Hiro Isogawa

This brief interview with Hiro Isogawa, conducted by Grace Fleming, was impromptu and done on the spot at the Legion of Valor Museum in Fresno, coincidentally on Pearl Harbor Day of 2001. Hiro was a volunteer docent at the museum, and though their conversation is brief, his insights into why people should serve their country (“You take advantage of something, you should pay it forward”) and his thoughts on the Japanese American draft resisters reflect a man who once valiantly served his country, but a man who maintained a fair and balanced point of view for difficult decisions once made in uncertainty and confusion.

Today is December 7th, 2001, and I’m here with Hiro Isogawa at the Legion of Valor Museum [Veterans Memorial Museum] in Fresno. So you trained soldiers? 

Yes I was only 18 so I went through basic at Camp Blanding, Florida then went to Camp Shelby, Mississippi. And we were supposed to go overseas and since I was only 18 they held me back, they wouldn’t ship me overseas because of my age. So I was one of the bigger ones there, so they kept me back as a [inaudible] with the Hawaii boys. And I stayed there ‘til we broke up in about February of ‘45, when we broke up the camp. And we went to Fort Meade, Maryland. And I stayed there for about four months before we went overseas and we went as occupation forces. Because the war was over. 

So I ended up taking some men to different places -- we went to Ausburg, Germany; Antwerp, Holland, and on to Belgium. And we shipped supplies all over Europe. We used advance training to ship people overseas. I attached to a Triple A unit first, then MIlitary Police before I came home.

When did you come home?

I think it was June of ‘46. 

So did all 18 year olds stay?

Well no, if you were close to 19 they could ship you. I went to Michigan as a cook in Fresno Assembly Center when I was only 16 years old. 

Where and when were you born?

I was born here in Fresno, November 23, 1925. So when the war broke out I was only 16. And we went to camp in May, then from Fresno Assembly Center we went to Jerome, Arkansas. It must have been in September. 

So here you are, you’re 16 in high school. And the war breaks out. You’re young but old enough to grasp the urgency. You know what’s going on. 

We knew what was going on. I was playing football, we were throwing around at home And when my sister came out, “Pearl Harbor.” So from then on, life changed, we couldn’t work anymore. We were working as a gardener -- my dad had a job and on the side we were going gardening work. And since the war started, we couldn’t leave. And at that time when the war started, I might have only been 5 feet tall. And after Pearl Harbor, I grew like a weed. When I went in the army, I was 5’10. I was one of the big guys. 

Today is Pearl Harbor, just happens to be. One of the points in history that I’m most interested in is how people dealt with having to leave their homes. 

Well it’s -- I only say this to so many people. In my case, I was working everyday after school. So when this happened, I had a chance to stay home, we’re not supposed to go too far. So that’s the reason why I started growing. 

Oh you were working too hard.

I think so. So I can’t sit around to this day -- I have to do something. If they didn’t put us in the camp, I might have been a farmer. I would’ve stayed on the ranch and things like that but since we went to camp and I went out to Michigan as a cook, and when I got drafted I said “I didn’t want anymore cooking.” So when I went into the service I didn’t want to cook anymore. And after I came back from the service, I farmed for a little bit and after my brothers came back from the service. And after everything got back to normal, I went to work in the grocery service. 

Well you know, America’s at war now. Do you have any feelings about that?

Not really, I think people realize that people have to do what they have to do. If they live here, they should do their part to help. The President right or wrong, you have to defend the country. I think some of the people don’t realize that they want all the good things but they don’t want to share the responsibility which is one of the things that everybody should learn. If the President declared war and as long as you’re living in this country, you should defend this country. You take advantage of something, you should pay it forward. 

And when I was growing up, what happened is when they called the 442nd and wanted volunteers, I asked my dad and he said, “You’re crazy, no you can’t go.” And he said, no, I’m not signing for you. He says that I was not of draft age -- I was only 17. 

I’m going to ask a controversial question, you don’t have to answer it. There were draft resistors, some draft resistors. And I’ve only met 442nd guys who accept them and vice versa. 

No see, a lot of that begins with people of different ages. Now if -- like in my case at 16 years old, I didn’t lose anything but a car. I had been driving a car since I was 14. And so that’s the only thing I lost but the people that I knew that was at that time 20 years old. And those that were 20, 21 years old, they had saved all the money they had saved after high school and they invested in different things, and then all of a sudden they said, “You’re going to camp, you have to get rid of it.” They didn’t owe the car or something -- they made a downpayment for the car -- so they lost it. So a lot of people that had lost everything, they were on the bitter side which in a sense looking back, I would have been the same way if I’d lost everything like they did.

So as far as being bitter about the no/no people, a lot of them didn’t go to Japan. They went to Tule Lake and they came out and I know a bunch myself that actually went into the Korean War. They said no/no before but they had actually served and to this day, I know some of them, they’re good friends of mine. I never mention the fact that they were no/no boys. They’re still friends, I have no hard feelings. 

I guess I’m most interested in the animosity. 

I don’t look at it as they should be -- they had their reasons. They had their reasons. And the younger ones had nothing to say about it, it was the older ones who lost their shirt, so to speak. So I don’t see any reason to take it out on the younger ones. They had to follow what their father or older brother did. And as the veterans are concerned, we all learned to live together. 

Now since everything is under the bridge and down the street--

There are more important things to argue about. What’s amazing to me right now is some of the Pearl Harbor survivors are making friends with the ex-Japanese Imperial Army soldiers. When I see the photos of them, I just feel so glad in my heart.

Here at the museum people talk about what had happened to them at the time of war, they talk about it but as a whole we talk not as enemies, we talk about our own experiences. And we pat each other on the back.

Interview conducted by Grace Megumi Fleming. JAMsj thanks Grace for allowing the museum to archive and share these oral histories