Clyde Nordstrom was born in June 1928 in Minneapolis [Annotator's Note: Minneapolis, Minnesota]. He had a good time growing up there. Their neighborhood was very friendly with a lot of children. His father was a plumbing and heating contractor. His mother worked at a mill making clothes when she came to the United States, but did not work once she was married. Nordstrom enjoyed school. He was class president and was the speaker at his graduation. He had the best teachers. The developing wars were somewhat a topic of discussion in the home. A lot of friends and relatives went in the service right away. A cousin was a prisoner of war in Germany. They did not overemphasize it though. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if he recalls when he heard of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.] That Sunday was terrible. Nordstrom was the first to hear it on the radio. It was very upsetting. He could not believe we were unable to protect ourselves. What impressed him was that we were able to be chasing the Japanese in a very short time with some of the equipment they had tried to destroy. It was upsetting because we were really struggling to be a peaceful nation. There was nothing left to do except declare war.

Clyde Nordstrom cannot say that his life changed much after the declaration of war [Annotator's Note: on Japan, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. He does not like war. He quotes Theodore Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: 26th President of the United States]: "I hate war. My wife hates all war. We all hate war." Rationing affected his family. Nordstrom was working at a gas station and people needed coupons to get gas. If people did not have coupons, his boss would try to give them at least a little. Gas was as big a problem as anything. His older brother had a physical impairment that kept him from the service. He had other friends and relatives going in. Nordstrom and a friend enlisted one day apart but they went to different parts of Japan. He enlisted because he felt it was the right thing to do. The Navy had a two-year enlistment. The Army had an 18 month enlistment, so he chose the Army. He had been following the war. His family is from Sweden and they were staying out of the war. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him his thoughts on dropping the atomic bombs on Japan in 1945.] Having been in Yokosuka [Annotator's Note: Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan], he saw the Japanese defenses and feels that a regular bomb would not have worked. He also saw the destruction that regular bombers had done to Tokyo. He never went to Hiroshima or Nagasaki and he is glad he did not because of the radiation.

Clyde Nordstrom went to Fort Snelling [Annotator's Note: in Hennepin County, Minnesota] and said he wanted to enlist. He went in to take a physical. He was asked if there was anything wrong with him. He said no and they passed him. His best friend was almost blind but wanted to be a paratrooper. He memorized the eye chart and made it in. They wanted them. The men overseas had been there all these years and needed to get home. Nothing could mess up one getting in. After his physical, Nordstrom went to Fort Knox, Kentucky for basic training. He had a great time. He needed to complete a truck driving class. When he finished, he was asked to be an instructor. He did not want to do that. He went to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] to go overseas. Japan is a beautiful place and he had good experiences with the people. He was headed to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] and got caught in a typhoon. He had been below deck the entire time. He went up on the first day of clear weather. He noticed some broomsticks in the water. It was actually a mine and they had to blow it up. He went to Yokosuka [Annotator's Note: Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan] to the American Navy base [Annotator's Note: now United States Fleet Activities Yokosuka]. He was a guard at the emperor's summer palace. He had a tailor shop clean his uniforms for him. He got to know them quite well.

[Annotator's Note: Clyde Nordstrom was in Japan on occupation duty and was a guard for the emperor's summer palace.] Clyde Nordstrom does not know what he was guarding against. It was an honor guard. The Japanese police station was across the road. He was then picked to go to Sugamo Prison [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan] and get some German prisoners. He was to guard them on a ship from Tokyo to Germany. He arrived too late, so he ended up staying at the prison. He had some very good Japanese friends. The prison is big. It was a national prison that the military took over. It had four cellblock buildings three stories high. Water was a real problem. The blocks had hallways inside where the guards were. He was on guard duty and was trying to figure out what to do with some time off. He went down to the basement and looked at the plumbing. An officer asked him why he was down there. He told him he was an apprentice plumber and the officer made that his new job. The pipes were made of lead. When there was a blockage, the Japanese had been puncturing the pipes trying to unclog it. Nordstrom had to then fix the pipes. There were a lot problems, but everything went quite well. He also got a job as a fry cook at the EM club [Annotator's Note: Enlisted Men's club]. That enabled him to defer his regular paychecks so that when he got out he could buy a new suit and a car.

Clyde Nordstrom did a lot of sightseeing in Japan. He visited a Shinto temple and just roamed around. He thought the Japanese he dealt with were quite good people. They were in a real bind there. The interpreter for his group's house fell down. Nordstrom asked what it would cost to fix it. Then he and some other Americans pooled the money for the man. The Chinese and the Japanese are easy people to deal with if you respect them. He had arrived there in January 1947 and left in March 1948. People who took care of his clothes, asked if he would marry a Japanese woman. He told them he was going home and would keep everything separate. He found out a lot of men were marrying and staying there. He just wanted to come home and get schooling to be a plumber. That went beautifully for him.

Clyde Nordstrom was a guard at Sugamo Prison [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan] and saw Hideki Tōjō [Annotator's Note: Prime Minister of Japan] several times. He was on trial after attempting suicide. He was eventually executed [Annotator's Note: on 23 December 1948]. Nordstrom saw more than 50 percent of the prisoners. He did not watch the trials. The prisoners were taken away to Tokyo for the trials. He thinks the trials went well. There were two women in the prison there. They had been nurses and wanted some liver. They took a select prisoner and butchered him for his liver. They were way off, like The Bird [Annotator's Note: Mutsuhiro Watanabe], who was never found until after the prison was closed. They were ruthless. He had no real interactions with the prisoners. He was not good at speaking Japanese. The building was heated by coal. The coal pile caught on fire once. He had to take four prisoners and put it out.

Clyde Nordstrom was discharged in Seattle [Annotator's Note: Seattle, Washington] and went to Minneapolis [Annotator's Note: Minneapolis, Minnesota] in February 1948. It was extremely cold. He got home and his mother was making breakfast. From then on, it was normal again. Nordstrom had a job right away and used the G.I. Bill for his plumbing education. The bright spot to his service was that things went really well, and it was a pleasure all the way through for him. Nothing in particular stands out. He did not do anything special. He served because it was should be done. He was not the same after coming out of it. He learned to put up with a lot of situations. There were times when he did not have food. He learned to get along with people. He wanted to get into the plumber's union. He was having a hard time until they learned he had done plumbing in the Army. They gave him credit then. He eventually became a foreman and had many very nice jobs. In his sixties, he became an inspector. He oversaw the work on the Mall of America [Annotator's Note: in Bloomington, Minnesota], and they asked him not to retire at age 65. He stayed until he was 67 and then retired. The University of Minnesota [Annotator's Note: University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota] had some special problems and hired him for part time work. At age 70, he moved away to not have to work anymore. He feels that The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] is very important to give people accurate information. The war was long ago and there are not too many people still around who were in it. The opportunity for people to learn is important.