Boyhood to War by Dorothy Matsuo

[kanowarrior]

This book is collection of recollections by the vets. At least a quarter of this book leads up to the beginning of the war and the treatment of the Japanese immigrants. I won't be posting as much of this one as I did the last but will post interesting parts of this book from time to time as I read it. I haven't found this book as compelling as the letters I read before but still a good read that shows alot of insight into the 442nd. The following incerpt may have already been posted but I find these words to be so compelling and as much as Senator Inouye plays it down I believe it to be very typical of the average AJA soldier.

Dan Inouye was attending the University of Hawaii when the war started and wrote this about it:

"The call for volunteers went through the student body like a shock wave - I was in my first semester then. Now the time had come to fish or cut bait, for the monkey was on our backs. One must keep in mind that there are no naturally brave people, men of courage. You find men of courage in any ethnic group depending on the time and circumstance. Men and women do strange things under strange circumstances.

"I don't know if my experience can be characterized as being that of most of my comrades, but I feel certain that most, if not all, must have spent many sleepless hours debating this matter. For the most part, I think we had decided that we had no choice, that we had to volunteer now that the opportunity presented itself, even if it meant giving up long-cherished dreams.

"For example, almost all of the AJA members who were in the pre-med program at the University of Hawaii signed up. These were men who were pursuing their life dreams. We anticipated that if we were going to be taken in we would be given tough assignments - who else would you demonstrate your loyalty? Not by digging tree holes! So, when we were told we were to form a combat team, more than ever we knew that not all of us would hold key positions. Many would not come home. But we all volunteered - and it might interest you to know that there were 48 of us (in pre-med) and not one became a physician.

"Most of us insisted on being assigned to the infantry unit. The natural course would be for the military to examine your background and say, 'You've got a pre-med background, so you are going into the medics.' That's common sense. And that's what the military did, but we insisted (on the infantry).

"On the day when I was to report to Nuuanu YMCA to get on a truck to go to Schofield Barracks, my father and I got on a streetcar and sat together not saying anything - just quietly looking straight ahead, a thousand words going through our minds. Suddenly he looked at me and he said, 'Whatever you do, don't bring dishonor to the family. This country has been good to us. We owe much to the country; even if it means dying for it.' It was from a father to his eldest son. And I promised him, 'You don't worry, Dad. I will not bring dishonor to the family.' He emphasized family honor as being first and foremost in importance, followed by our debt to our country. Family was very important.

"There was peer pressure about volunteering. If Toshi signed up, his friend would almost be compelled to do likewise. 'Toshi is going; I'm going too.' Otherwise, it would result in a loss of face, to stay back. I don't suppose any of the families wanted their sons to enlist, but they also knew that if their sons stayed home, it would almost be looked upon as a disgraceful act. Peer approval and peer acceptance were very important.

"I was one of the first of the 75 on campus to volunteer. I didn't call my father or mom and was confident I was going to be taken in - just the right age, mentally alert, bag packed. However, a few weeks later when we gathered to learn whether we were accepted, and the accepted list was called from Abe to Zukeran, there was no Inouye. I rushed to the officer in charge and said to him, 'My name is Daniel K Inouye.' 'Yeah, you're not on this list.' I was frantic. I was going to be left behind, and all of my buddies were going to be overseas. What would they think of me? I couldn't go and tell them, 'By the way, I did volunteer. I didn't ask for special treatment.'

"I went to the local board every day. Finally I asked, 'What am I supposed to do?' 'Well, we got a notification that you were at the aid station, and your position is important to the war cause.' And so I quit my job at the aid station and returned to the draft board to advise them of my job termination. So I was second to the last to be accepted. My serial number - 30106416 was the second to the last number issued in Hawaii for the 442nd."

[kanowarrior]

This particular book is becoming a hard read. Not because it isn't well written but because unlike the last book that was a soldier writing letters to his loved one, this book is a series of recollections of the vets. It has a lot of very emotional topics you don't find with any other unit in WWII or since. You see alot of guys mentioning (as my father used to tell us) that they all believed they would not return alive so anything that happened didn't matter to their personal safety. They were already dead the minute they signed up.

Ernest Uno and Kobe Shoji were both born and raised on the Mainland, but now live in Hawaii. Uno volunteered from a relocation camp:

"I was in relocation camp in Amache, Colorado in the eastern part of the state, 16 miles from Kansas. Two older brothers volunteered as interpreters and went to Camp Savage. That inspired me to volunteer also. My mother wasn't happy but eventually relented. My father was separated from us and was at Lordsburg, New Mexico.

"There was a strong feeling against volunteering for the 442nd among the Mainland Japanese Americans because we were already in relocation camps behind barbed wire. We were also asked to respond to two very troublesome loyalty questions which asked whether we foreswear our allegiance to the Emperor of Japan, and swear our loyalty to the United States of America. It really hurt to be stuck behind barbed wire and then to be questioned about our loyalty when we had no other loyalty but to the USA.

"Lots of people became emotional and in their anger answered 'no' to both questions. Then, like rubbing salt into wounds, they were asked to volunteer. The response was naturally poor. Furthermore, most of the niseis wore glasses and the failure rate for the physical was nearly three out of four.

"Those of us who volunteered were ostracized. There were catcalls and we got into fist fights. The kibeis, those born in America but educated in Japan, threw food at us in the kitchen, and my poor mother, with three sons who had volunteered, was castigated mercilessly.

"President Roosevelt's announcement to allow AJAs to serve the country was Hypocritical. There were thousands behind barbed wire and he was announcing that every American should have the opportunity to fight for his country.

"My dad, discouraged by the situation, had wanted the family to go back with him to Japan as repatriates. When he learned of my volunteering, his reponse was typically Japanese. He wrote me a long letter saying that he had chosen to go back to Japan with his family but that I had disregarded his wishes and sided with the US Government and joined the Army. He could only wish the best for me overseas and admonished me to fight as best I can, and for me not to come back, because coming back could imply a cowardly status and that will shame the family.

"I left the camp alone after volunteering because I had to recover from an operation that I had. By the time I got to Shelby in August, the Hawaiians had completed their basic training. The kotonks were dribbling in so they formed a temporary 'recruit company' for basic training but we lived with the Hawaiians."

[kanowarrior]

For the men leaving Hawaii where the bulk of the 442nd recruits came from the trip into Army life was not like it is depicted in movies. Soldiers left Schofield Barracks and marched to the former luxury liner Lurline but there was no band, and it was far from organized.

The average soldier was around 5 feet 6 inches tall and approximately 120 to 130 pounds in weight, but there were many that were barely five feet and weighed much less. The duffel bags each had to lug on their backs measured nearly three feet long by two feet wide. And, although they had thrown away dispensible items to lighten their loads, the bags weighed about half as much as they did.

They covered that fateful mile without much dignity - struggling and sweating under their load, while straining their necks to spot familiar faces. Nasty MPs yelled at them, like oppressive plantation lunas.

They felt disgraced, but already looked out for each other. The bigger fellows helped the little guys, and they all made it to the pier. Paul Matsumoto was 18 years old, 5 feet 3 inches and 150 pounds when he left Tent City with his heavy duffel bag. Not yet physically fit, he complained, "Of all things, my mom spotted me from the beginning, so I had to act strong and march without flinching. I didn't want my mom to think, 'Oh, my poor son.'"

Daniel Inouye was inducted late, so he missed the ceremony at Iolani Palace and spent only four days at Schofield before he had to pack his gear to leave Hawaii. He was angered by the unceremonious march from Iwilei to the pier:

"We all boarded trains and rode from Schofield to the Oahu Railway and the Land depot in Iwilei near Aala Park. We got off the trains with the duffel bags, guitars, ukuleles, suitcases and other assorted packages. We just assumed we were going to throw these things on a truck and we were going to get on trucks. Nope, we carried these damned bags and ukuleles and marched from the OR&L depot to the pier where the Lurline was moored.

"The streets were packed with wives, children, girlfriends, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. And they all viewed this ragtag, ill-fitted group of men leaving Hawaii, not in smart step, as you would like to picture soldiers leaving for the front. Carrying these bags, we looked like a bunch of prisoners of war.

"Alongside were the military police as if they were guarding us. Every so often , somebody would try to rush up to say goodbye, and he would be pushed away: "Get out of here!" So the parents were all along the sidewalks and we looked like a bunch of s-------. We could hardly carry the damned things. Sweating, we just looked terrible.

"I've always cursed that day and I've never forgiven the Army for that, for they could have made our farewell march a bit more heroic and memorable. Instead, for many, the last sight of their sons, husbands and boyfriends was of their struggle with their heavy bags. We weren't physically fit yet! We didn't know how to carry the bags so we dragged them along, looking clumsy with uniforms that didn't fit. My sleeves had to be rolled up because they were too long. I didn't have military shoes. I had civilian shoes on. My God, the Viet Cong were better dressed.

"I was mad! I didn't have time to feel sad. It would have been easy for them to have put these bags into a truck and have had a band up front with martial music so we could go marching down looking good, with some semblance of discipline. Instead we had stragglers. many were not even five feet tall and the bags were as big as they. My God, it was terrible! I can still picture that. I was just fuming. Those bastards. After we had signed up to volunteer to literally give our lives, this was our last farewell. I believe I saw my father - I saw someone that looked like him waving."

According to Masumoto, a few days before they left, they were told to turn in the special currency in use in Hawaii during the war that had "HAWAII" stamped across the U.S. currency for regular, unmarked bills. Matsumoto was amazed when they collected $25,000 from a company of 200 men. They had never handled so much money and it took a long time to count the pile. The men were "loaded." They not only had their savings from their defense work, but they also had large amounts of senbetsu.

[kanowarrior]

The men disembarked in Oakland and boarded trains that headed east on three different routes. On the trains, the men were instructed to pull the shades until they were out of the city, probably as a precaution against adverse public reaction to "Jap" faces in such large numbers. But that didn't dampen the men's Aloha spirits. When the men on Matsumoto's train learned it was the porter's birthday, they each pitched in a dollar and sang "Happy Birthday" to him. The men's carefree generosity continued during the trip, Shigeo Kawamoto explained:

"We played poker on the train to Shelby. When we came to a stop and saw that children had come to greet us, we threw some coins to the children. They went crazy picking up the coins. So after that, every time we saw children, we would throw coins. Sometimes adults dove for the coins, too. At some stops there were school children with their teachers with gifts for us. We were told to keep the shades down when we reached towns but I know a fellow that left the train to talk to a girl and to obtain her name and address to correspond to her."

The train ride to Shelby was memorable in other ways. Seeing haole women performing menial tasks along the way surprised them. Back home the haole women, except for the "Mamie Stovers" in the red light districts, were the upper crust of society and were never seen sweeping floors or waiting on tables. Dan Inouye commented: "White folks served us coffee and donuts. This is something you didn't see in Hawaii. White folks never served us." Seeing snow for the first time was thrilling for everyone, and they stepped out of the trains briefly for snow ball fights.

Harold Fukunaga described his first encounter with the Mainland cold:

"We boarded the train and closed the windows to keep the cold and soot out. We traveled from California to Evanston, Illinois. It was snowing. People got off the train. The commanding officer, Maj. Conley, warned us not to go too far from the train and not to swear; but he was the first to get off the train and utter, 'Ugh, it's f------ cold!"

"The haoles we encountered greeted us with an 'ugh,' thinking we were Indians. Seeing show was a new adventure. There was very little friction on board ship or train - the kotonks weren't with us yet."

[kanowarrior]

The men finally arrived at Camp Shelby, Mississippi on April 13, 1943. Thier romantic visions of the Mainland were shattered when they saw Shelby. In the months to follow, they were forced to adapt to a new life, challenged by a series of environmental and cultural shocks.

First of all, the men had to adjust to the flimsy, hurriedly assembled huts that now spelled home. The poorly insulated barracks contained a single pot-bellied stove and a hot water heater - barely enough to accommodate the needs of only a handful against the cold. Although it was April, it was still cold, especially for the thin-blooded Hawaiians.

They all had a compelling need to take hot baths or showers every day, as they did back home. Obsessed about bathing, but with no hot water, they took cold showers. They nicknamed "Kotonks" that didn't bathe daily, "Bathless." Later, when they were out on maneuvers, they even jumped into cold creeks infested with water moccasins to wash themselves. Then to warm up, they build campfires with fresh pine wood. The fresh wood smoked so badly it blackened their faces, so they sat around the campfire looking at each other's black faces, but feeling clean.

The second major shock was being caught in a segregated black/white society. The segregation at home where there was a haole/non-haole dichotomy was much more subtle. One unidentified soldier complained:

"I didn't know what real racial prejudice was until I hit the South. There was the 'white' toilet and the 'black' toilet. I'm brown. Where do I go? The bus driver would come to the back of the bus and tell us that the back was for the blacks, but we didn't care, so we stayed in the back."

"We had a difficult time understanding the relations between the whites and the blacks. The blacks had to cross the street and walk on the other side if a white came by on his side of the street. We were told to be with the whites, to use 'white' toilets, and to sit in the front of the bus.

"Some dark guys like Harry Shiroma encountered trouble. They told him to sit in the back of the bus. There used to be a restaurant called 'White Kitchen.' The waitresses there used to leave their haole customers to come wait on us because we were heavy tippers."

The discrimination against the blacks was especially disturbing to the men because they had experienced second-class citizenship themselves. Their commanding officers warned them not to "rock the boat" and to play by the South's rules. But the men sided with the blacks in their conflicts with white soldiers.

The third shock was the food. Now that they had left the Islands, the Army cuisine became more unfamiliar and less appealing. Rice was replaced by bread and potatoes. Most of them had never had mutton, tongue, liver and cheese. Even the fish they were served didn't taste as fresh and delicious as it did in Hawaii. The men went to Hattiesburg, the nearest town, to eat steak whenever their pocketbooks allowed. Edward Kanaya swears that the Shelby mess served horse meat. Later, when they did eat horse meat overseas, it tasted suspiciously like the meat they had been served at Shelby.

The fourth shock came during basic training and maneuvers. The unbearable summer heat, poison oak, snakes, chiggers and ticks were all unfamiliar to the young men from "paradise." They learned such painful lessons as: never urinate when your hands are contaminated with poison oak or poison ivy, and never let a tick get near your penis - it'll never leave gracefully.

[kanowarrior]

Harold Fukunaga:

"In Shelby I used to dread the four-mile forced march which we had every morning with the full field pack. Lt. Nilges, a tall, long-legged guy with a long stride, was our platoon leader and led the march. We were supposed to walk fast for three minutes then slow down for three, but with our short legs, we were running all the time to keep up with the Lieutenant. This went on for the full 16-week basic training period."

Robert Kuniyuki:

"Army life wasn't very good, but I can't complain; I volunteered. It was real hard because we were small. I was 130 lbs., 5-food-1, and wore 5 EE shoes. For instance, we had a company commander who was so tall, for every step he took, I had to take three. One day I looked up and complained to him, 'Eh, you take one step and I have to take three. As far as I'm concerned, I went three times as far as you, step for step.' And when I had to carry the bazooka in training, it was so long it almost touched the ground."

A major problem, however, was getting along with the kotonks. Although they were ethnic brothers, the kotonk's ways and speech were strange to the men from Hawaii. The kotonks couldn't comprehend pidgin, and didn't act in any way like their "bruddas."

Ida described the differences between the two groups:

"Hawaii boys wre more informal, while the Mainland Japanese were more competitive. The nickname 'kotonk' originated early in Shelby. My name is 'Ida,' pronounced with a short 'i,' and to have a kotonk call me 'Ai-da' really grated me.

"The kotonk style was altogether different from ours. The Hawaiian style was share and share alike, while the kotonks were more for themselves. But a lot of them changed and learned our ways. The kotonks saw us as crude fighters who spoke poorly. They weren't as aggressive as we were, and their attitudes differed because they were discriminated more. They did accept their nickname after a while. Although the kotonks were a minority at Shelby, more of them were sergeants and corporals and were part of the cadre gathered to assist in the training of the 442nd."

The fact that kotonks were cadre with ranks of sergeants and corporals contributed significantly to the conflict between the two groups. They gave the orders to whip the new soldiers into shape and to instll discipline. The aggravated the Hawaii men, who were not used to rigid military discipline, and who expected the kotonk non-coms to be nice and accommodating rather than nasty disciplinarians. The buddaheads frequently complained that the sergeant was "chicken sh*t" (not accommodating)".

Richard Nishioka described his anti-kotonk attitude:

"We looked and sound so uneducated the kotonks looked down on us. We also couldn't take orders from them. Hawaii boys were jealous that the kotonks were noncoms. We couldn't fight verbally; it was easier to use fists. One day we were told to clean our rifles, but we didn't have patches so I went to the supply room to get some; but the kotonk sergeant wouldn't give me any, so I punched him. I was a private then."

[kanowarrior]

Daniel Inouye:

"Shelby - it wasn't the beauty spot of the U.S. They picked the right place for training because we always said, 'If you can get through Shelby, you're ready for any combat, any war, any enemy.' We were introduced to strange things: snakes, chiggers, ticks.

"We were sufficiently disciplined because of our lifestyle at home, but not this kind of discipline. The food for the most part was foreign. At home the average member must have had at least a bowl of rice a day, if not two, seven days a week. Suddenly, we were lucky if we had rice once a week. And then we were introduced to dishes not on the menu for someone from the plantation. Cheese, for example, was not a great Japanese delicacy. Tomatoes were still foreign to most of us. No rice! That was devastating. But to have the same menu each week was demoralizing. The Army had a system. Everyone in the U.S. (Army) would have beans on a certain day, pork chops on another, cold cuts the next day... so you knew he day of the week by the menu. After a while we caught on and went out.

"The lines between the kotonks and the Hawaiians were drawn almost immediately. Physically, we looked different. We were darker, they were lighter; in general, much fairer. They had come out of winter hibernation. Secondly, once you opened your mouth, Hawaii and Mainland, it was like night and day.

"I think resentment began to mount on the part of the Hawaii group because the Mainlanders spoke a better brand of Japanese and a better brand of English, and some were offended because they felt these Mainlanders were looking down at us and making fun of us. Oh, if I were a Mainlander I would have laughed at some of the pidgin that spouted out of the mouths of these Hawaiians. It was funny. And once in a while these guys would laugh and the Hawaiians would feel offended and 'Whop!' That was round one.

"We were always the aggressors. They were the ones getting bloodied. We outnumbered them. And we were not discriminating. We would hit a private as well as a sergeant. It was a bad situation and this is part of the history of the 442nd. It was so bad the senior officers were considering calling it quits. They considered disbanding the whole regiment and disbursing the men thought the U.S. into labor battalions; the experiment was a failure. Fights were epidemic and we were threatened on a couple of occasions (by the officers). There was a boxing match. Mainland versus Hawaii. It was a slaughter because the other side got smashed."

[kanowarrior]

Inouye described how the friction abated considerably after Hawaii men visited the relocation camps in Rohwer and Jerome:

"Finally, somebody, somewhere - and unsung hero - had a brilliant idea. He arranged to have the residents of the internment camp at Rohwer, Arkansas invite the members of the 442nd to spend the weekend at the camp. Each company selected half a dozen or so noncoms - for the most part the opinion molders - all Hawaiians, not a single kotonk. The men selected were told that they were selected because they were good soldiers. I was one of those selected. I looked forward to this and was proud to be selected. We were going to meet young girls from the Mainland. We had no idea what these camps were like. To begin with, our relationships (with the kotonks) weren't good. Secondly, they weren't talking about it, so if anything, we just knew vaguely that their families were in camp somewhere.

"I remember that the trip from Hattiesburg to Rohwer took about six hours on a truck convoy. Starting out early in the morning, you could hear men singing with ukuleles - typically Hawaiian. Every truck must have had a couple of ukuleles. Happy, happy, joking and looking forward to the visit. At this stage we were not yet calling the Mainlanders 'kotonks' but 'bastards.' 'Kotonk' is a term of endearment.

"As we approached our destination, we could see this vast camp with row after row of barracks, barbed wire fences, and guard towers with guards and guns. We came to the entrance. We stopped and were told to get off. And here we are, men in uniform, and there on the other side were also men in uniform (but) with rifles and bayonets. And some of us were searched.

"Right then and there things began changing. We were led in and told that some of the barracks were available to us. We said we'll sleep in the trucks. We tried our best to have a good time. We danced. I think our hosts spent three to four days' rations to feed us and give us a good time. Very few complained. They didn't take us on a tour but we went around and looked and couldn't believe their living conditions. To make a long story short, on the way home there was no singing. Very little conversation other than, 'Give me a cigarette.'

"I think all of us were just sitting there, thinking about this unbelievable experience. It was all mind-boggling - American citizens! The thing that went through my mind constantly was: 'I wonder what I would have done. Would I have volunteered?' When you realize that these guys volunteered from behind barbed wire, you respect them as a special breed of men. We volunteered from a community that was generous in their thoughts, understanding in their sentiments. We weren't herded away. There were some (Japanese) that were went to Ewa but for the most part, we lived a pretty normal life (in Hawaii.) We were given positions of responsibility - I was at an aid station. But these guys were herded into camps like this and they volunteered. The fact that even one volunteered was amazing. The Hawaiian asked himself that day, 'Would I have volunteered?' I would like to say 'yes,' but not having faced it, I can't say what I would have done.

"...Overnight the situation in Camp Shelby changed because the word went out like wildfire. The experiment worked. I went back and said, 'I got to tell you guys about these Mainlanders. You won't believe what I'm going to tell you.' And this must have gone on in every hut throughout camp. The next day, you thought you were visiting a new regiment. We were blood brothers. The regiment was not formed when we volunteered, nor when we arrived in Camp Shelby - it was formed after this visit. From then on, anybody who touched a kotonk got beat up. That's why you will find today that the kotonks and buddhaheads are very, very close. We maintain relationships sometimes closer than siblings. This is blood relationship.

"I think the term 'kotonk' came about because if they called us a 'bunch of buddhaheads,' bingo! Somebody would have been punched. Now when they call us 'buddhaheads,' it's a term of endearment and we call them lovingly 'kotonks.' I refer to my son who was born on the Mainland as a 'kotonk.'"