Interview with Judge Raymond Uno Corporal, U.S. Army       MIS (Military Intelligence Service)

THIS INTERVIEW HAS NOT BEEN EDITED FOR CONTENT, LANGUAGE OR HISTORICAL ACCURACY.

Rick: We have with us Judge Raymond Uno, who was the District Judge for 15 years and then 10 years after that, has also been serving part-time as a judge. When December 7th, 1941 occurred at Pearl Harbor, as I understand it, there were nearly 120,000 - as I remember - Japanese living in Hawaii and many of those were already in the service serving the United States as a territorial guard of the Hawaiian Islands. If you could just tell us about what happened to these guys and what it was like on the Island of Oahu to these residents after the attack by the mainland Japanese forces.

It was my understanding that they 1st entered the battle zone at Sicily in Italy, now they may have been in North Africa before that, but their main fighting started in Sicily. And I might mention that there were no Japanese officers, all the officers were Caucasian and there was some question whether the officers were worried about their loyalty and how they were going to fight but when they got off the boats in Sicily and started fighting, the stories I get, the officers were absolutely amazed at how aggressive and what a good fighting force it was. When they had bayonet charges, the Japanese battalion would not hesitate. They just ripped into the enemy and fought harder and more viciously than anyone else. This was in the early days of the war and at that time they were bringing from the west coast the Japanese American citizens to about 10 interment camps on the mainland and Judge Uno we're so happy to have you with us because as I understand your father who is a veteran of WWI was incarcerated in this camp. Can you tell us about that and then a little about the camps that you spent several years in before you went in the service.

My father was in the American expeditionary forces that went to France and he got his American citizenship because he was a veteran. And when the war started, he was very active in American Legion and he was incarcerated like everybody else. We were first sent Pomona Assembly Center in California where we stayed there temporarily for about 3 months and then they got the permanent camps built and we were sent to Hart Mountain, Wyoming from Pomona Assembly Center and we spent approx. 3 years in the camp. And my father died August 21st, 1943 while he was in the camp and our time in the camp was one in which, for young people it was kind of an adventure but for the old people a lot of difficulty because people lost their homes, they lost their property, they lost their businesses, they were interrupted in school, separated from family, and they were put into a strange place where the winters were really cold. If you know Wyoming, we were in between Cody and Powell, Wyoming. And the summers were really hot with just nothing but dust storms and for the older people it was very difficult and for people who were of working age, you know, they had lost everything and so it was very difficult for them to make adjustment. But in the camps you know, we developed our own schools, we had our own hospitals, we started farms which eventually were given to GI's who were returning from the war and property that was cultivated and made into agricultural land became really first class property and the people were so grateful that they eventually built a little monument there for the Japanese that were incarcerated there. And the people that lost their homes and they lost their jobs and things like that. The older people, some of them never ever were able to rehabilitate themselves. The younger people, in certain ways, it was what you would call a blessing in disguise because everybody was concentrated on the west coast and these people when they were allowed to be released from the camps, went to schools back east and looked for jobs back east so they went to Detroit and New York and New Jersey all over the United States and spread the Japanese population out in terms of being able to assimilate into the Japanese culture.

How old were you at the time?

At the time I had just turned 12. I was there from 12 to almost 15, for 3 years.

How was the treatment? Were you treated with civility or was it harsh?

Initially they told us that we were being put into these camps for our own protection, but when we went into these camps there were barbed wire fences around it with guard towers and the guns were not pointed out, they were pointed in and there were a number of incidences in which people were shot because they went beyond the barbed wire fences and apparently thought they were maybe trying to escape or something but they were just kind of strolling around. And our confinement in terms of the camp was exclusively within the barbed wire fences. But then eventually as we were able to establish our own self government, we had our own schools, own hospitals, own social activities, they gave us a little more freedom and like I said, for the younger people it was a time of making new friends and having just like any other high school or elementary school, but for the older people in some instances you know people committed suicide and had mental problems. And some of the results of the incarceration are still being felt by people who were placed in there and some are very bitter about having lost everything and lost family members and so forth. But on the other hand when the war came to a point where the 100th had established themselves as a fighting unit, they started recruiting people from the camps and so we had almost all volunteers for the 442nd and Shig can tell you about what they did and I was telling you about a lot of people didn't realize that 6,000 Japanese Americans served in the Pacific and these people served in Military Intelligence and they served in every theatre of war in the Pacific.

You know what's amazing to me is that after this, even though in spite of the incarceration, there seem to be a lot of these young men who wanted to demonstrate their loyalty to America and the 100th Battalion was over in Italy at the Battle of Monte Casino there were 1,300 men that started up that hill and they lost 800 men coming back and the way that these guys fought was amazing. They had a reverse AWOL term where these guys would get wounded and go to field hospital and they would leave the field hospital without permission to go back to the frontlines and fight again. And this was unheard of the valor and the dedication that this 100th Battalion demonstrated and then as I understand that President Roosevelt decided that they were going to form the 442nd Regiment consisting mainly of Japanese Americans and these guys that were in these camps, like yourself, joined up in the 442nd and then as you say there were some called the military intelligence service group that went to the Pacific Theatre.

Tell us about the Loyalty Oath that they were forced to sign.

That was in these camps when they were trying to kind of determine the loyalty of the people, they had 2 questions. One essentially said that would you be loyal to the United States and would you fight against any enemy of the United States but it was framed in such a way that it posed a real problem for many of the people so some of the people put "no no" on there and they became known as the "no no boys". And essentially they were considered to be resistors because they refused to go to the draft and these people said that, "We will not comply with the draft as long as you keep our family incarcerated. If you let our families go we'll be glad to serve." These people were tried in the Federal Court as draft resistors and convicted and sent to Federal Penitentiary and served approx. 3 years in the penitentiary. And this people, subsequent many of these people served in the Vietnam War with valor but these people had this conscientious objector to think that, "we're not going unless you let our family go," and the government refused to let them go and they were convicted and they served the time in Federal Prison. I think President Truman did pardon them after the war.

There's another element that a lot of us who study the war have hardly heard of and that's a group of around 6,000 of Japanese Americans that were sent to the Pacific Theatre and I believe Judge Uno you were part of that group and maybe you could tell us a little of the history and what went on with that?

This group is called MIS (Military Intelligence Service) and it consisted of people who were trained and knowledgeable about the Japanese language and they were essentially used as interpreters, translators, interrogators, and in certain instances they were used to go into the battlefield and seek out information in front lines and they served in every Theatre of the war in the Pacific from Bermouth, India Solomon's Canal, Guam, Iwo Jima and then ultimately when the war was over they served in the occupation services. And a lot of people don't realize it, but the success of the occupation and Japan becoming Democratic was and due in part to a lot of these people who were served as interpreters and interrogators and these people served very bravely in many instances where they were exposed to the enemy plus they're exposed to the American forces because no one could identify if they were Japanese or American since they looked exactly alike. And so most of the time when they were in the front lines they were given guards to protect them from the American forces and not the Japanese forces because, you know they were not able to be identified. But they served like I said, in the front lines and were responsible in terms of intelligence because when documents were captured they were able to translate those documents so they were able to find out the field positions, the strengths of the enemy and in many instances they captured the Japanese prisoners and were able to interrogate them to get information and the Japanese were not ever told to be captured so you know, they expected to die while they were in the front lines and so when they were captured they were never told what information they should or should not give and it turned out favorably for the American forces that they were able to be interrogated.

Well that's interesting, and I heard that one of the major reasons that we did so well in the Pacific Theatre was breaking the Japanese code and I understand that some of the Japanese Americans served a very big role in that prior to the Battle of Midway.

Like I said, when they were able to capture these documents and intercept the messages they were able to translate many of those things and eventually, I'm not quite sure they were responsible for breaking the code itself but they helped in terms of breaking the code ultimately.

Probably the best kept secret that nobody's ever heard of the MIS, so you appreciate you telling us first hand and especially those of you that lived it. I know you served following the war in Tokyo yourself Judge.

I was the 2nd wave of MIS people who served in the occupation and many of the people who were in the Pacific and went all the way through the Pacific War stayed in Japan and continued the work in Japan. And as I was telling you, we were military intelligence and many of us were attached to the counter intelligence corps where we did a lot of counter intelligence work in terms, you know, the things that are happening Iraq right now. You have to get intelligence from the people and that's one of things that we did was we worked with the local people and got intelligence to find out who were communists, who were not communists, and who we could rely on and we used double agents and we had a lot of informants. And this is one thing that in Iraq, they were not able to do successfully, but in Japan we were able to do that and we were in every prefecture in Japan and we worked with the local police very closely.

Is there anything else you would like to comment on.

From our camp our student body president was real nice looking, intelligent person, volunteered for the 442 and within several months of going over there he was killed in action and that really brought the sympathy of the people in Hart Mountain toward the war and the 442 people.

I must admit I've studied it for a long time and I had no idea until I really started to look into the 442nd and how valued they were and the contribution they made to the victory and we thank you for being with us today.