:
b. Another Nisei, Harada,
committed treason
against the United States within the constitutional definition (Art.
III, § 3) of "adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and
Comfort." A Japanese warplane, damaged during the Pearl Harbor attack,
landed on the small Hawaiian island of Niihau. Local Hawaiians took
away the pilot's pistol and his papers, but Harada supplied him with
other arms belonging to Harada's employer, after which, for
six
days, the pilot and Harada terrorized the entire island. Then
a
Hawaiian who had been shot by the pilot managed to kill him, after
which Harada committed suicide. S. Conn, Guarding
the United States and Its
Outposts,
p. 194
[hereafter "Conn, Guarding"];
W. Lord, Day of Infamy,
pp. 195-200; J.J. Stephan, Hawaii Under the Rising
Sun,
p. 168.
The Commission relegates this incident to a footnote (Rep. 430-431,
n.14), does not recognize that Harada's acts constituted
treason,
and therefore fails to recognize that, flatly contrary to its own
blanket assertion, Harada, like Kawakita and Tokyo Rose, was indeed an
"individual American citizen... actively disloyal to his country."
Toyokazu Hikita
Born in Vancouver, BC, 1922. Went to Japan in 1939 and drafted into
J-Army in 1943, then transferred to Tokyo Kempeitai. See p. 5 of this
doc:
Yokohama
Trial
Dockets No. T294 HIKITA
Hirano
In this article (More_Jap_Atrocities_KingsportTimes_1944-1-30.pdf),
note on page 2 under "Demands Action," there is mention of a Lieut.
Hirano,
"a young Japanese from the United States, who was responsible for the
horrible prison conditions existing there" at the Shanghai Bridge House
jail. This could be the same person as Cmdr. Smith mentioned in his
statement:
"There was one Kato there [at
Bridge House, Shanghai], an interpreter, who was very vicious. One of
the worst of all was a Japanese interpreter who designated himself as
being No. 56, he being very careful to keep us from learning his name.
No. 56 was this man's official number as an interpreter. I have his
name and something of his personal history safely secured in Shanghai
and full information can be obtained about him after the war. This man
had spent at least half of each year in the states for a long period as
he was in the export business from Japan. Although being a Japanese
subject, he was married to an American Japanese and had several
children. Two of his daughters at that time were attending the
University of Southern California. All of his family except himself
were American citizens. He was one of the vilest, most vicious men in
the whole place. This man was cautious in handling us military
prisoners and evinced strong wishes to remain incognito."
Chikaki Honda ("Eddie")
Born in Hawaii, went to Japan in 1929, renounced US citizenship in
1941, worked with other Nisei in Civilian Intelligence Corps, gave
talks at Nisei Rengokai in Tokyo, became interrogator on Rabaul whom
Boyington had met. From Black Sheep One: The Life of Gregory Pappy
Boyington by Gamble):

Shigeo Imamura
Born in San Jose, CA, went to Japan when 10 years old, later becoming a
kamikaze pilot. Wrote book, SHIG
-- The True Story of An American Kamikaze: A Memoir.
Kanao
Inouye ("Kamloops Kid")
Canadian Nisei (see Wikipedia
entry) -- was at Shamshuipo prison camp, and interpreter
for Kempeitai military police in Hong Kong. Mentioned in
Roland's Long Night's Journey Into Day, pp315-316. Mentioned in
The Damned by Greenfield.
Mentioned also in Prisoner of the Turnip Heads: The Fall of
Hong Kong and the Imprisionment by the Japanese by
Wright-Nooth (2000).
See also trial case:
Jack Ishio
From Tacoma, WA; was registered as a dual-citizen. Served as an
anti-aircraft gunner in the Japanese army, shooting down American dive
bombers. Was a mile from Hiroshima when A-bomb was dropped. Helped
cremate the dead over the next two weeks. Quoted in
this article
as saying, "It was dreadful. But I never felt a sense of anger at the
U.S. that they used such a weapon to bring the war to an end. I think that was the right thing to do."
Nobuaki Warren
Iwatake
From Wikipedia:
Nobuaki
"Warren" Iwatake (1923-) was Radio Operator and communications
intercepter and a veteran of the World War veteran of the World War 2
Imperial Japanese Army.
Family history
He was
born in Kahului, Hawaii, USA. Warren was the eldest son of six children
and was raised in Kahului. The father of Iwatake, a Kobayashi store
employee, presumed drowned from a fishing trip at Peahi. With the loss
of the family breadwinner, his mother, four brothers, and one sister
moved to Hiroshima, Japan, to live with an uncle in November, 1940.
Warren stayed on Maui to graduate with his Maui High School class of
'41, and then left to rejoin his family in Hiroshima. The December 7,
1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would eventually have a profound
effect on Iwatake's family, and lead to an unlikely association with
George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st President of the United States.
Service in Imperial Japanese Army
Iwatake
was beaten and drafted against his will to the Imperial Japanese Army
from a Japanese college in 1943. He was present when former United
States President George H.W. Bush was shot down over the Pacific in his
Avenger bomber, during September 1944, and was later rescued by a
submarine. Two American crewman with Bush were killed. Iwatake had
missed the battle of Iwo Jima due to an American submarine attack on
his ship's convoy, and was then placed on Chichi-jima, 150 miles north
of Iwo Jima. American forces bombed Chichi-jima to cut radio
communications between islands. Former President George H.W. Bush's
task was to bomb the island's communication towers, and possibly any
Imperial Japanese forces. Due to the "island hopping" strategy by
American forces, the island was spared an invasion attack.
Iwatake
was present when Japanese Imperial forces captured an American pilot
from Texas by the name of Warren Earl Vaughn. Mr. Iwatake was assigned
to guard and work with Warren Earl Vaughn on Chichi Jima. He and Warren
Earl spent many hours talking and developed a personal relationship.
According to Iwatake, one evening after a bath, the two were walking
back when Iwatake fell into a bomb pit. "It was pitch black and I
couldn't get out. He reached to me and said take his hand" and Warren
Earl pulled Iwatake out. Shortly after the fall of Iwo Jima in March
1945, the pilot was taken away by other Japanese Naval Officers and
executed at the harbor by beheading. On that day Mr. Iwatake adopted
and kept the name "Warren" in honor and remembrance of his American
friend Warren Earl Vaughn. The story of Warren Earl Vaughn, Iwatake's
observation of the rescue of George H.W. Bush, and the experiences of
other American "Flyboys" is recounted in the book Flyboys: A True Story
of Courage by James Bradley. Warren Iwatake and President George H.W.
Bush met on Chichi Jima in 2002 in a symbolic reunion of veterans from
both sides of the conflict.
Iwatake lost his youngest
brother in the Hiroshima atomic bomb attack. The youngest brother was
500 yards from the epicenter attending a school. Reportedly, the only
thing left was a US Army canteen, as the youngest brother was vaporized
in the atomic attack. Iwatake's uncle, Dr. Hiroshi Iwatake, was badly
burned in the atomic explosion, but regained his health and lived into
the 1980s. Dr. Hiroshi Iwatake's true story is recounted in the 1966
(1969 Kodansha English translation by John Bester) historical novel
"Black Rain" by Masuji Ibuse. This title is not to be confused with the
1989 Michael Douglas movie of the same name, also set in Japan. The
Ibuse "Black Rain", though centered around fictional characters, is
based on interviews with actual atom bomb survivors, including Hiroshi
Iwatake. Graphic details in the novel, such as the maggots eating away
at Hiroshi's earlobe, are true. The nephew in the novel is Warren
Iwatake's youngest brother Takashi. The novel states that Takashi's
metal ID tag was found. However, Warren's brother Masaru reported that
all he could find when he searched for Takashi amongst the ruins of
Hiroshima was Takashi's U.S. Army canteen.
After the war, Iwatake served as a translator for the American Embassy
in Tokyo for 35 years.
And this article:
By
CAPT. NEIL F. MURPHY
Marine
Corps Public Affairs Office
CAMP
S.D. BUTLER, Okinawa, Japan
- On Feb. 23, 1945, on the tiny coral island of Chichi Shima, jutting
out of the Bonin Islands east of Okinawa and north of Iwo
Jima,
anti-aircraft fire ripped through the sky.
A
Marine Corps F-4U Corsair fighter, on an air-raid mission from the USS
Bennington, lumbered over the island and slammed into the ocean after
being shredded by the wall of lead.
Slowly
descending in his parachute to the ocean, the pilot, 23-year-old
Childress native 2nd Lt Warren Earl Vaughn, watched helplessly as his
co-pilot sank silently into the ocean.
Hitting
the water and swimming through shark-infested coral to the surf, Vaughn
was snatched from the shore by defending Japanese soldiers and sailors
and dragged into their camp.
Vaughn
had not been the first to be shot down near this island. Five months
before, future President George Bush, a naval aviator aboard the USS
San Jacinto, also was shot down in his Avenger aircraft off this
dreaded coastline. But Bush was rescued by the submarine USS Finback,
narrowly avoiding the fate that awaited Vaughn.
Now
a prisoner of war on desolate Chichi Shima, Vaughn was forced to work
in a sweltering communications hut high atop Mount Yoake,
routinely monitoring his own forces' radio communications along with a
young Japanese army private.
Private Nobuaki Iwatake, now
76, also was stranded on
the island after the
freighter ship he and other Japanese soldiers were traveling on months
before, the Nissho Maru, was torpedoed miles off the coast.
Iwatake,
an unwilling Japanese conscript with dual U.S.-Japanese citizenship,
was forced to join the Imperial Japanese Army because of his English
skills.
Having
attended Maui High
School
in Hawaii,
he was a student at Mejii University
in Tokyo
when the war broke out. Two years after being drafted, Iwatake found
himself on Chichi Shima monitoring U.S.
radio transmissions and working with a fellow U.S.
citizen who was labeled his enemy.
Meanwhile,
the battle for Iwo
Jima
raged on just south of the island. As Americans and Japanese bled and
died at each others' hands on the hot, black sands, Vaughn and Iwatake
began to share a friendship that has remained in Iwatake's mind and
heart to this day.
"Warren
was a great man," Iwatake said. "Even as a prisoner, he had a sense of
humor and often told us jokes and had a good, healthy spirit.
"I
remember him being brought into our camp with his green flight suit on
months after I had seen (George) Bush shot down and rescued by the U.S.
Navy. Warren
wasn't as lucky. Warren
was tall and handsome and had a real Texas
accent.
"I
always wonder if he had been rescued, what would have become of him and
what great things he would have done for his country, like Bush.
"One
night, Warren
was talking with some kamikaze pilots who had come into our hut, and
they asked what he would do if they got on his tail. Warren
stood up, towering over them and using his hands to depict flying
aircraft, he explained how he would roll up and loop to get behind them
and shoot them down. Impressed by his skill, they shook his hand and
wished him luck as they departed."
Another
time, while the two were in their hut working, their area was hit by
bombs dropped by U.S. P-51 Mustangs that were attacking the island.
"They
had no idea Warren
was there, and he was very upset that they dropped bombs on him. He ran
out and yelled at them as they flew past, shaking his hands and
cursing," Iwatake said.
Late
one evening, Iwatake even smuggled Vaughn into a Japanese-style
bathhouse on the island, so he could clean himself up. On the way to
the facility, the nearsighted Iwatake fell into a bomb crater, which
offered Vaughn a chance to escape. Instead, Vaughn reached down into
the six-foot pit and helped his friend out to safety.
"That's
the way he was," Iwatake said.
While
monitoring the nightly radio transmissions from Iwo
Jima,
Vaughn and Iwatake continued to trade stories of their lives and what
they would do once the war ended. The two even had begun to plan an
escape from the island, but as fate would have it, time ran out.
One
morning in early March, Vaughn intercepted a message that stated, "All
organized Japanese resistance has ended. The U.S. Marines have taken
Iwo
Jima."
He
hesitantly passed the transmission to Iwatake, who translated it and
forwarded it to his chain of command.
The
morning after learning of the fall of Iwo Jima and the impending
Japanese defeat, an irate Japanese Imperial Navy officer-in-charge of
the communications unit on Mount Yoake,
Capt. Yoshii, came into the hut. He removed Vaughn from his work area
and collected seven other prisoners of war who also were shot down over
the island.
Iwatake
said Vaughn looked at him and replied, ' "They're taking me away.
Goodbye and take care, my friend.' "
Vaughn
was led down the mountain.
"I
will never forget that sad look on his face as he left," Iwatake said.
That
afternoon, in a horrific display of inhumanity, Yoshii and some of his
men bayoneted and beheaded the prisoners by the seashore.
Months
later, according to "The History of Marine Corps Aviation," Yoshii and
many others were tried and hanged in Saipan
for war crimes against Vaughn and the others.
"I
found out the day after it happened. I was shocked, shaken and deeply
saddened. They had killed my friend, Warren, and for what, I couldn't
understand why," Iwatake said. "I hated Yoshii for that."
More
than half a century later, the friendship that ended in such dismay
still lives today in the mind of that unwilling Japanese conscript.
Iwatake is still searching for final closure to the events leading up
to Vaughn's death.
Recently,
Iwatake expressed his desire to meet any of Vaughn's remaining family
members to help heal the wounds and share the memories of his last days
alive.
"Some
of the men who witnessed the execution said he was very brave, and that
was just like him. I want people to remember Warren,"
Iwatake said. "After the war, I changed my given name (to Warren)
in remembrance of my friend. He lives in my memory forever.
"I
vowed that if I ever survived that war, Warren
Iwatake would do something to contribute to U.S.-Japan
relations in some way."
Iwatake
recently retired after 25 years of working in the press section of the
U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.
While there, he often searched for Vaughn's family, and every time it
produced nothing.
"Time
is running out, and I want to see his family so bad," Iwatake said.
Vaughn
is currently listed as a POW, killed in action, as of March 5, 1945,
and his body never was recovered from the island.
His
last known listed relative was his mother, Evia McDonald, from
Childress.
Born
in Childress on Sept. 20, 1922, Vaughn enlisted in the Marine Corps on
Sept. 1, 1943, in Corpus
Christi,
said R.V. Aquilina, Headquarters Marine Corps History and Museums
Division, who located some of Vaughn's information in Marine files.
"It's
been a long time, but I remember Warren
told me he was going back home to get married and teach. He had
graduated from Southwest Texas Teachers
College
(now Southwest Texas University)
and was looking forward to getting home," Iwatake said. "I can still
see his face when I close my eyes, and it seems like yesterday. I'll
never forget Warren
for as long as I live."
Another article:
http://www.perkins-smart.com/burmacampaignsociety/archive/news_pdf/Newsletter%2014%20a.pdf
The Burma Campaign Society NEWSLETTER
September 2009
WARREN IWATAKE’S WAR.
George Bush Sr. who later became
US President made his first parachute
jump on Chichi Jima during the Pacific
War when his plane was shot down. I saw his rescue and was happy to
learn that he was picked up by the submarine
Finback. I am also grateful to the captain of the US submarine that
sank our troopship, because if we had not lost
our artillery and ammunition, we would have gone on from Chichi Jima to
Iwo Jima. Our anti-tank platoon, with
which we had trained in Hiroshima, was one convoy ahead of us and
reached Chichi Jima safely, where we met
them. But it was not so lucky. A week later, they were sent on to Iwo
Jima, only a hundred and fifty miles away,
and were all killed. Such is fate.
I had had dual American and Japanese citizenship and had been told by
my high school teacher never to join the
Japanese Army or I would not be able to return to Hawaii. However, I
was attending university in Tokyo in 1943
when the military government ordered all university students to be
drafted into the army. Although they were
exempt from military service, the war was being lost and a hundred
thousand students were drafted, and many
never returned.
I myself did three months basic training in Hiroshima, and life in the
Japanese Imperial Army was a nightmare.
We recruits were constantly reminded that we were fighting for the
Emperor, who was at that time considered to
be a God, and the army tried to pound it into our heads that we should
be willing to sacrifice our lives for him and
for the country. Life was really tough, as we were beaten by our
superiors, and when we were liined up at night
for roll call and our kit was inspected, our faces would be violently
slapped if there was one speck of dust on our
boots.. The beatings were routine and since, in my case, my English was
better than my Japanese, I was singled
out several times because of my enemy background. Since we were in the
artillery, we trained with cannons which
were hauled by manpower. However, things improved after basic training,
as attention was then focused on the
next batch of recruits and we were no longer beaten. After the war some
soldiers called their basic training hell.
I took the name of Pilot Warren Vaughn to honour his memory, as I
became friends with him until he was executed.
Despite being a POW, he managed to smile and tell us jokes. I had been
ordered to join a naval radio facility to
monitor enemy communications and Warren Vaughn was forced to work with
us for a while, and it was he who
caught a message from US Army Headquarters announcing that “all
organized resistance on Iwo Jima has ended.”
One day, a member of our army unit passed by and asked me how the war
was going, and when I told him that
I knew, because of the monitoring, that Japan was losing, he called me
a traitor. The Japanese soldiers did not
know that it was being lost, because the High Command in Tokyo kept
announcing victory after victory for the
Japanese Imperial Army, and during the Battle of Midway, which turned
the tide of the war, and in which Japan
lost three of its top aircraft carriers, Japan announced that it had
won a major victory, sinking several US carriers.
After the war, when the President learned that I had taken Warren
Vaughn’s first name, he called me “a true friend
of America”, and when, in 2004, I was able to visit Childress. Vaughn’s
home town in Texas, with a population
of ten thousand, I received a warm welcome and was made an Honorary
Citizen.
As to the war, my opinion is that wars may be necessary to protect the
democratic way of life and get rid of
dictators, but we must remember that war is a matter of kill or be
killed. I lost my brother, who was only thirteen
when he was killed in his classroom in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima,
and as a result of my experience, I am
opposed to war.
Warren Iwatake
Editor’s note
The above Article is drawn from two Emails which were sent to Akiko
Macdonald.
And another one:
1
family's
tradition: Tree that saw war, survived A-bomb goes up for 70th Christmas
The
Associated Press
Friday,
December 21,
2007
TOKYO: Warren
Nobuaki
Iwatake's family has seen
more than its share of calamity.
When he was still a child his
father was lost at sea off
Hawaii.
With no breadwinner, his family was forced to move to Japan, where
Iwatake was drafted during the war. He lost a brother when the bomb
fell on Hiroshima.
But through it all one thing has
remained constant.
The tree.
His parents bought it in 1937, and
his family has
brought it out
every Christmas since, without fail, even when that meant risking
arrest.
"This tree was a shining light,
because it was a symbol
of unity in
my family," Iwatake said as he and his wife put the final touches on
the frail, 1-meter-tall (3-foot-tall) heirloom that is, once again this
year, the centerpiece of their small, neatly kept apartment in Tokyo.
"We have put this tree up every
year for 70 years."
___
Though he considers himself
Buddhist, Iwatake was raised
in a
Christian tradition. He still keeps a photo of the tiny wooden church
on Maui where he and his five brothers went to services and Sunday
school.
Christmas was always a special time.
His father worked at a merchandise
store, and Iwatake
remembers the
day he came home with a tree. It was nothing all that special, just
metal-and-plastic, the kind of decoration that can easily be placed on
a table, or in a corner somewhere. He got a string of lights, too, the
kind with the big bulbs.
Soon after, his father died in a
fishing accident. His
body was
never found.
Iwatake's mother had relatives in
Japan, and took
Iwatake's younger
brothers there. Iwatake stayed behind to graduate from high school,
then, in 1941, six months before Pearl Harbor, he moved to Japan as
well.
"Things were pretty bad," he said.
"There were war
clouds hanging
everywhere."
The United States and Britain were
the enemy, and Japan
clamped down
on overt displays of anything Western, including Christianity. Though
they had grown up speaking English, Iwatake and his brothers
communicated solely in Japanese, and did their best to hide their past.
But their mother refused to give up
on the tree.
"She was in charge and she wanted
to put it up," Iwatake
said.
"During the war years, we had to do that in secret because in wartime
Japan it was not welcome. We could have been arrested."
To keep the neighbors from asking
questions, his mother
found a
place for it in the back of their house, on the second floor, away from
the windows.
"We were afraid they would report
it to the police, or
become
suspicious about why we were harboring Western things," he said. "But
we were brought up in the American way of life. It is something that
you cannot forget. It really is something from the heart."
The year after that first Christmas
in Hiroshima,
Iwatake went to
Tokyo to study economics at university. At Christmas, he directed a
school play, a nativity story, again keeping it secret so that the
authorities wouldn't get involved.
Then, in 1943, he was drafted and
sent to Chichijima.
___
Chichijima is a tiny island that
virtually no one has
heard of. To
get there, you go out to the middle of nowhere, and turn south.
In 1944, Iwatake boarded a
transport ship from Yokohama
to assume
his duties at a radio monitoring post on the remote crag. The ship was
torpedoed and sunk by an American submarine, but he survived and was
put on an oil tanker.
On the island, Iwatake's English
skills were put to use
listening in
on U.S. military communications, and keeping watch over a handful of
captured American pilots whose planes had been shot down on their way
to and from bombing raids on Tokyo.
One day, he was in the hills
digging bunkers when he
heard that a
plane had just been shot down. He saw a lone pilot on a bright yellow
life raft paddling furiously away from the island. American planes
provided cover, and the submarine USS Finback surfaced and collected
him.
The aviator was 20-year-old George
H. W. Bush, who would
later
become the American president. Iwatake met him years later and went
back with him to the island. Signed photos of the two, smiling, are
placed prominently about Iwatake's apartment.
But another American left a deeper
impression on
Iwatake's life.
Captured POWs were forced to
monitor U.S. radio traffic.
One of them
was Warren Vaughn, a Texan.
"One night after a bath we were
walking back and I fell
into a bomb
pit," Iwatake said. "It was pitch black and I couldn't get out. He
reached to me and said to take his hand. He pulled me out."
Vaughn was monitoring the day Iwo
Jima fell. Japan's
defeat was
virtually assured. Soon after, several naval officers called Vaughn and
took him to the beach. "He turned before he left and gave me a sad
look," Iwatake said.
For no apparent reason, Vaughn was
beheaded, and his
body dumped
into the sea.
The atrocities committed against
the POWs — which
included acts of
cannibalism — remained largely a secret for the next 50 years. But
Iwatake said he did not want Vaughn's memory to die.
"I thought the best way of
remembering him was to adopt
his first
name," Iwatake said.
___
Japan surrendered in August 1945,
and Iwatake returned
home in
December.
"I used to think of those joyous
days in Hawaii at
Christmas, when
we had food and treats," he said. "On Chichijima, we were starving."
But Hiroshima was even worse.
"Everything was bad, nothing was
left," he said. "I
couldn't even
think of the joys of what I experienced in Hawaii."
Iwatake's younger brother Takashi
had been in the center
of the city
attending school. His body, like their father's, was never found.
The Iwatake home was in the eastern
part of the city,
behind a small
hill that provided a buffer from the blast. The front end was crushed
and burned, but the back stood largely intact.
And that was where the tree was.
"Japan had surrendered, there was
no food, nothing to
celebrate," he
said. "Everybody was in shock and a sad state, but we put it up. My
mother put it up."
After the war, Iwatake became an
interpreter for the
U.S.
government. He moved to Tokyo, and from 1950 he took responsibility for
the family tree.
At first, putting it up was more of
a simple tradition
than anything
else.
His family was once again spreading
out. At one stage,
four brothers
worked for the Occupation Forces as interpreters and translators,
including Iwatake. He eventually went back to Tokyo, while his brothers
returned to Hawaii. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, three
brothers volunteered, and one served in Korea.
The Iwatake family remains
scattered.
One brother lives in Chicago,
another on Maui. Another
died of
cancer, possibly the result of radiation from the atomic bomb.
But each year, the tree has gone
up. For those not in
Tokyo to see
it, including Vaughn's cousins in Childress, Texas, Iwatake, now 84,
sends photos. And each year, it becomes more poignant.
"Gradually, Christmas has become
more meaningful again,"
he said.
"Peace, good will toward your fellow man, you know? After the war,
there was no such thing."
Fumitane Jibutsu
Mentioned by Patrick Aki (half Nisei, half Chinese-Hawaiian; interview):
https://www.thegardenisland.com/2014/07/04/hawaii-news/love-thy-neighbor/
Aki and his brother befriended a
boy from Japan, named Fumitani Jibutsu, who had just moved into their
Kauai neighborhood, an immigrant child who was shunned by everybody
else, except them. It was a welcoming gesture for Jibutsu, whose
parents were Shinto priests and spoke no English. Jibutsu also
struggled with the language, making finding friends almost impossible.
“No one wanted to be his friend because he could not speak English, so
my brother and I befriended him because we were taught to love thy
neighbor,” Michelle wrote about Aki’s memories. Little did Uncle Pat
know then, but Jibutsu would return to Japan and become a soldier for
her army.
.....
Weeks later, the Japanese overtook Wake Island and Aki became a
prisoner of war. Only 450 of the 550 laborers would be taken to POW
camps in Japan, however. The Japanese soldiers executed the others, and
Aki was singled out to be put to death. “They had us kneeling on the
ground, with our heads hanging, each man would look up into the barrel
of the gun to meet his fate as an officer would stand directly in front
of him to help deliver his destiny,” Michelle wrote about Aki’s fate.
“When it came to my turn, I raised my head so that I could see my
executioner and to my amazement, the man that held the gun was Fumitani
Jibutsu. He lowered the gun and just stared at me and before I knew it,
I was taken to Japan as a prisoner.”
Per John Stephan:
Jibutsu Fumitane was, contrary to
Patrick Aki's testimony, born not in Japan but in Lihue, Island of
Kauai on 15 Jan. 1922, was taken by his mother in 1923 to sojourn with
his maternal grandfather in Kano-mura, Tsuno-gun, Yamaguchi-ken,
returned to Hawaii in 1925, attended the Wailua School, where in 1929
he was elected "junior cop." Upon the death of his father, Ginichi
Jibutsu (both of his parents were Shinto priests, Ginichi doubled as a
Buddhist priest), Fumitane departed with his widowed mother, Atsuko
Miyamoto Jibutsu, for Japan on 24 July 1930 (in April, he and his
mother were living in Wailua according to the 1930 US Census). He would
have likely completed primary school, presumably in Kano-mura,
Yamaguchi-ken, around 1937, possiblly entered Middle School, and was
conscripted or volunteered for the IJA (or IJN) in 1941. I could find
no record of either Atsuko Jibutsu or her son Fumitane returning to
Hawaii after the war.
Masaji Kameoka
Nisei? interpreter at POW camp, Nagoya #2 Narumi:

Hiroto Kanai
Interpreter for the Kempeitai in Hiroshima; photo here.
Below page from Race War!: White Supremacy and the
Japanese Attack on the British Empire by Gerald Horne (2005).

Toshiyuki Kano
Toshiyuki
Kano (1914- ). Hawaiian-born Kibei, Salt Lake City. Former military
intelligence officer in the Japanese military.
Tomoya Kawakita
Kawakita
was an interpreter at a POW camp in Oeyama, Japan, who was convicted of
war crimes. See here for a Time magazine article: http://www.mansell.com/eo9066/Kawakita.html
For basic background info, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawakita_v._U.S.
Section in The Bamboo People (PDF)
on Kawakita (p.288~). Note that the judge said that a US citizen owes
allegiance to the United States wherever
he may be! So this should be true for ALL the Nisei who were in Japan
during WWII. Yet this was not brought up in the trials. He was later "successfully
prosecuted for treason" (Kawakita v.
United States).
Lengthy chapter on Kawakita (Chapter Four), how he was recognized, trial, etc.:
America's Geisha Ally by Naoko Shibusawa, 2006
Mentions other Nisei working at the camp: "Two other Nisei were there as interpreters: Kawakita’s childhood friend, Meiji Fujizawa, who translated in the POW camps, and Noboyuki Inoue, who worked in the company’s administrative office."
Also states that former prime minister of Japan, Takeo Miki, was the
one who helped Kawakita get the job at Oeyama Nickel Industry Company,
and later made appeals to the US Govt. for leniency in dealing with
Kawakita.
See also this image series re Okimura, Kawakita, Nishikawa (Nisei in
J-military) - Asian Americans
and Supreme Court by Kim, in
PDF format.
Los Angeles Times
article:
Los Angeles Times
September 20, 2002
ON THE LAW
POW Camp Atrocities Led to Treason Trial
Tomoya Kawakita claimed dual citizenship, abusing captured GIs in Japan
in World War II, then moving to the U.S.
DAVID ROSENZWEIG, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Army veteran William L. Bruce, a survivor of Corregidor, the Bataan
death march and three years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp,
couldn't believe his eyes as he shopped with his bride one autumn day
in 1946 at the Sears department store in Boyle Heights.
Standing a few aisles away amid the crush of shoppers in that
quintessentially American setting was the man responsible for
brutalizing Bruce and scores of other GIs held captive in Japan's
Oeyama prison camp on Honshu Island.
Tomoya Kawakita, who held dual citizenship in the U.S. and Japan,
served as an interpreter and self-appointed taskmaster at the camp,
earning the nickname "Efficiency Expert" for his methods of inflicting
pain on inmates weakened by malnourishment and forced labor.
"I was so dumbfounded, I just halted in my tracks and stared at him as
he hurried by," Bruce, then 24 and attending college under the GI Bill,
said shortly after the encounter.
"It was a good thing, too," said the former artilleryman. "If I'd
reacted then, I'm not sure but that I might have taken the law into my
own hands--and probably Kawakita's neck."
Instead, Bruce followed him outside the store, jotted down the license
plate number of his car and notified the FBI.
Kawakita, who had returned to the United States after the war and
enrolled at USC, was tried and convicted of treason in U.S. District
Court in Los Angeles and sentenced to death.
The sentence was never carried out. In 1953, President Dwight D.
Eisenhower, responding to appeals from the Japanese government,
commuted Kawakita's death sentence to life in prison. In 1963,
President John F. Kennedy ordered him freed after 16 years behind bars
on the condition that he be deported to Japan and never return.
Now more than half a century since his trial, Kawakita holds the
distinction of being the last person prosecuted for treason against the
United States.
He was represented at his federal court trial by Morris Lavine, a
colorful Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer, who was fond of
describing himself as "attorney for the damned." Lavine's clients
ranged from the indigent, whom he represented at no charge, to the
likes of mobsters Mickey Cohen and Johnny Roselli, and Teamsters boss
James Hoffa.
Heading the prosecution team was U.S. Atty. James M. Carter, who went
on to become a federal appeals court judge.
More than a dozen former POWs testified against Kawakita. They
described how he forced prisoners to beat one another, and then beat
those he thought didn't hit the other prisoners hard enough. They
accused him of forcing prisoners to run laps until they collapsed in
exhaustion simply because they had finished their work assignments
early.
The camp was set up next to a nickel ore mine and processing plant,
where most of about 400 American POWs were forced to work. Kawakita was
employed by the mining company.
Once, he forced a prisoner to carry a heavy log up an icy slope. The
prisoner fell and suffered a serious spinal injury. Fellow POWs
testified that Kawakita waited five hours before summoning help for the
injured American.
They also recalled being taunted by Kawakita with comments such as: "We
will kill all you prisoners right here anyway, whether you win the war
or lose it."
And, "You guys needn't be interested in when the war will be over,
because you won't go back. You will stay here and work. I will go back
to the States because I am an American citizen."
Kawakita's citizenship proved to be a crucial issue during the trial
and subsequent court appeals.
By definition, treason can be committed only by someone owing
allegiance to the United States.
Born in Calexico to Japanese parents, Kawakita held dual citizenship
under U.S. and Japanese laws. In 1939, at the age of 18, he went to
Japan to attend school. He remained there after the outbreak of war,
graduating from Meiji University.
At the trial, Lavine advanced a novel argument. As a dual U.S. and
Japanese citizen, he argued, his client owed exclusive allegiance to
the country in which he resided. In this case, Japan. Lavine also
contended that Kawakita had effectively renounced his U.S. citizenship
by signing a family census register maintained by Japanese authorities.
In his instructions to jurors, U.S. District Judge William C. Mathes
made it clear that if they found that Kawakita genuinely believed he
was no longer an American citizen, then they must acquit him of the
treason charges.
Sequestered during deliberations, the jury struggled mightily to
resolve the question--declaring several times that they were hopelessly
deadlocked. But ultimately they found Kawakita guilty on eight of 13
overt acts of treason charged by the prosecution.
When he appeared for sentencing, Kawakita continued to insist he was
innocent. "As I have been found guilty by the jury, I ask your honor
for mercy," he said.
By law, Mathes had leeway to impose a sentence ranging from a minimum
of five years in prison to a maximum of death at Alcatraz.
He chose the latter, saying: "Reflection leads to the conclusion that
the only worthwhile use for the life of a traitor, such as this
defendant has proved to be, is to serve as an example to those of weak
moral fiber who may hereafter be tempted to commit treason against the
United States."
Today, most of those involved in the case are either dead or, if alive,
could not be located. One exception is William J. Kelleher, then a
federal prosecutor and now a senior U.S. District Court judge in Los
Angeles.
Although he did not take part in the trial, Kelleher was assigned to
draft the government's response to Kawakita's appeal of his conviction.
As a result, he immersed himself in every detail of the case.
In an interview last week , Kelleher recalled being visited at his
office by Bruce and two other former POWs while he was working on his
brief for the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
"Me and the boys had a little meeting last night," he said Bruce told
him. "And we want you to know that if he ever gets out, we'll be
waiting for him."
Fortunately, Kelleher said, the appeals court upheld Kawakita's
conviction by a 3-0 vote.
It was a much closer call when the appeal went before the U.S. Supreme
Court in 1952. The vote was 4 to 3 to uphold the conviction. Two of the
court's nine justices disqualified themselves.
At the crux of the case was this question: Where does the allegiance of
a dual citizen lie when two nations, each claiming his loyalty, go to
war?
"Of course, a person caught in that predicament can resolve the
conflict of duty by openly electing one nationality or the other," said
Justice William O. Douglas, writing for the majority.
Kawakita, the court said, chose neither option, trying instead to hedge
his bets on the war's outcome while freely performing acts of hostility
against the U.S.
"One who wants that freedom can get it by renouncing his American
citizenship," Douglas wrote. "He can not turn it to a fair-weather
citizenship, retaining it for possible contingent benefits but
meanwhile playing the role of the traitor. An American citizen owes
allegiance to the United States wherever he may reside."
Related treason case in the US regarding the three Shitara sisters can be found
at: Prosecution of the Shitara Sisters.
Another article here, in four parts: Betrayal on Trial: Japanese American
"Treason" in World War II.
Shigemi
Kido
From The Two Worlds of Jim Yoshida
by Yoshida and Hosokawa:
Then I found
Sergeant Kido's file. Apparently it hadn't been transferred back to
Japan yet. My eyes widened and I broke out in a cold sweat at what I
read.
Name: Kido, Shigemi
Place of Birth: Island of Maui, Hawaii
Education: Graduated McKinley High School, Honolulu,
Hawaii; some courses in Japanese universities.
Home Address: Yamaguchi Prefecture, Kumage-gun, Hirao
Village.
Kido
was born in Hawaii! Educated in Hawaii! That made him a Nisei, just
like mel And he lived in Japan in the same village where my father was
born, the village where I had lived before being conscripted! (p. 119)
Richard
Kotoshirodo
http://michellemalkin.com/2004/08/06/book-notes-4/
Finally, in knocking down my
argument for the Roosevelt
administration’s military rationale, Greg focuses on a few of my points
and ignores the rest of the evidence of bona fide security threats that
I present to readers, including:
- the Niihau incident, in which a Japanese-American couple and a
Japanese permanent resident alien sided with a downed Japanese pilot in
a violent effort to take over a tiny Hawaiian island;
- Japan’s ascendance throughout the Southeast Asia, and the efforts of
ethnic Japanese residents throughout southeast Asia to assist Japan’s
conquering troops;
- the numerous attacks on U.S. ships by Japanese submarines just off
the West Coast;
- the thousands of ethnic Japanese in Hawaii and the West Coast who
were members of pro-Japan groups considered subversive;
- the Honolulu spy ring that Richard Kotoshirodo assisted, which
provided critical information to Japan that was used to design the
Pearl Harbor attack;
- the Los Angeles-based spy ring led by Itaru Tachibana, which included
numerous ethnic Japanese residents; and
- the thousands of U.S.-born Japanese-Americans who served in the
Japanese military.
See The Broken Seal: The Story of 'Operation
Magic' and the Pearl Harbor Disaster by
Farago for quite a lot of info, p. 145~.
Jimmy
Matsuda
Nisei Kamikaze: Sunnyvale Gardener
Recalls Life on
the Edge of Extinction
By editor.
Posted on Friday, September 11, 2009.
Published
in the Nichi Bei Times Weekly Sept. 3-9, 2009.
By KOTA MORIKAWA
Nichi Bei Times
Jimmy Matsuda, an 82-year-old
Japanese American gardener
in
Sunnyvale, Calif., had never talked about the experience he had as a
kamikaze pilot during World War II, until a small plastic figure of a
Japanese Zero plane caught his grandson Jonathan’s attention
two years
ago.
The then-11-year-old wondered what
the item on his
grandfather’s
desk was. After Jonathan asked his father about the airplane, the elder
Matsuda decided to talk about his wartime experience.
“I believed I should talk about my
life
story,” he said. “Otherwise,
our grandchildren will never know what happened.”
Born in Hood River, Ore., the Nisei
(second-generation
Japanese
American) visited Japan for Christmas vacation in 1938 at the age of
11. While there, he got sick and missed the ship returning to the
United States. His whole family decided to stay in Japan for good.
In April of 1943, after graduating
from high school,
Matsuda
volunteered to enlist in the Imperial Japanese Navy. Back then, Navy
pilots were already known to eventually become kamikaze pilots. Yet he
had no fear of certain death.
“The war atmosphere seemed
overwhelming,”
Matsuda said. “Everybody
was chanting for the war.”
Kamikaze missions are believed to
have started during
the war
in the
Philippines in 1944. It was a suicide attack on one of the U.S.
aircraft carriers in the Pacific. By the end of the war, more than
14,000 Japanese soldiers lost their lives in the suicide missions. Most
of them were pilots, some were human torpedoes, and some were body
attacks on tanks.
Matsuda recalled his mother telling
him before he left
home
for the
war, “If you die, the skull would go to Yasukuni Shrine so
don’t come
back alive. Don’t even think about becoming a POW, so that
you can
survive.”
Matsuda performed well in the
training camp. His only
obstacle
was
language. As English was his primary language, he had a hard time
adjusting to various dialects that the other soldiers spoke. He was
sometimes picked on as a result.
In August of 1945, the military
headquarters ordered
Matsuda’s unit
to go to Okinawa, which the U.S. military had invaded.
“It was a suicide mission by
airplane or running
into the tanks with
bombs to kill as much as possible,” he recalled.
However, Matsuda was ordered to
stay at the city of
Hakata in
Fukuoka Prefecture to translate the U.S. military code. While working
as a translator, the war ended. He still doesn’t know what
happened to
the rest of the Navy.
After the war, Matsuda worked for
the U.S. military as a
translator.
When the Korean War broke, he was ordered to go to Korea to fight. He
rejected the order by writing to then-U.S. president Harry Truman,
saying what he went through as a kamikaze pilot — that he had
seen
enough dead bodies, and did not want to kill anymore.
During the early 1950s Matsuda came
back to the United
States,
settled in California and married. He still works as a Japanese
gardener. In the recent years, he has volunteered to talk about his war
experience at the Santa Clara Valley Japanese Christian Church in
Campbell, where he and his wife go every Sunday.
Impressed by Matsuda’s story, one
of his
son’s friends decided to
film the former kamikaze talking about his experience. It is still in
production.
photo by Kota Morikawa/Nichi Bei
Times
***
Matsuda interview transcript to be posted
Matsumotos
Takeshi
(Japanese Army), Noboru (Japanese Army), Harue, Kaoru,
Shizue. See work by John Stephan for details. Brother, Roy Matsumoto,
was a US Army Ranger with Merrill's Marauders in Burma. Tsutomu Tom
Matsumoto was a MIS linguist and served in the Occupation of Japan. Per
article, MIS
Members with Brothers Serving in Japanese Imperial Forces during WWII:
Roy’s other two brothers, Isao
and Noboru, served in the Japanese military, Noboru in the artillery in
Guadalcanal and Hiroshi in China. Roy’s third brother in Japan worked
as a civilian for the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Kan Matsumura
From Hawaii Under the Rising Sun: Japan's Plans
for Conquest After Pearl Harbor by John Stephan:

Fumiye Miho
From Hawaii Under the Rising Sun: Japan's Plans
for Conquest After Pearl Harbor by John Stephan:

Yoshie "Johnny" Mikami
Taxi company owner in Honolulu. See The Broken Seal: The Story of 'Operation
Magic' and the Pearl Harbor Disaster by Farago, p. 146~.
Kay Kiyoshi Miura
Worked as interpreter and translator for the Japanese Consulate in
Hankow, China, then worked as announcer at a Japanese radio station in
Shanghai, then for War Crimes Office after the war. Nisei wife,
Toshiko, was also in Japan during the war. See details in this PDF
(courtesy of Frank Baldassarre).
Torao Morishige
From Hawaii Under the Rising Sun: Japan's Plans
for Conquest After Pearl Harbor by John Stephan:


Murada
(or Murata - same as Hisao Murata?)
Mentioned in this
article. Nisei Linguists has this:
The Hawaii Nisei well understood
that they would
have to fight against Japan, where many had family ties. Kenichi
Murata, thirty-four, told a reporter he already had one brother in the
U.S. Army, but also another brother “on the other side of the fence,”
working as a radio broadcaster in
Tokyo:
“I’m ashamed to admit that I have a brother dishing out Jap propaganda.
But both Jack, who’s in Louisiana, and I will try to wipe out that
shame by our record in the army. We’re going to shove all that
propaganda back down the throats of Tojo and the emperor and their
militarists.”
From Linda Holmes:
I scanned the indexes of Unjust Enrichment and Guests of the Emperor,
double-checking all Japanese names. I've come
up with just one positive ID of a Nisei who went out of his way to
abuse POWs, at the Mukden camp. He was Lt.
Murada, who had round eyes
and grew up in San Francisco. He is referred to by several ex-POWs, on
pp. 33, 38, 55, 76 and 93 of Guests
of the Emperor.
Mary
Muroya
Joyce
Hirohata, Paul T.
Hirohata - 2004 - 262 pages - Snippet
view
While Yamagata was a Russian POW,
his American-born Nisei wife, Mary Muroya, suffered
the fate of many civilian women waiting for repatriation to Japan.
She worked at menial jobs and taught English, and was once almost
raped... |
|
Jiro Nakahara
See webpage on Nakahara.
Kunio Nakatani
Was born in 1921 in central California and studied medicine at Keio
University, becoming quite a model student. He was drafted, then
trained to decipher code using his language skills. Became a crew
member on the battleship Yamato,
and died when the Yamato
was attacked and sank. Nakatani's two younger brothers both fought in
the American 442nd Regimental Combat Team in southern Europe.
Michael
S. Nakayama
Interpreter at Fukuoka POW Camp #21, Nakama. See NAKAYAMA_Michael_interpreter_FUK-21_Nakama
(PDF)
Genichiro Niimori
AKA "Panama Pete." Senior interpreter in Hong Kong. Excerpts from book,
Prisoner of the Turnip Heads: The Fall of
Hong Kong and the Imprisionment by the Japanese by
Wright-Nooth (2000). Trial case file here: http://hkwctc.lib.hku.hk/exhibits/show/hkwctc/documents/item/47
Nishi
Was at Fukuoka POW Camp #3, Yahata; born and raised in San Francisco
(per Terrence
Kirk in The
Secret Camera: A Marine's Story: Four Years as a POW).
Mitsugi
Nishikawa
From Japanese
American history: an A-to-Z Reference from 1868 to the Present
(Brian Niiya, editor):
See also Bamboo People, p. 281~.
See also this image series re Okimura, Kawakita, Nishikawa (Nisei in
J-military) - Asian Americans
and Supreme Court by Kim, in
PDF format.
Kay
Nishimura
From interview
with Mr. George Fujii for the Japanese
American Project of the Oral History:
Notes:
1.
According to one local historian, this earthquake "destroyed many
buildings and severely damaged the downtown [Orange County] areas of
Santa Ana, Garden Grove, and Anaheim, [and] twelve persons were
killed." See Pamela Hallan-Gibson, The Golden Promise: An Illustrated
History of Orange County (Northridge, Calif.: Windsor Publications,
1986), 205.
2. The late Orange County historian Leo Friis,
in Orange County Through Four Centuries (Santa Ana, Calif.: Pioneer
Press, 1965), 155, provided a vivid discussion of this incident.
Because Friis was Anaheim's city attorney during the World War II years
and closely connected with Orange County's civil defense effort, his
account of this alleged event merits repetition here.
Shortly after midnight on February 25, [1942], American radar posts
"reported an unidentified target about 120 miles west of the city of
Los Angeles." At 2:27 A.M. it was tracked within three miles of the
city and nine minutes later Orange County air raid sirens sounded.
Simultaneously, anti-aircraft guns in the Los Angeles Harbor area
commenced firing. Residents of much of Orange County could hear the
explosion of bursting shells and see the vivid red-orange balls of fire
popping from tracer bullets. On the following day Secretary of War
[Henry] Stimson announced that "as many as fifteen aircraft, probably
commercial planes," caused the air raid alarm. He theorized that they
were flown by enemy agents in an effort to discover the locations of
anti-aircraft batteries and to demoralize the civilian population. On
the other hand, Secretary of the Navy [Frank] Knox dubbed the whole
affair "a false alarm."... To this day the "Battle of Los Angeles" is a
mystery. Supposedly all civilian planes had been grounded since
December 7, [1941]. No bombs were dropped and no aircraft shot down
although some 1430 shells were fired. It is probable that the range of
the defending guns was inadequate.
3. The Meiji era in Japan
began on January 3, 1868, with the successful coup d'état against the
Tokugawa Shogunate by anti-shogunate forces and the restoration of the
emperor to the throne, and ended on July 12, 1912, with the death of
the Meiji emperor, Mutsuhito. These years witnessed the transformation
of Japan into a Western-style modern state and the emigration of large
numbers of Japanese to the Territory of Hawaii and the United States.
In the words of Stacey Hirose, in Brian Niiya, ed., Japanese American
History: An A-to-Z Reference from 1868 to the Present (New York: Facts
on File/Japanese American National Museum, 1993), 230, "Because most of
the issei [immigrant-generation Japanese Americans]... were raised
during this period, they brought with them and passed on to their nisei
children Meiji ideologies, values, manners and patterns of speech." The
subsequent Taisho Era, reigned over by Emperor Yoshihito, extended from
1912 until December 25, 1926. During these years, Japan continued along
the lines of modernization and Westernization begun in the Meiji
period, and followed policies generally congenial to Western powers
like the United States. Yoshihito was succeeded as emperor in 1926 by
his oldest son Hirohito, who had been appointed prince regent in 1921
when Yoshihito became mentally ill; Hirohito's ascent to the throne
officially launched the Showa Era.
4. For the background on and larger context of the Panay Incident, see
Michael Montgomery, Imperialist Japan: The Yen
to Dominate (London: Christopher Helm, 1987), 394-96, 424, and Edward
Behr, Hirohito: Behind the Myth (New York: Villard Books, 1989),
170-71, 244. This incident is covered in many other secondary sources,
but the two accounts mentioned here are both recent and succinct.
5.
A terse but very useful social-economic-historical account of this
island, located in San Pedro Bay some twenty-five miles south of
downtown Los Angeles, replete with pertinent bibliographic references,
can be found in Niiya, Japanese American History, 327.
6.
See ibid., 344, for an in-depth discussion, with suggested sources for
further reading, on the three-week period of "voluntary" relocation or
resettlement that transpired following the U.S. government's
announcement on March 2, 1942, that Japanese Americans would be
excluded from the West Coast.
7. See ibid., 294-95, for a
non-quantitative yet useful discussion (with references) to the
resettlement pattern of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Of
the some 2,000 people who comprised the Japanese American community in
Orange County at the outset of the Evacuation, about 1,500 left the
county from Huntington Beach and Anaheim on May 15 and May 17, 1942,
for the Poston War Relocation Center in Arizona. This number did not
include those Japanese Americans in the San Juan Capistrano area of the
county, about 40, who were evacuated from Oceanside in north San Diego
County. Then, too, approximately 450 Japanese Americans left Orange
County prior to April 30, 1942 (presumably, either as participants in
the short-lived "voluntary relocation" (see note 6 above) or as part of
the population evacuated to one of the nine War Relocation Authority
centers established in addition to Poston. See the letter, dated 26
August 1942, from Roy E. Black, Deputy Agricultural Commissioner,
Department of Agriculture, Orange County, to Dr. A. E. Leighton,
Coordinator, Bureau of Sociological Research, Colorado River War
Relocation Project, Poston, Arizona, Folder 52, Box 15, Collection
3830: Japanese-American Relocation Records [JARR], Department of
Manuscripts and University Archives-Cornell University Libraries
[DMUA-CUL]. This letter is contained in the joint files of Dr. Leighton
and Dr. Morris Opler, who served as the community analyst for the War
Relocation Authority at the Manzanar center, at Cornell University,
where both of these distinguished social scientists taught during the
post-World War II years. For an inventory of the holdings in this
collection of Evacuation materials, see D. Gesensway, M. Roseman, and
G. Solomon, Guide to the Japanese-American Relocation Centers Records,
1935-1953 (Ithaca, N. Y.: Department of Manuscripts and University
Archives, Cornell University Libraries, 1981).
The letter
from Black to Leighton cited above is also useful in that it provides
statistics as to the total acreage farmed by Japanese Americans in
Orange County prior to their evacuation (approximately 10,000-8,825
leased, 1,175 owned), including a crop-by-crop breakdown and
quantitative information on poultry and hog breeding activity. The
spirit of the time is powerfully conveyed in Black's concluding remark
to Leighton: "You will realize, of course, that considering the fact
that the source of this information was largely Japanese, we can not
guarantee its accuracy."
The Poston center, officially named
the Colorado River Relocation Center, was located in Yuma County,
Arizona; seventeen miles south of Yuma on the Colorado Indian
Reservation, it consisted of three camps: Poston I, Poston II, and
Poston III. Poston I, the largest and most studied of these camps
(whose total peak population of 17,814 made it the most populous of the
WRA's relocation centers), was opened on May 8, 1942, and closed on
September 29, 1949. Poston was under the joint supervision of the
Office of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, until January 1,
1944, when complete administration was assumed by the WRA. See, Niiya,
Japanese American History, 285-86, for a profile of the Poston center
and suggestions for further reading as to its history and demography.
Although
some of the interned population at Poston originating from Orange
County lived in the smaller two camps, the overwhelming majority lived
in the thirty-six blocks of barracks residences (each housing about
250-300 people) comprising Poston I. According to the late
anthropologist Edward H. Spicer, who served as Alexander Leighton's
assistant for the Bureau of Sociological Research at Poston before
accepting the position of head of the WRA's Community Analysis Section,
the ten contiguous Orange County-San Diego County blocks (5, 12, 21,
22, 27, 28, 37, 38, 43, 44) at Poston I should be "classified together
because of the similarity of economic, social, and cultural conditions
under which they lived [during the prewar period]." In addition, two
other blocks (6 and 11) contained a substantial number of former Orange
County residents. See Edward H. Spicer, "Statistical Survey: Blocks,"
Folder 63, Box 7, Coll. 3830, DMUA-CUL.
George Fujii resided
in Block 28 until spring 1943 when, following his marriage, he moved to
Block 27. According to one source, the reason for this move was a lack
of vacant living quarters for married couples in Block 28. See, "Block
#28," Folder 25, ibid. However, Fujii's change of residence is
explained quite differently in another primary document:
Nakase revealed today the circumstances
under which George Fujii, executive secretary of the Local Council, was
kicked out of block 28 recently. It appeared
that at the send-off party for the first contingent of volunteers for
the combat unit someone who worked in the subsistence departments
brought a hunk of meat to celebrate the occasion. Kinjo and two others
after the party accused the kitchen of using food which rightfully
belonged to block residents. The fellow who brought the meat denied it
saying, "It wasn't any of the stuff in the kitchen." They challenged
him: "Then where did you get it?" He answered: "That's none of your
business." They retorted: "Alright, we will report to Snelson." Kinjo
and his gang persuaded George Fujii to report the affair to Snelson.
When the kitchen crew heard of this they were indignant and called a
strike. To settle the matter George Fujii was transferred to block 27.
See
"Block 28 Politics," 20 July 1943, Folder J?, Colorado River Relocation
Center [CRRC], Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study
[JERS], Bancroft Library-University of California, Berkeley [BL-UCB].
For a guide to this extensive primary material, see Edward N. Barnhart,
comp., Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement: Catalog of
Material in the General Library (Berkeley, Calif.: University of
California General Library Berkeley, 1958).
10. This
seven-day general strike in the Poston I camp, extending from November
18-24, 1942, was precipitated by the beating on November 14, 1942, of a
Kibei inmate (Kay Nishimura, the former brother-in-law of George Fujii)
widely suspected among camp inmates of being an administrative
collaborator and FBI informer. It led to the arrest and jailing
(without formal charges filed against them) of Fujii and Isamu Uchida,
two popular interness. Ultimately, the strike—which never entailed the
curtailment of essential services or encompassed the Poston II and
Poston III camps—was terminated with key concessions to the strikers,
particularly in the area of self-government and Issei political
control, and the establishment of improved relations between the camp's
administration and imprisoned population. For the most thorough account
of the strike and the events leading up to it, see Alexander Leighton,
The Governing of Men: General Principles and Recommendations Based on
Experience at a Japanese Relocation Camp (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1945). The rich and varied primary materials upon
which this study was based derived from the Leighton-headed Bureau of
Sociological Research (BSR) at Poston. See fn. 8 above for the
bibliographical data pertaining to this invaluable collection's finding
aid at Cornell University. Many of these same documents are also
available in the Poston materials archived in the Japanese American
Evacuation and Resettlement collection at the Bancroft Library at the
University of California Berkeley (as cited in fn. 9 above); see, in
particular, Folders J 1.12, J 1.811, J 6.16C-D, J 6.18, and J 6.24
(which is a chronological account of the strike prepared by Tamie
Tsuchiyama). An influential revisionist assessment of the Poston Strike
is found in Gary Y. Okihiro, "Japanese Resistance in America's
Concentration Camps: A Re-evaluation," Amerasia Journal 2 (1973):
20-34. See also the trenchant entry on the Poston Strike in Niiya,
Japanese American History, 286, and the relevant sections of the
following three sources: Paul Bailey, City in the Sun: The Japanese
Concentration Camp at Poston, Arizona (Los Angeles: Westernlore Press,
1971); Toshio Yatsushiro, Politics and Cultural Values: The World War
II Japanese Relocation Centers and the United States Government (New
York: Arno Press, 1978); and Rita Takahashi Cates, "Comparative
Administration and Management of Five War Relocation Authority Camps:
America's Incarceration of Persons of Japanese Descent during World War
II" (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1980).
11. Kay
Nishimura lived in the bachelor barracks of Block 14 in the Poston I
camp, where he worked as a translator and interpreter for the Issei
Information Bureau and served on the Temporary Community Council. Born
in 1911 in Seattle, Washington, he lived in Japan for fifteen years,
before returning to Seattle in 1927 to complete his high school
education. After working as a business manager and
interpreter/translator for two Japanese American vernacular newspapers
in Seattle and Los Angeles, in 1940 Nishimura became a rice grower in
California's Imperial County. In the period between the Japanese attack
on Pearl Harbor and Nishimura's evacuation to Poston in May 1942, he
served as executive secretary for the Imperial County Citizens Welfare
Committee and as an interpreter and translator for the Federal Bureau
of Investigation, Immigration and Naturalization Service, in El Centro,
California. At 10:30 p.m., on November 14, 1942, Nishimura, while
asleep in his Block 14 quarters, "was assaulted by a gang of eight men
dressed in Samurai hoods and armed with pieces of pipe." See "Exhibit
F: Personnel Record of Kay Nishimura," 23 November 1942, Folder?, JERS,
BL-UCB. According to Alexander Leighton, Poston's reports officer,
Norris James, said that Nishimura "had been beaten and almost
killed,...[had] twenty-six stitches in his head [and] had been
semi-conscious all the next day." See "Series #12: Employment," Folder
6, Box 10, Coll. 3830, DMUA-CUL. Isamu Uchida, like George Fujii, was a
member of Poston I's Judo Club; a popular instructor, Uchida could
boast of having some 100 dedicated students and loyal supporters. As
with Fujii, also, Uchida resided in Block 28. This block was very
homogeneous in that about 90 percent of its nearly 250 people came from
the agricultural southern coastal region of California between Los
Angeles and San Diego, while twice as many of the residents were
Buddhists as against Christians. This block served as
the camp's "city center," in which were located the main canteen or
stores as well as the police department and the city jail—the focal
point for the Poston Strike (which was solidly supported by Block 28
residents). See "Block #28," Folder 32, Box 7, ibid. For contemporary
personality studies of Nishimura, Uchida, Fujii, see, respectively,
Folders 57, 82, and 13, Box 12, ibid. In order for researchers to gain
access to these studies, however, permission must be granted both by
the individuals involved (or their heirs) and Alexander Leighton, the
former head of Poston's Bureau of Sociological Research.
12.
See, for example, the watercolor "Poston Strike Rally" by Gene Sogioka
depicting the Rising Sun-like flag employed during the November 1942
uprising by Block 35 residents. Because Sogioka was employed by
Alexander Leighton's Bureau of Sociological Research, the original
watercolor is included within the Poston materials archived at Cornell
University, Mapcase drawers 1-7, ibid. A color copy of this painting
can be found in Deborah Gesensway and Mindy Roseman, Beyond Words:
Images from America's Concentration Camps (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press), 153, and a black-and-white version is reproduced in
Arthur A. Hansen's review of the Gesensway and Roseman volume,
"Representations of an Imprisoned Poston Past," Journal of Orange
County Studies 3/4 (Fall 1989/Spring 1990): 105.
13. Kay
Nishimura and George Fujii were both members of the Temporary Community
Council (TCC), which was comprised (by WRA fiat) entirely of Nisei and
Kibei-Nisei (i.e., American citizens). Issei mockingly designated it
the "Child's Council" (the average age of its representatives was 31.2
years); for them, it symbolized the creation of an artificial Nisei
leadership at the expense of their natural community and cultural
predominance. While the abolition of this council and its replacement
with one whose membership was open to citizens and non-citizens alike
was certainly one of the objectives (and outcomes) of the Poston
Strike, the roles played by Nishimura and Fujii on the TCC do not, in
fact, seem to have been an "important" factor in the strike. See,
Edward H. Spicer, "Political Organization of Poston I" (25 September
1942), 7-10.
Fujii, in point of fact, was released
unconditionally on the afternoon of November 20, 1942, because of a
lack of evidence. Isamu Uchida, on the other hand, was not set free at
this time because the Poston administration felt that it had strong
evidence of his guilt. Between Fujii's release and the termination of
the strike on November 24, the striking population's chief bone of
contention was that Uchida be tried in camp by his peers instead of
being prosecuted for attempted murder in Yuma County, Arizona (i.e.,
outside the camp where, it was argued, no Japanese could get a fair
trial). The ultimate disposition of the Uchida case is clarified in a
12 June 1943 teletype sent from Poston's director W. Wade Head to
Dillon Myer, the WRA's national director:
RE: ISAMU UCHIDA. HE WAS DELIVERED INTO THE CUSTODY OF THE U.S. MARSHAL
IN YUMA BY ME PERSONALLY FOLLOWING THE STRIKE IN POSTON. A HEARING WAS
HELD BEFORE THE COMMISSIONER AND UCHIDA WAS RELEASED FOR LACK OF
SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE. ON HIS RELEASE HE WAS RETURNED TO THIS PROJECT.
LATER, HEARINGS WERE HELD HERE BY ME AND THE ENTIRE EVIDENCE
ACCUMULATED AGAINST UCHIDA WAS GONE INTO AND FOUND IT WAS NOT
SUBSTANTIAL NOR COMPLETE ENOUGH FOR CONVICTION.
See Folder J 1.14, CRRC, JERS, BL-UCB.
15.
In the words of Tamie Tsuchiyama, a University of California, Berkeley,
doctoral candidate in Anthropology who served as a field
researcher/participant-observer for Alexander Leighton's Bureau of
Sociological Research and Dorothy Swaine Thomas's Evacuation and
Resettlement Study, "I signed the petition along with the rest of the
people without full knowledge of the situation. In fact, I had to sign
it, for fear that not doing so would class me as an undesirable
pro-administration individual in the eyes of the block residents." See
Tamie Tsuchiyama, "Aftermath of the Strike," Folder J 6.18, ibid.
16.
That the arrest and jailing of Fujii and Uchida were but the visible
outward manifestation of the underlying grievances and dissatisfactions
of the Poston I population is a point that is made pervasively in the
relevant primary documents on the Poston Strike. On the other hand,
Fujii's intriguing explanation about the communication gap between
Poston's administration and interned population that allegedly was
created by Kibei translators and interpreters does not assume saliency
in these same sources.
page 103
17. At the time of the
Poston Strike, according to Alexander Leighton, in The Governing of
Men, 164, Isamu Uchida, like George Fujii, was twenty-seven. Leighton,
ibid, drew comparative portraits of the two suspects:
He [George Fujii] was a Buddhist, single, aged 27, and a Kibei, but he
spoke English well and was popular with numerous Niseis, Isseis and
members of the Administration as well as other Kibeis. He had completed
high school in Japan and had then gone to the University of Southern
California for two years to study foreign trade. His family were
wealthy and operated a large restaurant in a town in California.
In appearance, he was small, well-built, and exceedingly neat in dress.
His manner was quiet, unobtrusive and friendly and almost all who knew
him agreed that he was a very likable person. He took his
responsibilities to the community seriously and seemed cooperative and
well disposed toward the Administration.
One of his sisters [Fumi] had been married to and then divorced from
the victim of the beating [Kay Nishimura] and there was considerable
hostile feeling between the two men.
The other man [Isamu Uchida] was also a Kibei, single and aged 27, but
he
spoke very little English and was unknown to the Administration. The
son of a farmer in California, he had received in Japan a fourth-grade
rating in judo which is considered extremely high. Prior to evacuation
he had been a judo instructor and after arriving in Poston he had
continued in that activity at the Judo Club under the auspices of the
Department of Adult Education.
He was not widely known to the Poston residents but moved among close
friends,
neighbors, the Goh Club, and his associates in judo. Because of his
high judo rating, he enjoyed a good deal of prestige and was the leader
of a group of younger men who were principally his students. Although
he had a brother in the American Army, his own attitude was one of
dislike toward the United States.
As far as the attack [on Nishimura] was concerned, there was no
evidence that
he had had anything to do with it, but there were considerable
circumstantial data indicating that he had participated in one of the
previous beatings.
18. Camouflage net factories were
established at two other WRA camps, Manzanar and Gila River, aside from
Poston. These "war work" industries were contracted by the Army to a
private firm, Southern California Glass Company, and only citizen
interness were permitted to work in them. In all three cases, these
factories were productive, profitable for the company and its
employees, and provoked strife among the interned population that led
to their being shut down. Apart from contemporary studies by WRA
community analysts and field workers for the University of
California-sponsored Evacuation and Resettlement Study, this ironic
facet of the Japanese American Evacuation experience has not been
systematically studied.
19. For corroboration of this
charge, see Richard S. Nishimoto, "Gambling at Poston," Folder J 6.09,
CRRC, JERS, BL-UCB. This essay will appear in an edited anthology that
Lane Ryo Hirabayashi is preparing on Nishimoto's ethnographic role at
the Poston center for the Bureau of Sociological Research and the
Evacuation and Resettlement Study. For a preliminary analysis of that
role, see Lane Ryo Hirabayashi and James Hirabayashi, "The `Credible'
Witness: The Central Role of Richard S. Nishimoto in JERS," in Yuji
Ichioka, ed., Views from Within: The Japanese Evacuation and
Resettlement Study (Los Angeles: Asian American Studies Center,
University of California, Los Angeles, 1989), 65-95.
20. In
the words of Kiyoshi Shigekawa, the evacuee police chief at Poston I
and a resident of Orange County-dominated Block 21, "We came in on May
15th [1942].... We were the early arrivals, the same as some of the
volunteers. That's why we got so many of the $19.00 [per month,
professional scale] jobs. At one time we [Block 21 residents] had the
largest number of policemen in camp. I was asked to organize the police
department; naturally I chose many from my block." See "Block 21,"
Folder 21, Box 7, Coll. 3830, DMUA-CLC.
21. For a discussion
of the role of the military police at the WRA centers, see Reagan Jack
Bell, "Interned Without: The Military Police at the Tule Lake
Relocation/Segregation Center, 1942-46" (Master's thesis, California
State University, Fullerton, 1989).
22. According to the entry on "newspapers" in Niiya, Japanese American
History, 252, "the mass removal and detention
of all West Coast Japanese Americans put a halt on the major Japanese
American papers—for a few, the halt would be permanent. Several papers
that published inland kept going through the war—the Pacific Citizen,
...[the] Rocky Shimpo, the Utah Nippo, and the Colorado Times. " The
Pacific Citizen, the official organ of the Japanese American Citizens
League, and the Utah Nippo were published in Salt Lake City, Utah,
while the Rocky Shimpo, which was also published under the prior name
of the Rocky Nippon, and the Colorado Times, were issued out of Denver,
Colorado.
23. Question 27 on the Army form that every male
citizen of military service age was required to complete stated: "Are
you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat
duty, wherever ordered?" For a detailed discussion of the loyalty
registration crisis of February 1943 at the WRA centers, see the entry
on "loyalty questions" in Niiya, Japanese American History, 217-19.
24.
On April 13, 1944, Dorothy Swaine Thomas, the director of the
Evacuation and Resettlement Study, wrote a letter to one of that
project's researchers at Poston, Richard Nishimoto, in which she said:
In your Journal, April 6 [1944]...I note that only around half of the
fund that was collected for George Fujii was necessary for getting him
out on bail, and so on, and I am curious to know what happens to the
balance of the fund under these circumstances. I am interested in the
great number of voluntary contributions that are received from time to
time for one cause or another. In view of the low wage scale, these
contributions seem to me to be very great.
In reply to Thomas's inquiry, Nishimoto
wrote the following answer on April 18, 1944:
Re: Fujii donation. The "Friends of Fujii" expected a collection of
about $2,500 from the three Units [Poston I, II, and III] originally.
They were quite skeptical even for this amount, because of grumblings
of the community toward the proposed drive when the news had gotten
around prematurely. The figure of $2,500 was agreed on in its first
meeting thus:
One thousand dollars for attorney's fee
for trial in the Circuit Court.
Five hundred dollars for obtaining documents for appeal to a higher
court. (They expected Fujii to lose his case in the Phoenix Court.)
One thousand dollars for attorney's fee
in the District Court of Appeal.
There was a question, then, of taking the case to the Supreme Court.
But the expense for such a move, it was decided, would be raised at a
later date when an appeal to the Supreme Court becomes necessary. Later
the committee agreed to bail Fujii out, because the result of the drive
was much more than anticipated.
True, with other donations, residents could not very well to refuse to
chip
in when Yushi [leaders] of a block went around and appealed to them
face-to-face. Especially in Fujii's case the residents were afraid to
refuse to donate for a fear that they might be regarded by others as
"anti-social" or "anti-Japanese." They are afraid of consequences from
their refusals.... I suspect only a small number of people donated
conscientiously agreeing with the purpose of the Fujii drive.
For this exchange between Thomas and Nishimoto, see Folder J?, CRRC,
JERS, BL-UCB.
25.
Documentation for this incident, including numerous press clippings, is
sprinkled throughout the pages of the journal that Richard Nishimoto
kept for the Evacuation and Resettlement Study. See, in particular,
Folder J 6.15B, ibid.
26. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945. Leighton's precise language on
this point, 227, is as follows:
For a time following the strike, the Judo Instructor was a hero and he
spoke of doing something for the community by taking a gang out to work
on some of the projects, such as irrigation construction, where it had
been hard to secure men. He did this for a while and contributed much
help, but in time trouble occurred between his followers (nearly all of
the aggressive Kibei type) and others. They participated in several
other kinds of work and then joined the fire department, but wherever
they went there seemed to be friction with the other residents and with
government employees. The Judo Instructor seemed to sink lower and
lower in the esteem of the community, and many of those who had most
ardently followed the symbol he had represented came to feel "very
disappointed." Had he died, or been taken away by force during the
strike, he probably would still be a shining light of martyrdom, but
since neither of these happened, people began to see him in his true
proportions. He eventually went to the Tule Lake [Segregation] Center.
What
Leighton, 226, 227, notes in his pioneering study of Poston about what
happened to George Fujii and Kay Nishimura following the November 1942
strike is also worth quoting at length.
[George Fujii] The member of the Judicial Commission, whose plight as a
prisoner had been one of the factors that set the strike going, was a
friend and confidant of the new [Temporary Community] Council [of
Poston I] Chairman and became Secretary to the second Council and to
the ultimately established Permanent Council. He was particularly
interested in the construction of the schools and did much to promote
community interest in them. Later on he became Chairman of the Police
Commission and then one of the three trustees for the Trust Fund.
He was one of those Kibeis who, instead of displaying reactions of
maladjustment and aggression, seemed to use his marginal position
between American and Japanese culture quietly and consistently to bring
the poles in Poston closer together, to promote better understanding
among Isseis, Niseis and Administration and to work for just and
fair-minded solutions to the community's major problems. There were
several such in the Council and the Central Executive Board and in
other places, and their influence in the post-strike period was very
important.
[Kay Nishimura] The victim of the beating, the forgotten man in all the
turmoil, left camp as soon as
he had recovered from his wounds and no more was heard of him.
28.
The Lockheed Incident, in which high-ranking Japanese government
officials and corporate officers were accused of perjury and bribery
charges in connection with peddling influence on behalf of Lockheed, is
covered briefly, 270-71, by David Boulton in The Grease Machine (New
York: Harper & Row, 1978). Boulton's book was originally
published
in Great Britain under the title of The Lockheed Papers.
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--------------------
Also mentioned in 日
本軍兵士になったアメリカ人たち 母国と戦った日系二世, chap. 2 (Americans who became soldiers of Japanese
military - Nisei who fought against their motherland).
Eiichi Noda
See his Tokyo
trial review PDF (esp. p9) and this Oct. 23,
1947 newspaper article re Noda's sentencing.
From NARA pamphlet, RESEARCHING
JAPANESE WAR CRIMES: INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS:
Other documents drawn from the
Hoten prisoners’ experiences are also
available. After their liberation, former POWs at the camp completed
questionnaires that documented the atrocities they suffered or
witnessed. Though not all
POWs held at Camp Hoten were aware of the atrocities committed against
other
captives, some were eyewitnesses to the executions of comrades, and the
majority claimed to
have either experienced or observed beatings by Japanese guards. Many
testimonies
and affidavits, collected in part by Donovan’s recovery team, describe
the behavior of
Lt. Miki Toru and Corporal—later Sergeant—Noda Eiichi, two of the most
infamous of
Camp Hoten officials. The testimonies of American POWs led to the
prosecution of
Miki in 1946 and Noda in 1947. Both Miki’s and Noda’s trial records are
also
available in the SCAP records (RG 331).
Because of his background, Noda’s case is particularly interesting. A second-generation Japanese American,
Noda was one of the most notorious abusers of Allied POWs at Camp
Hoten. Affidavits and transcripts of U.S. POW testimonies
can be found in his prosecution file. Based on evidence gathered from
former
U.S. POWs, he was tried as a Japanese war criminal in Yokohama, Japan,
in
September 1947. Citing his participation in the unlawful killing of at
least four men and the
beating of countless others, prosecutors charged Noda with violating
the laws and customs of
war. The court found Noda guilty on all ten counts of abusing
prisoners, though not of
participating in certain activities that led to the death of four of
them. It
sentenced him to twenty years’ imprisonment. One of the more
interesting documents in Noda’s
legal file is a clemency petition that is supported by remarks from an
American POW
whom Noda befriended in Hoten.
Fayal affidavit re
Noda (JPG)
?? Nonin, son of Kuwaichi Nonin
From Hawaii Under the Rising Sun: Japan's Plans
for Conquest After Pearl Harbor by John Stephan:

Haruo Okada
See IMTFE
Review PDF, pp. 2, 33, 43; also his sister, Hiroka or Hiroko was in Japan, born
in Pacific City, WA, p. 36.
Haruo Okada (age 27) born in US,
graduated from Auborn High School,
came to Japan in 1939.
Kiyokura
Okimura
Possibly the same as Kikukuro Okumura (Okamura?) in Bamboo People, p.370, 372
See also this image series re Okimura, Kawakita, Nishikawa (Nisei in
J-military) - Asian Americans
and Supreme Court by Kim, in
PDF format. Mentioned in this article.
Onishi
Nisei interpreter at Fukuoka POW Camp #2 (Nagasaki). Note the interest
of the Japanese personnel in having Fujita "join their side." Per Foo
Fujita's book:
We had nisei interpreters in this
camp who, like many, many, other nisei, were caught in Japan when the
war broke out and were forced into the service of Japan even though
they were American citizens; in many cases they did not fare much
better than we POWs. The oldest one of these was the chief interpreter,
a guy by the name of Onishi, from San
Diego, California.
He came to me and told me to have all my gear packed and be ready to
leave. I asked him where I was going and if anyone else was going
along. He told me that I was the only one going and that I was being
sent to Tokyo and he thought that it might possibly have something to
do with propaganda. I thought that he knew that I was going to be
executed and was only trying to allay my fears by mentioning the
propaganda aspect. I was convinced that "Sgt. Teeth" was correct and
the fact that no one besides me was going convinced me of this. I felt
that my days on this earth were truly numbered and so I went to the
officer's room and called for Lt. Allen and asked to speak with him and
Maj. Horrigan, the senior American officer in camp, and then proceeded
to tell them what was about to happen and that I felt that the Japanese were going to make
one final attempt to get me to join their side or else.
Harley Ozaki (Toyonishiki)
From Wikipedia:
Toyonishiki
Kiichiro (3 February 1920 - 26 September 1998) was a Japanese-American
sumo wrestler who joined the sport shortly before World War II. He was
one of the first foreign-born wrestlers to reach the top makuuchi
division.
He was born as Harley Ozaki in Pierce, Colorado,
although he was to list Chikujo, Fukuoka as his birthplace on the
banzuke ranking sheets. He joined Dewanoumi stable in January 1938. He
had been introduced to the stable by a relative during a visit to
Japan. Initially he knew nothing about sumo, assuming that the sand
covered clay dohyo was made of concrete.
He was the fifth
Japanese-American in sumo and the first to reach elite sekitori status.
He never had a losing score in his eight years in sumo. He was promoted
to the second juryo division in January 1943 and reached the top
makuuchi division in May 1944. He scored six wins against four losses,
but this was to be his last tournament before being drafted into the
Japanese army.
He still had American citizenship and had really
wanted to fight for the United States, but as he could not return to
the US he agreed to change his citizenship at the urging of the Japan
Sumo Association. He adopted the Japanese name of Kiichiro Ozaki.
He
survived the war but decided not to return to sumo, believing he could
make a better living as an interpreter. He regained his US citizenship
and in his later years ran a ryokan (inn) in Tokyo with his wife.
Per Asahi News article (11-22-2022):
Toyonishiki,
the first Sekitori of U.S. nationality, second-generation
Japanese-American, under surveillance, drafted... tumultuous history
Toyonishiki was born Kiichiro Ozaki in Colorado, U.S.A., in 1920. When
he was 17 years old, he came to Japan and joined the Dewanoumi stable,
where he won many matches with his 187-cm height and springy movements.
However, when the Pacific War broke out in 1941, he was watched by the
Special Higher Police, and on the advice of his stablemaster, he became
a Japanese citizen. He was drafted into the former army and worked as a
monitor and translator for U.S. radio broadcasts. After the war, he ran
an inn in Tokyo. His military service in Japan was a stumbling block,
and he was only able to return to his home country 15 years after the
war ended. From 1993, he lived in the town of Chikujo (Fukuoka Pref.),
where he died in 1998 at the age of 78.
George
Y. Ozasa
From Bamboo People by Chuman,
starting on p. 381?:
Richard
Sakakida
Perhaps could be called an undercover double agent, would make for a good comparative
study of how citizenship change worked. Interesting
chapter on him here:
Quite a bit on him, including what Roger Mansell had (sakakida19.htm):
More from GoogleBooks:
See this here for more Nisei names:
From Nisei Linguists:
Footnote 22: To avoid
complications, some Nisei renounced their
Japanese
citizenship before they traveled to Japan. Richard Sakakida’s mother
did this in the summer of
1941 on behalf of her son after he secretly enlisted in the Army and
was sent to the Philippines.
Richard Sakakida and Wayne S. Kiyosaki, A Spy in Their Midst (Lanham,
Md.: Madison Books, 1995),
pp. 137–38.
From a review of Nisei Linguists:
In fact, the story of the Nisei
linguists extends from before the Second World War until the end of the
Cold War. As McNaughton notes, the CIC had sent two Nisei officers,
Arthur Komori and Richard Sakakida, under cover into Manila in the
spring of 1941 to gather intelligence on Japanese fifth-column activity
in the US colony.
FOOTNOTE: Sakakida related his wartime exploits to his brother-in-law,
Wayne Kiyosaki, who wrote A Spy in
Their Midst: The World War II
Struggle of a Japanese-American Hero (1995). An unclassified
review of this book appeared in Studies
in Intelligence 40, no. 2 (1996).
Sydney Sako
Web Posted: 09/26/2009 12:00
CDT
As a Soviet prisoner of war in
World War II, Seiichi Sakamoto was
far different from the other Japanese soldiers.
The Texas-reared soldier graduated
at the top of his
class at
South
San Antonio High School and was a very proud Aggie.
Sydney Sako, who changed his name
when he became an
American
citizen, served in the U.S. Air Force and later taught at the Defense
Language Institute at Lackland AFB. A former president of the
Japanese-American Society who helped in the Japanese booth at the Texas
Folklife Festival, Sako died Wednesday of heart failure. He was 91.
“He still was a kind, gentle,
understanding person,
even with what
he went through,” said his daughter, Naomi Maulden.
Although he was born in Japan, his
parents had lived in
the
United
States for years and came to Texas when they returned from Japan. The
young man graduated two years early from South San High School in 1934
as valedictorian, and decided to attend Texas A&M.
After college, he wanted to learn
Japanese and become a
missionary.
In 1940, he used his savings and traveled to Tokyo, where he enrolled
in a special school for American-born Japanese who wanted to learn the
language.
The following year, Japan attacked
Pearl Harbor, and he
was
drafted
into the Japanese army in 1943. After he finished his physical
training, he was sent to Harbin, a city in northeastern China, for
Russian language training.
Russian forces captured Harbin in
1945 and took
thousands of
Japanese soldiers as prisoners. Sako was sent to a labor camp in
Siberia. Released as a Japanese POW five years later, he returned to
Japan.
He made his way to Tokyo and wanted
to report to
American
counterintelligence his observations of Soviet construction projects in
Siberia. When he entered the intelligence building, he entered an
elevator and saw a familiar face inside: one of his brothers, in an
American uniform.
His mother sent him the money he
needed to return home.
His
application to become a citizen was denied, but he was allowed to join
the Air Force. Racial restrictions on immigrations were abolished in
1952, and he was naturalized two years later and changed his name.
A year after he became a citizen, a
chaplain introduced
him to
an
interpreter who became his wife, and in 1956, they returned to the
United States.
Sako worked 32 years as a language
instructor with the
Defense
Language Institute and Officer Training School at Lackland.
In November 1991, the local A&M
Club named him
Aggie
of the
Month.
Iwao
Peter Sano
Iwao Peter Sano,
a California Nisei, sailed to Japan in 1939 to become an adopted son to
his childless aunt and uncle. He was fifteen and knew no Japanese. In
the spring of 1945, loyal to his new country, Sano was drafted in the
last levy raised in the war. Sent through Korea to join the Kwantung
Army in Manchuria, Sano arrived in Hailar, one hundred miles from the
Soviet border, as the war was coming to a close. In the confusion that
resulted when the war ended, Sano had the bad luck to be in a unit that
surrendered to the Russians. It would be nearly three years before he
was released to return to Japan. Sano's account of life in the
POW and labor camps of Siberia is the story of a little-known part of
the great conflagration that was World War II. It is also the poignant
memoir of a man who was always an outsider, both as an American youth
of Japanese ancestry and then as a young Japanese man whose loyalties
were suspect to his new compatriots.
Also mentioned in 日
本軍兵士になったアメリカ人たち 母国と戦った日系二世, chap. 2
(Americans who became soldiers of
Japanese military - Nisei who fought against their motherland).
James Sasaki
Born in Japan, set up radio transmitter, spy?
Discussed in Unbroken.
See also his Tokyo
trial record (PDF). Was at Ofuna
Interrogation Center
as interpreter and translator; includes various testimonies re his
actions, including by
Zamperini.
Was spy per Zamperini's book, Devil At My Heels; see many
references
to him there in that book; excerpts in PDF:
Samuel
Shinohara
Shinohara mentioned in Roger Mansell's guam war trials.wpd
Worst collaborator was Shinohara, Ben Cook and "Ozone." (Who was Ozone?)
All agreed the worst collaborators were T. Shinohara, Mrs K. Sawada,
J.K. Shimizu and D.K. Takano.
Thomas Cruz Oka- charges of collaboration dismissed
Samuel Takekuma Shinohara file-
1966
entry- ship owned by his company (Tenyo Maru) entered Apra Harbor
unannounced- spied on Polaris Missile sub- probably for the Russians.
He
was tried, sentenced to death by hanging- lowered to 15 years-
transferred to Japan for internment but paroled in 1951. He was allowed
to re-enter Guam 26 June 1961. He was employed as a sales agent for
Nissho Sangyo Kabushiki Kaisho, Tokyo. He worked for the company that
owned the ship.
Here are the charges against him -- scans of these in SHINOHARA TRIAL
folder:
From War Crimes Trials affidavit:

From:
http://users.ap.net/~burntofferings/adsusmc_guam_parttwo.html
The local Chamorro people got along well with members of the Marine
Corps. Every once in a while, though, there was a snag in these
relationships. Any Asiatic Marine, officer or enlisted man who wanted
to marry a local girl, had to have the permission of his commanding
officer. Permission wasn't generally given. Another good example of how
relationships can sour comes from a letter dated Nov. 15, 1936:
I think I had the worst scare in my life last night in the capital
city. Another Marine and myself were in a place called "Shinohara's"
eating chow, so as the meal progressed we noticed natives going into
the men’s washroom and not coming out. After we had finished we went
outside and were shooting the breeze when out of nowhere drops two
patrolmen and goes upstairs and barges in on the men’s washroom and
puts everyone under arrest. The natives were shooting craps which is a
very serious offence and draws about $50 fine and 6 months in the civil
jail. My friend and I separated after they had taken the natives to
jail to answer questions. I was just looking the town over and in the
meantime the eight natives were released to come back Monday and appear
at the island court. After they left the jail they started looking for
our friend "Chad" and found me walking in a very dark alley and, as
sure as I write this, they were going to cut my throat. Their only
thought was that my friend and I being the only ones eating in
Shenohara's had left and tipped the patrolmen off as to the dice game.
I talked for fully an hour before I convinced them I was innocent.
For those readers who want a third example of a troubled Guam
relationship, fast forward ten years until just after the end of World
War Two. Restaurant owner Takekuna (Samuel) Shinohara
was found guilty at his collaborator trial of "treasonous behavior,"
and sentenced to eight years in Tokyo's Sugamo Prison.
Jerry Suzuki
See this PDF file that mentions Suzuki on pg. 10 and others who were in
Japanese Army: Wataru
Misaka - Philippines - Jerry Suzuki
Clifton Takamura
Kamikaze pilot, Chiran Base. Crashed his Zero into the USS Missouri
during battle for Okinawa. This article
courtesy of John Stephan.
James Takeuchi
Nisei? interpreter in Taiwan:

Hanama Harold Tasaki
From Hawaii Under the Rising Sun: Japan's Plans
for Conquest After Pearl Harbor by John Stephan:


Kei Tateishi
Per this
article:
Journalist; during the war, worked for Domei News Agency as a
translator. Later worked
for Time magazine and the Associated Press. Article quotes him as
saying, "... perhaps
thousands of Nisei were forced to serve in Japan's army and navy. But
the exact number may never be known because the Japanese government did
not record evidence of dual citizenship when it conscripted them."
Iva
Ikuko Toguri
Probably
the most well-known of all Nisei in Japan. She referred
to herself as: "Orphan Ann(ie)," "your little playmate, Ann," "your
favorite little enemy, Ann," "your sworn enemy," "your bitter enemy,
Ann." There is an immense amount of archival material on her, not to
mention all the books and online chapters on her life, e.g. here.
See transcripts of her broadcasts (rose1a.pdf)
where she refers to the listeners as "my enemies the Orphans of the
South Pacific," "a programme of dangerous and wicked propaganda for my
victims in Australia and the South Pacific," "my Boneheads in the South
Pacific... I'm lulling their senses before I annihilate them with my
nail file," "Dangerous enemy propaganda, so beware!" Much other info in
rose1b.pdf
and rose1c.pdf
files. Also rosecourt.pdf
court summary.
NOTE: These have been compiled into Iva Toguri FBI files. This section excerpted: Henshaw interview - list of POWs at Bunka Camp - pages 8-19.
See also: US vs Toguri trial documents (includes photos at end)
Other Nisei with her (total of 12?) -- from They Called Her Tokyo Rose by
Gunn:
Re Bunka Camp, known as Surugadai Gijitsu Kenkyusho
(Surugadai Research Institute): see TOGURI
DAQUINO v UNITED STATES - US Court of Appeals 1950
Nisei friends of Iva's who were at Waseda Int'l Institute:
Chiyeko Ito
Yoniko Matsunaga
Excerpts from Gunn's book (PDF): DeWolfe memo re Toguri (2
pages) and re Toguri citizenship (3 pages)
Excerpts from Treason on the Airwaves: Three Allied
Broadcasters on
Axis Radio during World War II by Judith Keene (2008):
- Issei and Nisei ties to Japan
- hundreds of Nisei working for J-media
- several hundred Nisei at Radio Tokyo
- re Toguri and Nisei giving up
citizenship
Broadcasts can be found here: https://archive.org/details/TokyoRose
See also EarthStation1.com's Radio Propaganda Page: "Orphan Ann" ("Tokyo Rose")
Additional info in Tokyo Rose / An American Patriot: A Dual
Biography
by Frederick Close -- Toguri was not "a villain or a traitor," only a
"flawed human being." For those interested in reading about "debunking
the myth," see Tokyo Rose: Orphan of the Pacific
by Masayo Duus.
Related treason case in the US regarding the three Shitara sisters can be found
at: Prosecution of the Shitara Sisters.
Another article here, in four parts: Betrayal on Trial: Japanese American
"Treason" in World War II.
Names of officials and employees associated with Radio Tokyo, or sought out after the war by the FBI for possible interviews:
Abbeg, Lilly - Swiss broadcaster
Domoto,
Kaji - Nisei;
graduated from Amherst College; lived in Japan from 1925; was in
contact with the Emperor's household; after Uno, took over senior
civilian position at Bunka Camp in early 1945 and became main interpreter; helped POWs; Foo
Fujita quoted Domoto as saying, "America is a very bad nation. They
have no respect for life and are a bunch of muderers."
Fujimuro, Nobuo - listed in Streeter PDF
Fujiwara, Katherine - typist
Furuya,
Mieko - born in
Calif.; became Japanese citizen; typist and broadcaster on Zero Hour
(Feb.-May 1945); sometimes substituted for Toguri; later married
Kenkichi Oki
Hayakawa, Ruth Sumiko -
native of Fukuoka, Japan, but lived in the US from childhood
through college; usually replaced Toguri on Sundays after Toguri became
a
broadcaster; suspected of being a Kenpeitai agent; Uno stated that the
Zero Hour "featured Miss Ruth Hayakawa as Tokyo Rose"; "soft voice and
Boston accent"... probably the "Tokyo Rose" GI's remembered as she had
the soft and sweet voice; after the war
worked as interpreter for the Commanding General
of the US Army in Fukuoka
SAME PERSON?: A Ruth Sumiko
Kacho is mentioned in MICHI KAWAI, JAPANESE EMIGRANTS AND NISEI
by Tomoko Ozawa
(2015): "'I applied for a position at the Overseas Broadcasting Station
Radio Tokyo as an English announcer and was hired in March of 1943.'
After working for the radio station, Kacho entered the American
Department of the Ministry of Trade and Industry in Occupied Japan."
Hayasaki, Edward H. -
doctor called in to administer shots at Bunka Camp; Per Mark Streeter:
"Hayasaki laughingly said he was only a horse doctor."
( Higuchi, Mary Kazuko -
born on Maui Island; arrived in Japan in 1935; affiliated with Radio
Tokyo; returned to Hawaii in June 1941; worked with FCC)
Higuchi, Mary Morris - Eurasian; worked with NHK overseas bureau 1940-1945; typed some of the radio scripts
Hirakawa, "Joe"
Tadaichi - born in Okayama, moved to Portland, OR, in 1919, then to
Seattle; returned to Japan Oct. 1937; worked at NHK, replaced Ikeda as
chief of broadcasting section
?( Hirakawa, Yuichi - chief announcer of the English division) <-- same as above?
Hishikari, Takabune - replaced "silly giggling" Count Ikeda as Bunka camp director
Hiyoshi, Naomichi - listed in Streeter PDF
Hollingsworth, Reggie - German broadcaster; looked and talked like an Englishman
Hyuga, Seizo David - along with Domoto, was in contact with the Emperor's household and would pass information to Cousens
Igarashi, Shinjiro - radio announcer for Radio Tokyo from Nov. 1943 to Aug. 1945
Ikeda, Norizane - chief
of broadcasting section; was instructed to research ways to influence
Pres. Roosevelt, also to watch for news re wild fires on the US West
Coast as a result of
the balloon bombs from Japan; was later replaced by Joe Tadaichi; was
in Australia when war broke out and subsequently interned for a short
time
Ikeda, Yukio "Count"? - became associated with Radio Tokyo in May 1944; head of Personnel Section at Radio Tokyo 1944-45
Ishii, Kenneth - announcer for Radio Tokyo; sister is Mary Ishii; worked for Reuters after the war
Ishii, Mary - half
Japanese, half English; broadcaster on Zero Hour (June-July 1945);
spoke with a British accent as some listeners claimed Tokyo Rose did,
and she too replaced Toguri at various times; brother is Ken Ishii
Ito, Chieko (Chiyeko) - at 18 years of age, accompanied Toguri to Japan in 1941
Kabayama, Count - Per
Mark Streeter: "Count Kabayama’s connection with Bunka was in an
advisory capacity to the other Japanese authorities. Count Kabayama
spoke perfect English, having been educated at Oxford in England and
having spent a great deal of time in the Unites States. The Kabayama
family was on of the most influential in Japan."
Kanzaki, Yoneko - Nisei; broadcast from Radio Tokyo on the "German Hour"
Kato, Margaret - brought up in London
Kojima, Taisaku - listed in Streeter PDF
Kuroishi, Yoshio Edward
Matsuda, Emi - Japanese Foreign Office employee with dual citizenship
Matsunaga, Yoneko Ruth
"Toots" - introduced records on the German Hour; said the Japanese
forced her to work as a torpedo painter and later as a broadcaster
<--CONFIRM NOT SAME AS ABOVE KANZAKI, YONEKO
M(N?)iino, Hiroshi
Mino, Kan
Mitsushio, George Hideo (aka George Nakamoto)
- born in San Francisco, Calif.; worked for Domei before Radio Tokyo;
registered as Japanese citizen but had dual citizenship before,
presumably (per FBI, "regained his Japanese citizenship."); head of the
Zero Hour program from June 1942
Per Close in Tokyo Rose American Patriot (2010):
To prevent confusion, I have used the name "George Mitsushio"
throughout the book. Mitsushio was his correct name after 1944, and it
appears most often in FBI files. His birth name was Hideo Tanabe. His
father, Sanzo Tanabe, died in Japan in 1911, his mother remarried, and
he was adopted by his stepfather, Kanehito Nakamoto. During his years
in the United States, he was known as George Nakamoto. Iva referred to
him as Nakamoto. His biological father's actual birth name was
Mitsushio, but following Japanese custom, Sanzo adopted the family name
of his mother (Tanabe) when that family produced no male children. When
George returned to Japan, he again became Hideo Tanabe. He assumed the
surname Mitsushio on July 1, 1944, when that family name was restored.
Were all this not complicated enough, on Radio Tokyo Mitsushio assumed
the persona of "Frank Watanabe." Worse, an actual Watanabe worked on
Zero Hour for the Japanese military to make sure nothing favored the
Allies. In summary, George Mitsushio, George Nakamoto, Hideo Tanabe,
and broadcaster Frank Watanabe are the same person.
Momotsuka, Kiwamu - expert radio engineer qualified by Japanese Govt. and worked at Radio Tokyo from before the war
Moriyama, Hisashi - staff member of Zero Hour program
Muraoka, Kaoru Katherine - born in Calif.; married Reyes on Sept. 29, 1944; typist; substituted for Toguri
regularly as a broadcaster; her support of the Japanese caused Toguri to
remark with some bitterness, "I never could figure out how she came out
smelling like a rose. I never could figure that out at all"
Murayama, Ken - from New York; reporter for Domei News in Manila; wrote scripts for Myrtle Lipton ("Manila Rose")
Per Kawashima in The Tokyo Rose Case: Treason on Trial (2013):
According to Duus, the deposition by Ken Murayama, a New York nisei,
seemed more crucial. A Domei News Agency reporter in Manila, Murayama
had written scripts for Myrtle Lipton, known as “Manila Rose.”
Murayama, in his deposition, testified that the scripts he wrote for
her “were designed to create a sense of homesickness among troops in
the Southwest Pacific. Their tone was one of trying to make the
soldiers recall certain good times they might have had when they were
back in the United States. . . . We had stories of girls having dates
with men at home, while possibly their sweethearts and husbands might
be fighting in the Southwest Pacific area.”
Murayama also testified that Myrtle Lipton had a very sexy voice, like
“a torch singer . . . quite low-pitched, husky . . . the sort of voice
that would carry well and was in keeping with the general tenor of the
program itself.”
The objective of the defense in the trial was to distinguish the
“Orphan Ann” broadcasts from those of Tokyo Rose, which were
originating either from Radio Tokyo or from one of the other Japanese
stations in Asia, like the “German Hour” and Myrtle Lipton’s
broadcasts. The latter two certainly more closely resembled “Tokyo
Rose” broadcasts of rumor. More specifically, Myrtle Lipton, whose
broadcasts were confused with Iva’s, was the strongest candidate for
“Tokyo Rose.” The government had thus failed to prove that Iva had been
Tokyo Rose and had made those announcements that Myrtle Lipton was
supposed to have announced.
Murayama, Tamotsu - Nisei interpreter
Muto,Yoshio
Mutsu, Jan - Domei News
Nakabayashi, Jim
Nakamura, Satoshi - Master of Ceremonies on Zero Hour from Aug. 1944 to Feb. 1945
Nakashima, Leslie S. - from Hawaii; was with Domei News Agency, then worked at Radio Tokyo
Nii, Motomu - born in Hawaii; script rewriter
Noda, George
Okamoto, Shigeru - radio engineer qualified by Japanese Govt. and worked at Radio Tokyo from before the war
Oki, Kenkichi - born in
Sacramento, Calif.; attended New York University; became
Japanese citizen in 1940?; supervised "Zero
Hour"; per Close: Oki and Mitsushio "were among the 10,000 Nisei who
had returned to Japan because they could not find work in America.
Although they never formally renounced their U.S. citizenship, both
disliked the United States, now considered themselves Japanese, and
openly supported Japan's war efforts."
Oki, Mieko - Kenkichi's wife, née Furuya
Os(z?)aki, Ray? Roy?
Oshidari, Shinichi - Nisei musician and skit writer
Ozasa, Teruo - born in
Salt Lake City; moved to Japan in 1940; became a Japanese citizen
because "it was impossible to get a job if you weren't Japanese"; was
sound engineer for Zero Hour
Saisho, Foumy - Japanese-born but married and then divorced a Nisei; was in charge of censoring scripts prepared for broadcasting
Sato, Asako - worked for Domei; said Tokyo Rose was either Suyama, Hayakawa or Toguri
Sawada, Shinnojo
Shimomura, H.
Sugiyama, F. Harris "Bucky" - staff announcer at Radio Tokyo
Suyama, June - from
British Columbia, Canada; previously known as "The Nightingale of
Nanking"; "the most
exciting female personality... top salary of 150 yen"; Toguri recalls "she was the one with the soft, sultry
voice but she mainly did the news"
Tanabe, Yoshitoshi - radio engineer qualified by Japanese Govt. and worked at Radio Tokyo from before the war
Tasaki, Hanama - civilian Japanese interpreter. Per Mark Streeter in They Called Us Traitors:
I was very much surprised to find
out that Tasaki was a very active member of the Japanese underground
who was working for the overthrow of the military clique who were in
control of the Japanese government, and that Major Hifumi was also high
in the underground movement. Tasaki was not content with just telling
me these things but took me to see quite a number of Japanese who were
in the underground movement. They had agents in Naval Headquarters,
Army headquarters, Domei, the Japanese Broadcasting Company, the
Japanese Information Bureau, the foreign office, the Tokyo police
department, and the neighborhood associations, even the Japanese Diet.
The Emperor’s Brother Prince Kuni was in favor of their actions,
however belonging to the Royal family could not be an active
participating member. A former member of the Japanese Diet was now
working in the Bunka offices, as was Maso Takabatake of the foreign
office and others including some Japanese women translators. Bunka was
fast becoming one of the principles working centers of the underground
movement. Tasaki solemnly told me that if any of us were caught it
would mean certain death and for that reason, we had to be doubly
careful, working right under the noses of the military clique.
Togasaki, Kiyoshi
"George" - born in San Francisco and graduated from the University of
California in 1920; per Toguri: "Mr. Togasaki took over the running of
the Zero Hour program from about August of 1944 to about March 1945. He
was connected with the English paper, Nippon Times, offices in Tokyo,
Japan. He is at present English editor for the same paper. I understand
he is a national of Japan, educated in the United States, speaks
English very well." Per Close: Ran the Nippon Times until 1956, was a
Christian who helped missionaries in Japan, and became president of
Rotary International.
Toguri, Ikuko Iva - employed at Radio Tokyo from Aug. 23, 1943 until Sept. 26, 1945; never registered as
a Japanese citizen, but tried to recover her Japanese citizenship, then later cancelled
that request.
Per Close in Tokyo Rose American Patriot (2010):
After the war ended, the other women who broadcast and worked for the
Japanese on the dozens of radio programs, including Zero Hour, also
disappeared from public view. So did the many Nisei, male and female,
that Iva met at Domei, Radio Tokyo, and elsewhere in Japan. They were a
sore subject with her because too many sold out their allegiance.
Remembering them elicited from Iva a rare outburst of anger. "I dropped
many of my Nisei friends because they would say, 'Oh, isn't it great!
We're winning the war!' And I said, 'What the hell do you mean? We are
winning? By we, do you mean the Japanese?' Isn't it ironic that these
people came back to the U.S. without any problems as devoted United
States' citizens. They deserted the victorious Japanese and now they're
with the victorious Americans. I just want to spit in their faces. Some
of them had the gall to write me and say how happy they were I had
gotten my pardon and all that baloney-I'd use another expression if I
weren't a lady. It just burns me up. Every one of those monkeys would
say, 'We're winning the war!'"
This bitter complaint represents Iva's hardened attitudes late in her
life. In 1948, she did not condemn her fellow Nisei so universally,
writing, "In December of 1943 there were quite a few Nisei girls who
started to work at Domei and ... I felt it best to ... get away from
the Niseis who were hard to size up in their feelings towards the war.
I had heard that some of them had taken Japanese citizenship and
wondered why I never said anything about becoming a Japanese citizen."
Her assessment of fellow broadcaster Ruth Hayakawa typifies her change
over the decades. In 1987, Iva disparaged Hayakawa as "someone who's
going to make damn sure she's not on the losing side." But in 1948, she
wrote that Ruth "came to see me on the Sunday before I was rearrested
on August 26, 1948. She offered to help in every way possible and she
asked that she be called as my witness should it be necessary to do
so." Hayakawa testified via deposition.
Topping, Genevieve - known as "Mother"; 83 yrs. old, the
wife of an American missionary; along with Hayakawa and Furuya as the first
women broadcasters for "Humanity Calls"
Tsuneishi, Shigetsugu - Major with Army Propaganda Section at Radio Tokyo, taking part in psychological warfare against US troops; "in
charge of propaganda and the collection of news and information
regarding the military activities of Americans"; prior to end of the
war referred to Toguri as "Tokyo Rose"
Uno,
Kazumaro "Buddy" - grew up in Salt Lake City, UT; first came to Japan
in 1937; was civilian journalist with Japanese Army in Shanghai; in
March 1942 was on Corregidor to interview captured US GI's; supervised
POW scriptwriters and broadcasters at Bunka Camp; in autumn of 1944 was
transferred to Manila to oversee NHK broadcasts
Watanabe, Hodge (Chujo?) - "Chujo" is listed in Streeter PDF
Yamaz(s?)aki, Isamu - Vice-Chief of American Continental Section of Radio Tokyo
Yoshii, Charles "Chuck" - worked at NHK since 1935 and was called the "Japanese Lord Haw Haw"
Mary Tomita
Book by Tomita, Dear
Miye: Letters Home from Japan, 1939-1946.
Masao Tomita
Interpreter from Pomona, CA, suspect under investigation in Sasebo,
Nov. 30, 1945:

Taihei Tsuda
TSUDA Taihei (Nisei, interpreter) at Tokyo POW Camp #11D, Tsurumi. Was
born in the US in 1906, lived there till 7 yrs. old, in Japan
1913-1925, in US until 1935, in Italy until 1939 then back to US, then
back to Japan in 1940, became interpreter in April 1944 as civilian for
J-military.

See full IMTFE
trial document T-308.
Harry Ueno (and wife,
Atami)
From The Asian Reporter, V21,
#09 (May 2, 2011):
Henry spent his childhood in the
shadow of a war between his two countries. A U.S. citizen, he lived in
Japan from 1931 to 1949. While people of Japanese ancestry were
imprisoned in the United States during World War II, in Japan he and
his family were dodging bombs day and night. Two houses belonging to
Henry’s uncles — with whom Henry was staying on both occasions — were
destroyed by incendiary bombs. The aftermath of that war, he says, "was
even worse. There was nothing to eat for two years."
Both Henry and Atami were born in the U.S. — Henry in Pendleton, Oregon
and Atami in Hilo, Hawaii. Atami moved from Hawaii to Japan when she
was 12, but met Henry on a ship travelling from Japan to the United
States in 1949. Atami disembarked in Honolulu, but Henry was headed for
Portland.
From Henry Ueno Interview at
Densho Digital Archives:
When I was sixteen, the year
1941, I was, I received a letter from district office of city that I
should appear to take a physical, and those days, a lot of my friends
included too, volunteer for the youth military schools and that type of
thing, and I suppose they desperately need soldiers, but they cannot
draft underage people, so they probably direct the young mens for the
different schools, the trainings and that type of thing, and I took a
test and passed the physical. They asked me whether my mother, my
parents were, approved of my joining the service. And I didn't really
expected this because, young, but I start thinking, gee, what to answer
this, you know.
At that time, I knew I was American citizen, but I just stop, think,
and quiet for a while, then I thinking all the situations how my mother
feels, all the relatives. My brothers, the Japanese army, and can I
refuse. That's the biggest fear, can I refuse. If I refuse, tell them I
can't serve, I'm American citizen. Then how they feel, how they'll
treat it, so I didn't answer that questions, and the city people said,
"How come you don't answer all my questions?" Then I have to confide,
you know. Finally, I'm American citizen, so that was it. They cannot
draft me, draft American citizen. And then the day goes on. And about a
few months later, my mother in hometown received from town hall that I
was given Japanese citizenship. I wasn't asked for it, you know.
So anyway, so they could technically draft me, I was dual citizenship,
and they did. But fortunately because of the incident, being American
citizen, war ended just a few days before my induction date. I didn't
know exactly what they're going to do to me because I'm sixteen years
old. They probably send me to youth training center and whatever, but I
was saved by the bell. That was just a terrible things in my
situations. My life is just so complicated, the half brothers and my
brothers and all that type of things.
Fred Uyeminami
Born in Seattle, WA, consultant to Imperial Japanese Navy; "...in Japan
during the war and is mentioned in several of the US Navy’s technical
reports of Japan after the war... and he is mentioned somewhere in the
public press of the 1930s justifying Japan’s arms and weapons programs."
Kazumaro
"Buddy" Uno
NOTE: one of Buddy's brothers --> Edison Tomimaro Uno,
"father of the redress movement"
See CIA
DOC_0000112821.pdf on p.16 and p.29.
See Tokyo Rose doc rose1b.pdf
(p. 17, heavily redacted; p. 57) re info on Uno being in charge of the
"Hinomaru Hour."
Whole chapter on him, The
Meaning of Loyalty: The Case of Kazumaro Buddy Uno (from Before
internment: essays in
prewar Japanese American history by Yûji Ichioka).
From a fellow researcher:
I'm presuming that most
list members are aware of
Kazamuro "Buddy" Uno, the
American Nisei who lost his citizenship due to his service in the
Japanese
Army before Pearl Harbor, and who became a well known figure in the
Japanese
Army Press Bureau before and during the war.
In 1942, he wrote a book, in English, which was published in Shanghai
by the
Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury - it had been taken over by the
Japanese
and run as an English language daily in the city. During my
research I
interviewed people who recall reading this book in occupied Shanghai.
The text, I believe, is posted on the web. However, I
recently viewed a
copy of this book and took digital photos of the pictures in the book.
Should anyone wish to receive copies of these, let me know.
-------------------------------------------------
To those who expressed interest in the Corregidor photos taken by
Kazumaro
"Buddy" Uno, the American Nisei who joined the Japanese Army Press
Bureau, I
will send them out in a few days.
Several people asked about Kazumaro Uno. He was an American
who grew up in
Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. He went to Japan in 1938 and
spent most of
the war in Shanghai, overseeing the Japanese controlled English language
daily, the Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury. He was covered
the fall of
Corregidor and on his return to Shanghai wrote his account as a
book. He
was sent back to the Philippines in late 1944, and was captured there
after
the war. After being imprisoned in Manila for a period, he
was sent back to
Japan. He died there in the 1950s. Three of his
brothers fought for the US
during the war. The rest of his family was interned.
The book is rather scarce. The text can be found on the web
at:
http://corregidor.org/book_uno/introduction.htm
Because Uno grew up in America, he was fluent in "American" English and
spoke to many of the men captured on Corregidor. He also
spoke to many of
the Fourth Marines, who had only a few months before been stationed in
Shanghai, and thus had many friends in that city. Uno brought back many
messages from these Marines to friends and acquaintances in Shanghai
when he
returned to the city in the summer of 1942.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: Uno
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 20:58:57 -0500
There
were a number of American Nisei who served in the Japanese armed forces
or worked in support roles. The best known was Buddy Uno, probably
because of his presence during the surrender at Corregidor, and his
work with American POWs producing propaganda radio shows. According to
Lt. Col. Shigetsugu Tsuneishi, who was in charge of
Japanese propaganda in English, there were “more than 200 Japanese
Americans were employed by the Japanese government in propaganda
roles.” These included several American Nisei women who
collectively became known among GIs as Tokyo Rose.
Corregidor,
Isle of Delusion was published in Shanghai during the war in an English
and Japanese language version. Some time ago I came across a
copy
in the Cornell library and I made copies of the photos and sent them to
a number of list members. The text of the book is available
online. I also have it as a Word Document.
There is
scattered information about Uno on the internet, some of it
erroneous. (One source claims he did not survive the war, but
he
did.) The US Justice Department ruled that by joining the
Japanese Army Press Bureau in 1939 he expatriated himself and thus was
not a US citizen at the time of this alleged treasonous
activity. He was captured in the Philippines and eventually returned to
Japan. He died there in the 1950s.
Hajima Masuda, a
graduate of Venice High School, Venice, California, was a Nisei
captured at the end of the war – in Canton, where he had ties to German
intelligence. Jim Katsumi Yoshida was another Nisei who
served
with the Japanese army in China. He stated that he knew of
several Nisei who served in the Japanese army. I have
documents
from NARA pertaining to both of these men.
Another name
which has popped up: Ray Uyeshima (or Ueshima). Don’t have
anything on him but I believe he was from California and worked for the
Japanese in Shanghai.
Another Nisei who was convicted of
treason and ended up in Alcatraz was Tomoya Kawakita. He was
a
prison guard who was recognized by a former American POW after the war,
while shopping in a Los Angeles department store. Here are a
couple of links pertaining to him:
http://home.comcast.net/~eo9066/Kawakita.html
http://www.nichibeitimes.com/articles/stories.php?subaction=showfull&id=1177026213&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2&
I
am slowly collecting material on Uno, as he is one of the main focuses
of my next project – a nonfiction account of several Americans in
Shanghai before and during the war, including an undercover ONI agent.
|
Excerpts from Treason on the Airwaves: Three Allied
Broadcasters on
Axis Radio during World War II by Judith Keene (2008):
Frank Wada
Born in California, served as a truck driver for the Japanese army in
Manchuria. After the war, went back to his job as a mining engineer for
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Mentioned in this
article.
Clyde Wakatake
Worked for Domei News Agency in Tokyo, then as a translator under the
Japanese Naval Press Bureau in Shanghai, then later with the War Crimes
Office. See details in this PDF
(courtesy of Frank Baldassarre).
Shigeo Yamada
Yuzuru Tachibana wrote about Yamada in his 1994 book, Teikoku Kaigun shikan ni natta Nikkei Nisei
(A Second-Generation Japanese-American Who Became an Officer of the
Imperial Japanese Navy). Yamada, born in Idaho, was at Keio University
(one of several
colleges in Japan accepting American Nisei) when the war broke out, was
drafted and became an officer (ensign) in the Japanese Navy. He
participated in the suicide attack mission to Okinawa on board the Yahagi as radio officer,
accompanying the battleship Yamato,
and survived after both ships were sunk (April 1945). Yamada later
worked as a salesman for Japan Airlines in the US, later becoming
executive vice president. The book mentions a total of six Nisei who were on the two ships.
Only Yamada survived. Nisei 2nd Lt. Kunio
Nakatani was also among those who died aboard the Yamato; details in the book, Senkan Yamato no Saiki (The Final
Days of Battleship Yamato) or Senkan Yamato to Sengo
(Battleship Yamato and Postwar Period) by Mitsuru Yoshida. A movie was
produced in 1953 (Senkan Yamato)
which also features Nakatani.
Bob Yamanaka
Nisei interpreter who was at Karenko POW Camp, Taiwan; from San
Francisco; parents were evacuated to a relocation center. "...he was so
afraid the Nipponese authorities would think him pro-American..." See PDF of
excerpts from The Hard Way Home by William
Braly.
George Yamane and sister, Nobuyo
From George Yamane led fight to honor two nisei
veterans (Aug. 7, 2002):
Born in Tacoma on June 11, 1923,
Mr. Yamane moved to Japan at age 13 to take care of his grandmother. He
almost died from sickness because food and drugs were scarce during the
war. His sister Nobuyo saved his life by traveling more than 24 hours
by train to give him fresh eggs to eat, said Jeff Yamane, Mr. Yamane's
second son. He moved back to Washington in 1948 and settled in Seattle,
where he met his wife, Charlotte, at a church function. They married in
1957 and had four sons.
OBITUARY:
George YAMANE Born June 11, 1923 and died peacefully on July 31, 2002
in Seattle at the age of 79. George was born and raised in Tacoma
until, at age 13, he went to live in Japan to take care of his
grandmother. The most difficult period of his life occurred when World
War II started in 1941. He decided to stay in Japan to continue caring
for his grandmother but, as an U.S. citizen in Japan, he worried about
his family in America and, also, what would happen to him in Japan.
Food and material resources were very scarce and he almost died from
illness. In 1947, he graduated from Tokyo University with a degree in
Civil Engineering. George returned to Seattle in 1948. He was drafted
into the U.S. Army and served in the Korean War in 1951. - See more at:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/seattletimes/obituary.aspx?pid=429120#sthash.kVrliazl.dpuf
There is an article on George's sister, Nobuyo: A Nisei Woman in Rural Japan.
Amerasia Journal: 1997, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 183-196. Born in Tacoma,
WA, in 1921, moved to Japan in 1935. Michael Jin has this in his paper:
Mary was an American citizen and
Nobuyo retained her dual citizenship while Frank obtained exclusively
Japanese citizenship to receive graduation certificates from his
elementary school. "The Japanese
police asked me where I would go, but did not detain me because I
looked Japanese,"
Mary states. However, she continues, "I had to keep a low profile so my
American mannerisms and conspicuous speech would not be obvious." Her
interpersonal conflict was even more shocking. She suffered from cruel
treatment by a Japanese woman for whom she worked as a maid. “Mrs.
Sakai used to lord over me and boast about how Japan was winning the
war and looked down on me as the enemy.” Nobuyo was actually summoned
by the police. "All Nisei living in
Japan during the war were monitored by the police," she recalls.
"I received a police summons once to appear at the Yanai police
station.... I was scared because the
police had great power and was suspicious of the Nisei."
Yamashita
From email received:
The drive was through only partly
repaired roads, rough and nervewracking. Considerable traffic, slowly
moving trucks, and some military vehicles on the highway made progress
very slow. On the way we picked up a young man named Yamashita who was
working as an interpreter. He is one of the Los Angeles "double
citizens" who had returned to Japan before 1941 and had apparently felt
that Japan would be winning the war. He had gotten himself well-fixed
for a post-war job, had Japan in fact been victorious.
YALE JOURNAL OF BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE, Volume 38, October, 1965
Kunimitsu Yamauchi
Nisei interpreter at Fukuoka POW Camp #17, Omuta; renounced US
citizenship in 1942. See Tokyo
War Crimes Trials, Case #29.
Toru, Goro,
and Donald Yempuku (Empuku)
Per article, MIS
Members with Brothers Serving in Japanese Imperial Forces during WWII:
Lieutenant Ralph Yempuku served
as Commander of the 2nd Battalion of Detachment 101, Office of
Strategic Services (OSS) in Burma, and subsequently in Detachment 202
in Kunming, China. Three of his brothers served in the Imperial
Japanese Army.
Yempuku and 17 other Nisei of the 442nd Combat Team were selected to
serve as linguists in the OSS. Yempuku’s unit in Burma consisted of
Americans, British and several thousand Kachin natives of northern
Burma. A Kachin served as Yempuku’s body guard and interpreter and
their language of communication, ironically, was Japanese. When
Detachment 101 disbanded on July 12, 1945, Yempuku joined OSS
Detachment 202 in Kunming, China.
Yempuku had frequently thought of his brothers in Japan. On September
12, 1945 Yempuku was in the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong where he came
close to meeting his brother Donald.
Donald, an interpreter for the
Japanese Army,
walked into the hotel with the Japanese surrender delegation. Donald
later told a Nisei interrogator that seeing Ralph in “enemy uniform was
the most trying moment in my life. For a brief second I felt the urge
to call out but I could not allow myself to do that. I just couldn’t. In my mind the war was still going on and
we were enemies.”
The data does not show that Ralph remained for the surrender
ceremonies. Following the War, fearing that his family had perished
from the atom bomb, Ralph visited Ataka Island near Hiroshima City. He
found his mother and father alive and well as all his brothers, Paul,
Goro, Donald, Joshu, and Toru. Toru,
Goro, and Donald served in the Japanese Army.
Karl Yoneda
Was born in 1906 in Glendale, CA; later lived in Hiroshima;
arrested for radical publication in 1926; drafted into Japanese Army
but ran away and returned to California; joined American Communist
Party in 1927; took the name Karl Hama; placed in Manzanar Relocation
Center for a short time; joined with MIS for service in India, Burma
and China.
Mary and Alice Yonekura
Interpreters for Occupation Forces in Saga, Kyushu, Japan. Were in
Japan during WWII as well? See this file:
YONEKURA_sisters_VAC_p550_1945-11-30.pdf
Jim
Yoshida
Excerpts from The
Two Worlds of Jim Yoshida (also at Google Books here):
SYNOPSIS: Life
is nothing if not an identity crisis, but few of us have had to face
the extreme paradox that Jim Yoshida did. A great paradox requires a
great affirmation, and Jim fought hard to make it, succeeding
outstandingly finally. Raised in Seattle, a high school football star
there, he travelled to Japan with his family in 1941 to return his
father's ashes and was caught by the outbreak of war. A student of
martial arts, especially Judo, he suddenly found the two dearest
sources of his identity in mortal combat with each other. Drafted into
the Japanese army, he was carried away weeping and shouting for his
mother. Thanks to the harsh treatment of Sergeant Kido, he was not of
much use to the Japanese army and never rose far within it. As it turns
out, Kido was another nisei, looking after him and making sure he drew
no suspicion on the two of them. After the war Yoshida fought long and
hard to win back his American identity, serving more usefully in the
Korean War, and taking the matter to court. He won the backing of the
veteran, Senator Inouye, a significant character reference. The judge
simply ruled that he had been a citizen all along, and thanked him for
his Korean War service.
At
the time I was born in Seattle, the Japanese government laid claim to
my allegiance simply because I was the child of Japanese citizens. The
law stated that a child is a Japanese if his or her father is a
Japanese at the time of his or her birth. This, I learned later, is
called the law of jus sanguinis and is practiced by
many countries. In
1924, three years after I was born, Japan changed its citizenship laws,
largely at the request of Japanese residents of the United States who
foresaw complications. The new law stated that a child born of Japanese
parents in the United States, Canada and many South American countries
no longer would be considered a Japanese subject unless the parents
indicated within fourteen days their intention of claiming Japanese
citizenship for the child. This meant a child was no longer
automatically Japanese. It required a positive act to claim Japanese
citizenship. The law also provided that those born prior to 1924, and
who consequently possessed dual citizenship, could cancel their
Japanese citizenship by filing formal papers. My parents had neglected
to do this. Apparently it was just a lot of red tape they didn't
understand. And so even though I had known nothing about it, I was
legally both Japanese and American. (pp. 59~60)
A few days after the
examination I received a red card in the mail. It stated that I had
passed my examination and that I was to report to the 42nd Division in
Yamaguchi City on the first Sunday of February, 1943. The notice was
not unexpected. In fact, even though I dreaded the thought of serving
in the Japanese Army-what would I do if I were sent to the South
Pacific to fight the Americans?-it was almost a relief to be called and
get the suspense over with. (p. 60)
I recalled a New Year's
celebration in Seattle when I was only fourteen years old. Dad made it
a custom of drinking a toast to the Emperor, shouting three loud banzai's
for his long life and good health.
There was nothing political
about it. It was just Dad's way of paying his respects to an
institution that he had been taught to revere and respect. All of us
children were expected to take part in the rite, performed in front of
a portrait of Emperor Hirohito, but for some reason I had refused on
that morning. Perhaps it was teen-age rebellion. Perhaps I was simply
expressing my independence. At any rate, I stubbornly shouted that the
Emperor meant nothing to me and refused to join in the toast. (p. 61)
"You
are still stubborn. I worry about you very much. You must remember that
this is Japan, not America, and you are powerless. You must do what you
are told to do. In a few weeks you will be in the Army. in the service
of the Emperor whether you like it or not. The important thing is that
you come back sound of mind and body. It is all very well to stand on
principle, as you did back in Seattle on that New Year's Day so long
ago, but principle will not mean a thing if you are imprisoned, or
perhaps executed, for insubordination. Remember, the military knows no
law. To die in battle is one thing. but it is another matter to bring
shame to the Yoshida name. I know you will have a very difficult time
in the Army. but you can endure anything if you make up your mind to do
so. You have an excellent constitution, toughened and disciplined by
football and judo. Your body will serve you well if you will only
toughen your mind and spirit in the same manner. And don't worry about
your mother and sisters. They will be all right. You will be in our
thoughts always. Son, take good care of yourself."
This is
the gist of what she said and I think I quote her accurately. There was
still a communications barrier between us through the fact that her
English was halting and my Japanese only rudimentary. We could talk
easily about the ordinary, everyday, housekeeping type matters. But
when it came to discussing philosophical and moral concepts like honor
and responsibility, I could only guess at the meaning of her words. Mom
was not accustomed to revealing her feelings, so I knew she spoke from
the heart, and I sensed rather than understood the precise import of
what she said that day.
I had many occasions to think about
her admonitions. What did she mean by the importance of not bringing
shame to the Yoshida name? How did she expect me to behave? As an
American? As a Japanese? Honor meant as much in the United States as it
did in Japan, I knew.
These thoughts always ended up with
the question as to what I would do if by some great misfortune I should
meet, face to face, friends like Pete and Mud and Joe on the field of
battle. They were almost like brothers. They would be in American
uniforms, serving their country. I would be in Japanese uniform through
circumstances beyond my control. Would they shoot me? Would I shoot
them? Would I shoot other Americans who were simply nameless boys like
those I had played football againstand with? I had no answers except
this: If I met Pete and Mud and Joe, I could not hurt them. I would let
them kill me before I pointed a weapon in their direction and pulled
the trigger. Of this I had no doubt whatever. (pp. 62~63)
Re his citizenship restored:
Judge
Wiig rendered his "decision" nearly two months later, on December 4,
1953. He reviewed the case in a fivepage document which was delivered,
most undramatically, through the mail. Miho summoned me to his office
and we went through the decision together. The news I had been waiting
for was contained in two totally unemotional sentences:
"The
defendant offered no evidence proving expatriation, and has failed to
rebut the presumption that plaintiff's service in the Japanese Army was
involuntary... It is the opinion of the Court that plaintiff's
conscription into the Japanese Army under the circumstances of this
case was not his free and voluntary act within the meaning of Section
401 (c) of the Nationality Act of 1940 and that his service in the
Japanese Army did not cause him to lose his status as a national of the
United States."...
On April 16, 1954, Judge Wiig took the
most unusual step of assembling all parties to Civil Suit No. 1257 in
his court· room to hear his "judgment." With Mr. Miho at my side, I
stood to hear Judge Wiig intone the unforgettable words:
"Now,
therefore, it is ordered, adjudged and decreed as follows: That the
plaintiff Katsumi Yoshida was born at Seattle, Washington, on July 28,
1921, of parents born in Japan. At all times since his birth, plaintiff
has been and he now is a national and a citizen of the United States of
America with all the rights, privileges and immunities of such a
citizen. The plaintiff, Katsumi Yoshida, did not lose his United States
citizenship by virtue of or because of his service in the Japanese Army
from February, 1943, to July, 1946." (p. 253)
Good article, Jim Yoshida's Strange, Strange Story of
Divided Patriotism from Black
Belt magazine, May 1974.
Asian American
Autobiographers: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook has
piece on Jim
Yoshida.
Also mentioned in 日
本軍兵士になったアメリカ人たち 母国と戦った日系二世, chap. 2
(Americans who became soldiers of
Japanese military - Nisei who fought against their motherland).
Assorted Notes
Nisei mentioned in Our
House
Divided by Tomi Knaefler (1991):
Fumiye Miho p. 36~
Asami kids - Kinichi and Jane p. 49~; Harold - died on Asama Maru;
Morris and Alice
Muriel Chiyo Tanaka p. 60~
Isamu Shimogawa (POW) p. 63~
Yempuku kids - Toru p. 78~; Goro p. 79~; Paul p. 81~; Donald p.85~
Florence Honda p. 85
Albert Miyasato p. 97~
Robert Fujiwara p. 107~
Kazuyuki Yamamoto, an Issei, with good comments p. 115~
Nisei who lost citizenship due to their voting in elections in 1946 and
1947; later citizenship restored via court cases (p. 370, 372); from
The
Bamboo People by Frank Chuman (1976):
Etsuko Arikawa
Miyoko Tsunashima
Hatsuye Ouye
Yamamoto
Kuniyuki
Haruko Furuno
Haruko Kai
Harumi Seki
Yada
Fumi Rokui
Fujiko Furusho
Akio Kuwabara
Hichino Uyeno
Kikukuro Okumura (Okamura?) - or is this the Kiyokura Okimura below??
Teruo Naito
Minoru Furuno
Fusae Yamamoto
Hisao Murata
Katamoto
Kiyama
Yukio Yamamoto
Kozuki
p. 281~
William Ishikawa
Noboru Kato
Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi? p. 266
Names of men from Chapter 2:
Ben Saito - hit by friendly
fire
Henry Yasuda
Mike Iwasaki - kamikaze pilot
NOTE: Names can be looked
up in Japanese
American history: an A-to-Z reference from 1868 to the present.
Mentioned in Nisei POW on Saipan:
ISHIDA, Charles - Age about 35,
from State of Washington. Broadcaster
for Radio Tokyo.
KUWABARA, Mitsugi - From Alberta, Canada. Radio monitor on Saipan,
March-July 1944.
NAKANO, Aiko - From Arizona. Worked for "Japan Times."
NAKASHIMA, Miss ? - From Canada. Radio monitor in Japanese War Ministry.
SATO, Minoru - From B.C., Canada. Radio monitor on Saipan (March-July
1944).
SHIMOGAWA, Isamu - From Hawaii. Radio monitor on Saipan, (March-July
1944).
SHIRAKAWA, Takeshi - From B.C., Canada. Radio monitor on Saipan
(March-July 1944).
SUYAMA, Miss ? - Canadian. About 27. Broadcaster for Radio Tokyo.
From Nisei
Linguists (McNaughton, GPO, 2007):
Some Nisei who had
served in the Japanese Army in the 1930s subsequently returned to the
United States, even though
foreign military service cost them their U.S. citizenship. One was Terry
Takeshi Doi, who
regained
his U.S. citizenship and earned the Silver Star as an interpreter with
the 3d Marine Division on
Iwo Jima. John Weckerling, “Japanese Americans Play Vital Role in
United States Intelligence
Service in World War II ” (1946), first printed in Hokubei Mainichi, 27
Oct–5 Nov 71, reprinted as a
pamphlet. Harrington, Yankee Samurai, p. 276. Another was Karl
Yoneda, who was born in
California
and sent to Japan, where he was conscripted into the Japanese Army. In
1927 he escaped and
returned to America. He volunteered for the MIS and later served in
China-Burma-India.
See Roger Mansell's file (guam war trials.wpd)
re these men:
Worst collaborator was Shinohara,
Ben Cook and
A Ozone. (Who was Ozone?)
All agreed the worst collaborators were T. Shinohara, Mrs. K. Sawada,
J. K. Shimizu and D. K. Takano.
Thomas Cruz Oka - charges of collaboration dismissed.
Nisei aboard the Yamato
battleship; mentioned in A Glorious Way to Die: The Kamikaze
Mission of the Battleship Yamato by Russell Spurr (2010):
Kunio Nakatani (Sacramento, CA), Kuramoto (from Santa Monica, CA), Shigeo Yamada (Idaho).
Bozo Wakabayashi,
baseball player -- see this
book by Fitts.
Mary Muroya Yamagata in Manchuria -- this
book
Fumio Kido -- lots of refs here
Nisei born and raised in Pasadena, CA, until going to Japan in 1936,
later serving in Japanese Navy as an ensign; interesting comments re
communication problems with Japanese language (PDF
excerpt)
P/W 1458
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
DIVISION, U.S. WAR DEPARTMENT
REPORT FROM CAPTURED
PERSONNEL AND
MATERIAL BRANCH
Because there has been considerable discussion of the issue of loyalty
of persons of so-called "dual citizenship" in the present war, this report
of interrogation of an American-born Japanese P/W,
who
volunteered to serve as a radio monitor in Japan, is being reproduced.
P/W was captured 9 July 1944 on Saipan and
interrogated in the
U.S.A.
31 March 1945. Information given is considered truthful on civil
matters but unreliable as regards military.
- CHRONOLOGY AND EXPERIENCE OF P/W.
- NISEI
FROM AMERICA IN JAPAN.
- NISEI AS RADIO MONITORS.
- CONTACT
WITH OUTSIDE WORLD THRU SHORT-WAVE RADIO.
- ATTITUDE
OF NISEI TOWARD THE WAR SITUATION.
- NISEI IN JAPAN
AS A NUCLEUS FOR A JAPANESE UNDERGROUND.
- MISCELLANEOUS
ITEMS OF INFORMATION.
Opinion of U.S. Broadcasts. Evaluation of Japanese Medical Services.
Temporary Workers. Uniforms Worn by Radio Monitors. Pay of Radio
Monitors. Pay of Regular Army Men in Overseas Service.
See here for the rest of the report: Nisei POW.
Is this the same??
Just posted this about a Nisei who worked for
the IJN as a radio
monitor and interpreter on I-8. Sad sad story he relates. I wonder what
became of him, and other Nisei like him.
http://www.mansell.com/eo9066/Nakahara.html
I imagine SCAP hired him after the war... with immunity. Like a bunch
of other guys.
This site bring up the story:
http://www.armed-guard.com/ag87.html
And his name is on a memorial thing here:
http://www.nikkeiconcerns.org/pdfs/Tayori%20Fall%202004.pdf.
50,000
Nisei in Japan
Gentlemen
of Japan: a study in rapist diplomacy by Violet
Sweet Haven (1944):
A number of leading American-born
Japanese in . responsible government positions co-operated
in the development of the ... Japanese
figures show that in 1937 there were 50,000
American citizens of Japanese ancestry residing
in Japan. ...
In May 1937 Japan was campaigning to induce
some 50,000 American-born Japanese to return to the
US per
McClatchy:
Race
war: white supremacy and the Japanese attack on
the British ... - Page 131 - by Gerald
Horne (2004)
15 Caught up in the frenzy of
distaste for
white supremacy, one Japanese general inquired,
"Why should the United ... that "over 50000
boys and girls... returned" to Japan proper.22
A few months later, "75 American- born
youths of ...
Stats
re Nisei in J-military here in Michele
Malkin's book - 1,648 (official J-Govt figure) or as high as 7,000;
these figures from John J. Stephan, "Hijacked by Utopia:
American
Nikkei in Manchuria" and his book, Hawaii
Under the Rising Sun.
From Nisei
Linguists (PDF), with footnotes:
As war approached, many
Americans became
increasingly suspicious of the loyalty of the Nisei regardless of the
evidence of assimilation of
American values. Many white Americans found support for their
suspicions in the tangle
of U.S. and Japanese laws that left many Nisei with dual citizenship,
claiming this
as proof of loyalty to the emperor. The truth was more complicated.
Until 1924
Japan automatically extended citizenship to children born abroad of
Japanese nationals.
After 1924 the parents had to register their children with the local
consulate for Japanese citizenship. Many Issei, denied U.S. citizenship
themselves, took this
simple step for their children. Realizing that their antagonists could
use
dual citizenship as propaganda, Nisei leaders seized the issue as yet
another way to
demonstrate their loyalty. They encouraged and assisted Nisei to file
with Japanese
consulates the necessary paperwork to revoke their Japanese
citizenships.
Nevertheless, the War Department was sufficiently concerned about the
issue that in the
spring of 1941 the Military Intelligence Division (MID) recommended
that Congress
allow individuals to clarify their status simply by swearing an oath of
allegiance to the United States in naturalization court.22
Moreover,
some suspected that Japan was conscripting American-born Nisei to serve
in the Imperial Japanese Army. In 1940 Senator Guy M. Gillette
(D-Iowa) even charged that Japan was conscripting Nisei for espionage,
which the
JACL vigorously protested. Nisei visiting Japan in the 1930s indeed
risked
conscription while in Japan, but there is no evidence that Nisei in
Hawaii or on the
mainland were being conscripted. Nevertheless, this accusation
circulated
widely.23
For the U.S. government and most white Americans, Nisei loyalty
remained an open question. In the autumn of 1941 the White House
secretly
dispatched an investigator to make an independent assessment of the
“Japanese
problem.” After conferring with Army and Navy intelligence and the
Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Curtis B. Munson reported that the Nisei were
“approximately
ninety-eight percent loyal.” “The Nisei,” he concluded, “are
pathetically eager to
show this loyalty. They are not Japanese in culture. They are
foreigners to
Japan.” 24
Another aspect of the Nisei culture that raised suspicion was their
Japanese language schools. Like other immigrants, Issei parents set up
private language schools so their children could learn something of the
Japanese
language and culture. Typically these schools held classes one hour
each afternoon
after the public schools let out, as well as on Saturday mornings.
Caucasian
Americans pointed to these schools as one more example of how even the
children
of Japanese immigrants were being indoctrinated into Japanese culture
and loyalty
to the emperor.25 In fact, these schools did little to inculcate
Japanese
values in the Nisei and even less in teaching the language. For most
Nisei it reinforced
their sense of.....
22 Frank F. Chuman, The Bamboo People: The Law and Japanese Americans
(Chicago: Japanese American Citizens League, 1981), pp. 167–68; Murphy,
Ambassadors in
Arms, pp. 17–24; “Dual Citizenship,” in Encyclopedia of Japanese
American History, rev.
ed., ed. Brian Niiya, (New York: Facts on File, 2001); Okihiro, Cane
Fires, pp. 201–04; Tamura,
Americanization, Acculturation, and Ethnic Identity, pp. 84–88. For War
Department memos on the issue
of dual citizenship in 1941, see Security-Class Gen Corresp, 1926–1946,
Far Eastern Br, Ofc of
the Dir of Intel G–2, RG 165, NARA. To avoid complications, some Nisei
renounced their Japanese
citizenship before they traveled to Japan. Richard Sakakida’s mother
did this in the summer of
1941 on behalf of her son after he secretly enlisted in the Army and
was sent to the Philippines.
Richard Sakakida and Wayne S. Kiyosaki, A Spy in Their Midst (Lanham,
Md.: Madison Books, 1995),
pp. 137–38.
23 Pacific Citizen, Jan 41, p. 1. For a discussion of Nisei serving in
the Japanese Army before the war, see John J. Stephan, Hawaii under the
Rising Sun: Japan’s Plans
for Conquest after Pearl Harbor (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
1984), pp. 35–37, 44; and John
J. Stephan, “Hijacked by Utopia: American Nikkei in Manchuria,”
Amerasia Journal 23, no. 3
(Winter 1997–1998): 23–24, note 168.
During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, a number of Issei returned
home from Hawaii to serve in the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy, which
may have been the
source of white American concerns in 1940–1941. See Stephan, Hawaii
under the Rising Sun, p. 15;
Franklin Odo and Kazuko Sinoto, A Pictorial History of the Japanese in
Hawaii, 1885–1924
(Honolulu: Bishop Museum, 1985), p. 206.
For the autobiography of a California-born Nisei who was conscripted
into the Japanese Army, see Iwao Peter Sano, One Thousand Days in
Siberia: The Odyssey of a
Japanese-American POW (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997).
Some Nisei who had
served in the Japanese Army in the 1930s subsequently returned to the
United States, even though
foreign military service cost them their U.S. citizenship. One was
Terry Takeshi Doi, who regained
his U.S. citizenship and earned the Silver Star as an interpreter with
the 3d Marine Division on
Iwo Jima. John Weckerling, “Japanese Americans Play Vital Role in
United States Intelligence
Service in World War II ” (1946), first printed in Hokubei Mainichi, 27
Oct–5 Nov 71, reprinted as a
pamphlet. Harrington, Yankee Samurai, p. 276. Another was Karl Yoneda,
who was born in California
and sent to Japan, where he was conscripted into the Japanese Army. In
1927 he escaped and
returned to America. He volunteered for the MIS and later served in
China-Burma-India.
24 Murphy, Ambassadors in Arms, pp. 31–32; Greg Robinson, By Order of
the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 2001), pp. 65–72.
25 “Japanese-language Schools,” in Encyclopedia of Japanese American
History; Murphy, Ambassadors in Arms, pp. 8–11; Okihiro, Cane Fires,
pp. 153–56;
Toyotomi Morimoto, Japanese Americans and Cultural Continuity:
Maintaining Language and Heritage
(New York: Garland, 1997).
The National Defense Migration
Hearings
(excerpts in this
PDF) mentions the 50,000 in a few places (figure first appears
early 1937
perhaps?):
Another Japanese organizational activity
which is worth noting is the Kibei Shimin movement. The Kibei
Shimin movement was sponsored by
Japanese Association of America and had as its policy the encouragement
of the
return to America from Japan of American-born Japanese. At the time the
movement commenced it was ascertained that there were around 50,000
American-born Japanese in Japan. The Japanese Association of
America sent
representatives to Japan to confer with prefectural officials on the
problems of financing
and transportation, and a policy of publicity to induce these Japanese
to return
to America. The Japanese Association of America also arranged with the
steamship
companies for special rates for groups of 10 or more returning to
America and
requested all Japanese associations to secure employment for returning
American-born
Japanese. In addition, they printed leaflets and sponsored lectures
throughout Japan to urge American-born Japanese to return to this
country. That
this campaign was successful in securing the return of a large number
of
American-born Japanese is apparent.
And:
POSITION OF KIBEI
SHIMIN
Likewise, through the years there have been what are known as Kibei
Shimin, meaning those who are the sons or daughters of a United States
citizen, one who was born in the United States of Japanese forebears
who have returned to Japan. There are instances where, if the parent
was a United States citizen, even if they were born in Japan, they
would be entitled, under our immigration laws, to be considered as a
citizen of the United States, provided before reaching the age of 18
they have come here, probably at the age of 14, to be educated and
continue forth and declare themselves a United States citizen.
In this group there are many thousands. The exact number we are not in
a position to say. But we do know, according to the Japan foreign
office announcement, that there were about 50,000 of these
Kibei Shimin. Many thousands of them returned to the State of
California and to Hawaii and there they became a part of and partially
responsible for the conditions that existed at the time that the 1924
Exclusion Act was passed. Those particular individuals, being foreign
in ideas and background and purposes and so forth, have created a very
bad situation so far as the native-born American-Japanese citizen is
concerned, who was born here and educated here, because by their
actions and conduct they have indicated their lack of loyalty to this
country. There may be Japanese who are loyal to this country, yet there
is no way of proving that loyalty.
And:
The Japan Foreign Office has recently urged
the return of 50,000 "Kibei Shimin," now in Japan,
to California and other Pacific coast States, where their American
citizenship can be of most service. The Japanese Association of America
is promoting the movement. "Kibei Shimin" are Japanese born in the
United States and sent back in early childhood to Japan and there
trained through youth to maturity in the duties and loyalty of Japanese
citizenship. "Kibei Shimin" are received without question into full
membership by the Japanese American Citizens' League. (Osaka Mainichi,
March 19, 1937. C. J. I. C. Doc. No. 506.)
And:
Many American-born children are sent to Japan
in early childhood for education, and when they return are practically
alien Japanese, frequently speaking no English. There were about
50,000 of these Kibei Shimin in Japan until recently, when
the passage of the 1940 American nationality law,
presuming expatriation of those who have been in the country of their
parents for more than 6 months was passed. To avoid losing their
American citizenship under this law many of them are scurrying back
before the deadline in the middle of July. After that time they will be
in grave danger of losing it.
And:
The following facts in connection with the
California situation are of interest: The Japanese American Citizens
League, a powerful organization with approximately 50 chapters in the
Paeific States, has for its main proclaimed purpose the training of
American-born Japanese so that they may properly discharge their
obligations as American citizens. The league admits to membership
without question, however, all Japanese born under our flag, many if
not most of whom, it would seem, still retain Japanese citiz.enship. It
even admits the Kibei Shimin, Japanese born here and sent in early
childhood to Japan and there brought up to manhood and womanhood as
Japanese citizens. They are, to all intents and purposes when they
return here, alien Japanese immigrants who have the privileges of
American citizenship. Japanese authorities place the total
number of Kibei Shimin at between 40,000 and 50,000 and say
they are returning now at the rate of 1,000 per year.
The Japanese Association of America is planning to bring back at once
to California all the Kibei Shimin still in Japan who will come.
DeWitt in his Final
Report has this, cutting the figure down by 30,000,
which agrees with the Zaibei Nihonjinshi in 1940:
The Kibei Shimin movement was sponsored by
the Japanese Association of America. Its objective for many years had
been to encourage the return to America from Japan of American-born
Japanese. When the movement started it was ascertained that there were about
20,000 American-born Japanese in Japan. The Japanese
Association of America sent representatives to Japan to confer with
Prefectural officials on the problems of financing and transportation.
The Association also arranged with steamship companies for special
rates for groups of ten or more so returning, and requested all
Japanese associations to secure employment for returning American-born
Japanese.
During 1941 alone more than 1,573 American-born
Japanese entered West Coast ports from Japan. Over 1,147
Issei, or alien Japanese, re-entered the United States from Japan
during that year.
At the end of the war, a census conducted by the
US Consulate in Yokohama showed that there were 15,000 Nisei
residing in Japan. For more information on the Kibei, see this WRA
article, Japanese Americans educated in Japan: The
Kibei.
From Report on Japanese Activities:
Investigation has revealed that a
number of Nisei (first generation
American-born Japanese) have returned to Japan at the insistence of
these Japanese military and naval organizations to serve in the
Japanese Army.
In the Japanese magazine Japan-to-America (Japan and America) edited in
the United States but printed in Japan and sent to the United States
for distribution, in the issue of January 1941, is an article stating:
In view of the latest
Japanese-American relations and in anticipation
of the enactment of the peacetime conscription law in America, many
Japanese parents, fearing their sons' pointing guns against their
parents' country, have sent their sons back to Japan, where available
manpower is sorely needed.
Rishin Nakamura, second son of Nazaemon
Nakamura, of San Francisco, Calif., was made a sub-lieutenant in the
Japanese Army Medical Corps after graduating from the Showa Medical
School in Tokyo. Donald Seichi Murata went to the army in January 1941.
He is a graduate of Waseda University in Tokyo and was a radio
announcer in the international department of the Japanese Broadcasting
Society of Tokyo. He is the third son of Ryuichi Murata, principal of
the Manao Japanese Language School in Honolulu, Hawaii.
In Los Angeles several months ago some Nisei applied for United States
passports so that they could return to Japan. They stated they had been
called up to serve in the Japanese Army. When they were informed that
American passports were no longer issued for travel to Japan, they
remarked that they were going to Japan, passport or no passport, and
were going to serve in the Japanese Army even if it meant the loss of
their American citizenship. These are probably not the only instances
of such feelings on the part of the Nisei in the United States.
From the National
Japanese American Veterans Council,
George Yoshinaga relates right at the end of the war his conversation
with two Nisei in Okayama, Japan, who had repatriated from Tule Lake:
George Yoshinaga
As the troop ship S.S. Pennant slowly docked at the port in Yokohama
about three weeks after peace in the Pacific War was declared, I stood
on the top deck of the vessel and peered down at the Japanese men
working on the wharf and thought to myself, "I finally made it. I'm
finally going to set foot on Japanese soil."
These thoughts crossed my mind because who would have imagined when I
was growing up that a war would make it possible for me to finally
enter the country where my immigrant parents originated from.
A fellow GI, a Caucasian youth spit towards the men below.
One of the Japanese men glared up and bellowed "bakayaro."
Of course, the GI didn't know what the man was saying so he laughed and
waved at him.
I moved away and grabbed my equipment to prepare to disembark from the
vessel. We were loaded into a truck and we rumbled away from the pier.
None of us knew where we were going. There were a dozen other Nisei in
the group, all of us members of the U.S. Army Counter-Intelligence-Corp.
When we arrived at our destination, we learned that we were at Camp
Zama about thirty miles from Tokyo.
En route, I was amazed at the sight which we witnessed from the back of
the truck. People, men, women and children were wandering along the
road aimlessly with the bombed out wreckage of the city as the
background.
At Zama we were moved into tents because there were no buildings large
enough to hold the troops.
And, we still had to dine on C and K rations since there were no mess
halls set up to feed the troops.
Our stay was short, however, as each of us were assigned to units
throughout Japan. Two other Nisei and I were ordered to Okayama in
Central Japan.
Living conditions were better there since the Army took over houses
belonging to the Japanese because as members of the CIC we did not have
to live at the military housing set up by the Army.
As CIC personnel, our work was vastly different from those of the
regular GIs who were members of infantry units whose main job was to
maintain law and order in the area.
Using our Japanese language skills, we were assigned to interrogate
former Japanese military officers in an effort to take into custody
those who were considered to be on the "wanted list" by the U.S. Army.
On one assignment we took into custody a high ranking naval officer who
was alleged to have been part of the Pearl Harbor attack. We turned him
over to the proper Occupation Forces department in Osaka.
While the Nisei had official duties as members of the Occupation
Forces, there are two experiences that I, and other Nisei in the
military, encountered that is a story which has never been told but we
encountered while stationed in Japan. The first was the face-to-face
encounters with the native Japanese.
We quickly learned that almost all of the native Japanese were
completely ignorant about Japanese Americans.
Their confusion about Japanese Americans was compounded by the fact
that we were serving in the U.S. Military as part of the Occupation
Forces.
As I moved around on my official duties, the most frequently asked
question was "ana ta was Nihonjin desuka?" (Are you really Japanese.)
When I explained that my parents immigrated to America and I was born
there, therefore I was classified as an American, they seemed just as
puzzled.
Some comprehended my explanation but many were befuddled.
When told of my parents were from Japan, the next question usually was,
(in Japanese of course) "where in Japan did they live before going to
America?"
"Kumamoto," I would tell all of them.
During these give and take discussions, the tension between us seem to
lighten considerably.
Some of the Japanese even invited me to come to their home and have
dinner. It was an invitation I did not accept but in retrospect,
regretted that I didn't because it would have been an educational
experience for me to learn about the Japanese and what their lives were
like during the height of the Pacific War.
Of course, during my seven month tour of duty in Japan I did become
friends with a few Japanese but most were hired by the Occupation
Forces to work with us in various capacities.
The other experience which I
encountered but which was equally veiled in mystery involves those
Japanese Americans who repatriated to Japan during the war, most from
Tule Lake which was converted from a relocation camp into a segregation
center for those desiring to go to Japan.
I spotted two of them while
riding in my jeep in downtown Okayama. They were easy to distinguish
from the native Japanese simply by the way they were dressed. They wore
their flannel plaid shirt and blue jeans and leather boots, the style
of clothing most of us wore when we were in camp before entering the
U.S. Army.
Initially, I was hesitant about
making contact with them because I did not know what their reaction
would be in meeting a follow Nisei in an Army uniform. About the third
time I saw them on the street, I stopped my jeep and said, "hey guys,
what going on?"
They were surprised that I
addressed them in English.
"How come you didn't speak
Japanese to us," one of them responded. "How did you know we were not
Japanese Japanese?"
I explained about their clothing.
We laughed about it "Yeah, these
were the only clothes we brought along."
During the conversation, I
learned that life was tough for the repatriates because life condition
in Japan was terrible and it was tough to adjust to things like food
shortages land poor housing because of the damage inflicted by U.S. Air
Force bombing raids.
Both of the fellows I talked to
said they were 17 years old.
"If we knew what it was going to
be like, we would probably have refused to repatriate and part with our
Issei parents who were determined to return to Japan."
"We hope that we can return to
America one day," they both lamented.
I also learned that one of the
determining factors in their families to repatriate was that everyone
seem to agree that Japan was going to win the war and life would be
better for Japanese Americans in Japan.
"Man, that was a lot of crock,"
one of them said.
In an effort to lift their
morale, I said "well since both of your were minors when you left Tule
Lake, when all the turmoil is settled, it may become possible to return
because, after all, you are still U.S. citizens and were too young to
have made the decision that your parents made for you."
"Do you really think so?" they
said in unison.
I explained that I had heard
something about this from some knowledgeable people. "Man, I hope
you're right."
I told them that my sister
repatriated from Tule and was living in Kumamoto and her son, (my
cousin) was trying to volunteer to join the U.S. Army and that things
were going pretty well.
They both looked at each other
and said, "hey, maybe when we turn 18 we might try to go that route."
We then parted company. As I
drove away from them I looked in the rear view mirror and saw them
smiling and waving goodbye.
To this day, I wonder if they
ever did make it back to the good old U.S.A.
And this is the story about the
Nisei and the Occupation of Japan that should be told to the Japanese
Americans who might have wondered happened to all those who gave up on
America and journeyed across the Pacific to a land they had never seen
before.
From The Nisei Coming to Japan
(by ????, year ????):
In 1934, Foreign Minister Koki
Hirota delivered a speech to the members of the cabinet and the several
hundred industrial leaders of Japan, seeking their support for Nisei
education in Tokyo and the establishment of an educational institution
to prepare the Nisei with the prerequisites necessary for entering a
recognized college in Japan. Hirota stated, “it is the policy of
the government to look after the welfare of our countrymen’s education
whether they are abroad or at home in the light of the relation of our
nation to the other countries and the effect bearing upon our foreign
relationship.” He continued as follows:
Second generation Japanese born
on a foreign soil and who [have] never seen Japan are often in a
position where they may lose their affection for their parents through
the difference in environment and culture and that of their parents’
education or the difference in language. Added to this,
oppression by the people of that country may cause the individual to
lose his self-respect... I suggest that the second generation Japanese
be given an opportunity to visit our country, obtain a supplementary or
intermediate education to fit the needs of the individual, to come [in]
direct contact with the spirit of Japan, to realize the true value of
Japan and the Japanese race.
Hirota explained that the Japanese government had always taken into
consideration the social and economic condition of the country in which
Japanese resided. They were spreading forth the Japanese culture
in order that “they [might] be good Japanese subjects or faithful
citizens of their adopted country—that they [might] well contribute to
the culture of the world as the tie that binds the friendship bonds
between the two nations.” ( Rafu Shimpo,
February 25, 1934) Hirota extended the Japanese race to include the
Nisei. The practical purpose behind the Japanese government’s aid
was helped by the political climate of the time. In addition to
the developments in the transportation system, Japan’s secession from
the League of Nations demanded a stable bi-national foreign
policy. As one response to this situation, it is likely that as
one of many sources the Nisei were expected to contribute as
go-betweens of Japan and the U.S.
.....
In general, the parents who sent their children to study in Japan seem
to have counted on their Japan-educated Nisei to fall back on when
their careers in the U.S. ended in failure or in anticipation of
returning to Japan. At the same time, being able to send their
children to college in Tokyo was probably a proud achievement for most
parent(s), and hence had some driving force in sending their children
to Japan. Also, the Issei were seeking a realistic way to narrow
the linguistic and cultural as well as generational gap between
themselves and their children.
Imperial
Japan at Its Zenith: The Wartime
Celebration of the Empires 2,600th Anniversary by Kenneth J.
Ruoff (2010)
Remarks re Nisei: Kumamoto
p169 and Murokuma p170
Nisei interpreters at Omuta and Yahata POW camps?
Mentioned by Terrence Kirk:
http://www.rense.com/general8/pows.htm
Maybe this interpreter:
23 June 2008 · 10:04 pm
My sociolinguistics professor in grad school once
opined that the best place to learn a foreign language was in a foreign
prison. I assume he was thinking of the advantages of a complete
immersion environment, total
physical response methodology, and very rigorous incentive
structures.
He must have been at least half serious, because
he later applied for a grant to fund an audacious experiment to see
what innate linguistic structures might emerge in an isolated, silently
administered camp whose workers were recruited in equal numbers from
communities speaking languages of a full range of word-order
typologies and in minimal prior contact with typologically
different languages. I believe the granting agency’s Committee on Human
Experimentation nixed the proposal, for reasons one can well understand.
What makes me recall this is the abundance of
fascinating bits of data about foreign language learning in prison that
I’ve been finding in one of the books I’m currently reading, First
into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic
Japan and Its Prisoners of War, by George
Weller (1907-2002), ed. by Anthony Weller (Three Rivers, 2006).
Here are some of the insights of the reporter and the prisoners
themselves, arranged under a few general headings.
Incentive Structure
Tervald Thorpson (Wadena, Iowa): “I
managed to go a whole year without being beaten. Americans worked hard
in the mine, but some had difficulty learning Japanese, and
misunderstanding commands got them beatings.” (p. 97)
Sergeant Robert Aldrich (Capitan, New
Mexico): “I was in the mine ever since it opened, but I was more
fortunate than most because I learned Japanese, thus avoiding beatings
due to misunderstanding.” (p. 101)
Methodology
Oscar Otero of Los Lunas, a husky New
Mexican captured on Bataan, learned Japanese by being chauffeur to a
colonel. By refusing to allow him to talk any Filipino [?], the
Japanese furnished the coal mine prisoners with their ablest unofficial
interpreter. (p. 88)
Bilingual Assistants
Dark-skinned Junius Navardos (Los Angeles):
“Pressure in the mine caused me to pass out once while working. When I
came around in the hospital I found myself with burned patches all over
my skin. The boys told me that the burns had been made by an American-educated interpreter,
Yamamuchi [Yamaguchi], whom we called Riverside because he was
brought
up there. Asked whether he had done the burning, the interpreter told
the doctor, ‘Yes, I did this, because I thought he was feigning.’”
Leland Sims (Smackover, Arkansas):
“Many guards could speak English. One
who we
called Long Beach, because he was educated there, caught me
smoking and said, ‘It’s all right with me, but don’t let the other
guards catch you.’” (p. 96)
Japanese for Special Purposes
Corporal James Brock (Taft, Texas): “I
was most often overworked by a boss we called Shitbird, usually with a
hammer handle or a mairugi—that’s a small timber [丸木 maruki
'round wood = log'?]. He hit everybody who passed him, whether you
belonged to his shift or not. I’m sorry he’s disappeared since the camp
was liberated.” (p. 86)
Henry Sublett of Cisco, Texas, a Marine
captured on Corregidor: “I was down with pneumonia and worked in the
mine both after and before. Our first Buntai Joe [分隊長 buntaichō
'squad leader'], or overseer, used to be drunk all the time and beat me
every day for my first three months. He always used to the day start
off with a few savas [サービス = sābisu
'freebie']—meaning ‘gifts’—of blows.” (p. 88)
Runge, captured at Singapore, was “an old
Aussie,” which means he arrived at the Mitsui camp and entered the coal
mine in June 1944, joining the Bataan and Corregidor Americans who had
already been toiling for nearly a year underground. By February 1945
Runge was instructing “new Aussies” in the use of a jackhammer. He was
showing F. R. Willis and Robert Tideswell how to chip rock, the whole
party being under an overman named Katu-san [prob. Katō], when three
cars carrying coal ran off the rails, causing Katu-san’s temper to do
likewise. Saying “Dummy, dummy, that’s no good,” the Japanese promised
that he would report Runge for haitis savis [兵隊サービス heitai
sābisu 'soldier freebie'], meaning “military gifts”—that is, a
beating. (p. 104)
The idea of the camp administrator, Captain
Yuri, was that a prisoner’s main and only job was to dig coal for the
Japanese, and his only reward for twelve hours’ daily labor should be
his salary of three-quarters of a cent daily, plus a yassamai
[休み yasumi 'rest'] or rest day every ten days or so. (p. 108)
With the arrival by train from Nagasaki of the
first Army-Navy team for the evacuation of Kyushu’s largest prisoner of
war camp, the final sinkes [出欠 shukketsu
'attendance, (take) roll'] (Japanese for roll calls [otherwise 点呼 tenko
lit. 'point call']) were sounding today over the grimy buildings and
meagerly-clad G.I.s. This camp, 1,700 strong—700 being Americans from
Bataan and Corregidor—has been thinned already to 1,300 by impatient
ex-prisoners, mostly Americans, who have hit the high road for the
American airbase at Kanoya in southernmost Kyushu. (p. 92)
So profound is the prisoners’ hatred of Baron
Mitsui’s coal mine, the Japanese military police, and the aeso
[営倉 eisō] or guardhouse where five Americans have found a
violent death, that the entire camp would probably have been deserted
had not the Army-Navy team arrived today. Hospitals filled with cases
of malnutrition, diarrhea, beriberi, and mutilated men offer special
problems. (p. 92)
Graduate Assistants
Pharmacist William Derrick (Leesville,
Louisiana): “The Korean straw bosses were decent to us except when
the Japs were around, who frightened them.” (p. 96)
Sergeant Wiley Smith (Coushatta, Louisiana):
“We looked across the bay toward Nagasaki after emerging from the mine
and saw black smoke starting up. The atomic bomb, falling ninety
minutes before, had kindled Nagasaki. Our Japanese bosses kept pointing
that way and chattering. It was better than Germany’s surrender, which
we only heard about from Korean miners.” (p. 91)
Thoughts on Graduation
Navy Cook Laurel Whitworth (Bourne, Texas):
“Leaving Japan for me means not having to cook any more dogs to eat.
One day I had to cook sixty-nine, another seventy-three, another
fifty-five. I hate cooking dogs.” (p. 94)
Also this article:
Frank
Brennan June 24, 2008
SUBMITTED COMMENTS
Mike Holt
17 Dec 2009
Michael
Walzer has no idea what he is talking about. The fact is that the
Japanese were planning to completely eliminate up to 15,000 Australian
POWs, not to mention the thousands more Americans in custody.
Coincidentally, the date was set for 9 August, 1945.
The top secret order was issued by Field Marshal Terauchi. The order
directed POW camp commanders to build special machine gun emplacements
around the parade grounds. The prisoners were to be assembled as usual,
and then gunned to death. Failing this, the camp commanders were to
make every effort to completely eliminate the prisoners so that there
was no evidence they had ever existed. Only the atomic bomb stopped the
massacre.
As well, the Emperor had ordered all Japanese, not just troops, to
fight to the death. The ONLY way to get the Japs to see any sense was
to show them such overwhelming strength that even the Emperor was
forced to accept total capitulation.
Dr Ian Duncan, one of the POW leaders at the Omuta camp about 50
kilometers east of Nagasaki was read the order by the camp interpreter "Riverside" Yamaguchi,
who was later executed for war crimes. Dr Duncan
reported that Yamaguchi was a "callous man who had seemed to take
perverse pleasure in reading the execution order to the camp doctors."
If Allied troops had been forced to fight on Japanese soil, at least
half a million men would have died. And for what?
It was far better to drop the atom bombs than to suffer the useless
murder of so many young men. Imagine what our lives would have been
like if we had lost so many men who later went on to rebuild our
countries? Perhaps the inventors of many of the machines and technology
we take for granted now would have perished.
Yes, the bombs killed many civilians. But they supported the Emperor
and their war mongering military without reservation. They were just as
culpable as the most vicious soldier.
As for our Australian PM visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, he
was just doing what he does best: playing the politician to curry
favor, without any regard for reality, or the feelings of most
Australians. He has lost my vote.
日
本軍兵士になったアメリカ人たち 母 国と 戦った日系二世
門池啓史, 元就出版社 (2010/02)
Americans who became
soldiers of Japanese military - Nisei who fought against their
motherland
神
風特攻隊員になった日系二世
今
村 茂男 (著), 大
島 謙 (翻訳), 草思社 (2003/07)
Nisei who became members
of the Kamikaze special attack force
帝
国海軍士官になった日系二世
立
花 譲 (著), 築地書館 (1994/08)
Nisei who became officers
in the Imperial Japanese Navy
或
る英雄 日本軍に見捨てられた日系二世
河
崎 明彦 (著), 文芸社 (2009/8/1)
Some heroes: Nisei
abandoned by the Japanese military
Related:
二つの祖国で日系陸軍情報部 (DVD) 2013/04/26
Nikkei Intelligence Unit with
Two Fatherlands - interesting that this term 祖国 (native country)
is used
Japanese
American history: an A-to-Z reference from 1868 to the present
By Brian Niiya, Japanese
American National Museum (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Search in this work for all instances of "Japanese army" "inducted"
etc. Some mentioned are:
Mitsugi Nishikawa p.265
(see above) - DONE
Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi? p. 266
Interesting
history of JACL p.182, starting as American Loyalty League in 1918 (why
"loyalty"? perhaps there were disloyals??). First convention was held
in 1930 by older nisei to "emphasize loyalty, patriotism and
citizenship.
TIME
magazine
articles, collection
either in folder or in emails from 11/11/2006: \J-A
Relocation\Scans\TIME articles
Excellent article on the work of some of the Nisei involved in
translation and interpreting work during WWII and the Occupation of
Japan:
It has been said that the efforts of these brave Nisei in the MIS
contributed towards saving a million lives and shortened the war by two
years. However, that exaggeration does not hold up to any factual
evidence. There were many factors involved, and many other non-Nisei
intelligence personnel who were trained in the Japanese language. I'm
sure the Allied codebreakers in the Pacific would take offense at such
a statement.
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