Yukio Kawamoto was born in Berkeley, California in November 1919. He was drafted into the Army from the University of California at Berkeley. He was in his senior year and was set to graduate in May but was drafted on 25 February 1942. Kawamoto did his basic training at Camp Robinson, Arkansas. His first transfer was to Joplin, Missouri. Near Joplin was a camp where Kawamoto was attached to the finance department where he wrote officers' checks. A major came to interview the 20 to 30 Japanese-American soldiers at Joplin. Most of the Japanese-Americans worked jobs cleaning up the camp. Kawamoto spent most of his time as the night clerk at the hotel where visiting wives and girlfriends stayed. The major was from Fort Snelling and he was looking for people to go to the Army Japanese language school in Minnesota. Kawamoto told him he was happy in Joplin but a week later he was on a train to Minnesota. Kawamoto spent several months in Minnesota going through the Army’s Japanese language intelligence school. After six months, Kawamoto graduated. They were sent to Angel Island, which was the West Coast's equivalent of Ellis Island. Kawamoto was not far from Alcatraz. They continued to train until they got orders to go overseas. Kawamoto was one of the first ones shipped out on what used to be a luxury liner. When Kawamoto got on the ship, it was a troop ship. They ended up in New Caledonia. They were in a separate camp on New Caledonia. They continued to practice their language skills. They had some captured documents from the field which they could practice on. Kawamoto got called on to help Admiral Bull Halsey [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey, also known as Bill or Bull] because the Navy interpreters were not quite up to speed on their Japanese language skills. Kawamoto was a sergeant but he was outranking lieutenants in terms of skill. They stopped by Guadalcanal after they left New Caledonia and eventually ended up on Bougainville. Kawamoto was attached to the 37th Infantry Division which was guarding the airfield. Kawamoto's job, along with his peers, was to translate captured material. Kawamoto's tent was right next to the G-2 intelligence headquarters. For a while nothing much happened.

[Annotator's Note: Yukio Kawamoto served in the Army as a Japanese interpreter with the 37th Infantry Division in the Pacific Theater.] They got a Japanese prisoner who they nicknamed Robinson Crusoe because he had been on a Japanese destroyer that ended up leaving him behind. He had been living off of the land. He used hand grenades to fish. His uniform was incredibly shabby. One day, he got too close to the American troops. He swiped a GI's clothing. The GIs became suspicious. They looked around in the area and eventually found the Japanese soldier. He was not much good because he had been living in the jungle for a few months. He had no contact with his troops so he did not have any useful intelligence. Bougainville was a pretty big island. The 37th Infantry Division was one of two American divisions guarding the airfield. Planes from the airfield would bomb Rabaul. Ten Japanese-American linguists were attached to the 37th Infantry Division which was a National Guard outfit from Ohio. The other division was the Americal Division. The Americal Division was to guard the other half of the airfield. Kawamoto stayed on Bougainville for an entire year. After that, they went in a big convoy to Luzon. Kawamoto landed at Lingayen Bay. Shortly after Kawamoto got to Bougainville, Japanese troops came with about a two division force to capture the airfield. The Air Force was bombing Rabaul almost daily. The Japanese would respond by bombing the airfield from time to time. Kawamoto was at division headquarters. They had numerous occasions where they had to take cover during Japanese air raids. In the spring, the Japanese made a push to take the airfield. It was a big battle. Luckily they had picked up a deserter a few weeks before the battle that knew the Japanese were preparing for a big push. They relayed the information to who needed it and additional troops and supplies were brought up from Guadalcanal. Kawamoto saw the battle raging on Hill 800 [Annotator's Note: Hill 700]. The Japanese actually took control of the top of the hill and began to shell the airfield. The 37th Infantry Division and the Americal Division had to push the Japanese off of the hill. It was one of the biggest battles of the war at that time. Because of the Japanese soldier that spilled the beans, they were able to be ready. It was a pretty tough battle. The infantry guys told Kawamoto about the battle. That was Kawamoto's first experience in the field.

Yukio Kawamoto was able to witness the battle [Annotator's Note: the battle of Hill 700 on Bougainville]. The division [Annotator's Note: 37th Infantry Division] headquarters was protected but it was not far from the front. The commanding general was very careful in taking care of the Japanese-Americans because he realized their value. The fact that they got the straggler a month before they were hit meant that they were ready. Even though they were prepared, the Japanese still took control of Hill 800 [Annotator's Note: Hill 700] for a brief time. The weather on Bougainville was tough. They had afternoon showers constantly. Every afternoon around four they had thunderstorms. Kawamoto went to the field hospital on Bougainville because he was turning yellow. It was a side effect of atabrine which was a medicine to treat malaria. Kawamoto spent a week in the field hospital. Right next to Kawamoto was a Fijian. There were Fijian scouts that helped out the Americans on Bougainville. He was a big guy. Kawamoto could feel the ground shake when he walked. There were ten Japanese-Americans who worked together as a team. They had two white officers who were in charge of G-2 [Annotator's Note: the division's intelligence section]. One of them was a captain. He had his PhD from New York City. He knew more about chemicals than the division chemical officer. He would come over and get advice from Kawamoto's captain. They had a duty officer who was a second lieutenant. He did not know too much. They also had a naval officer attached to their unit at one point. The Navy was very anti-Japanese so they relied on white Japanese language officers. They used to go help the Navy guys every once in awhile. They had tons of ships from all the different allied countries. They did not know where they were going when they started but then ended up in New Caledonia. The information they translated was valuable. Some of the information was helpful to the American side. A lot of times they got diaries which were not helpful tactically. The diaries complained about certain things such as the food and missing home. They were having a tough time eating crummy food, too.

[Annotator's Note: Yukio Kawamoto served in the Army as a Japanese interpreter with the 37th Infantry Division in the Pacific Theater.] The division headquarters was right next to a river which had a bridge over it. After crossing the bridge they were in Manila. There were still some Japanese soldiers who were left behind. A group of Japanese soldiers had taken refuge in an abandoned ship in the harbor and were taking pot shots at American soldiers. Kawamoto knew that the snipers were there because they were constantly taking shots. Kawamoto's mission was to go out on a PT boat [Annotator's Note: patrol torpedo boat] with a bullhorn and attempt to coerce the Japanese to surrender. They gave the Japanese a chance to give up before they decided to sink the ship. The PT boat shot a torpedo so that it sunk the ship completely. That was when Kawamoto knew the Navy had it good because the skipper of the PT boat asked them if they wanted a meal. In the middle of the harbor at Manila, Kawamoto enjoyed a steak meal. Kawamoto had spent an entire year on Bougainville. Their first prisoner was a deserter who had gotten tired of serving with the Japanese. He was an open book and he was able to tell Kawamoto a lot of information. This was the prisoner that alerted them to the impending attack on Hill 800 [Annotator's Note: Hill 700 on Bougainville]. They knew the Japanese were going to come. They had extra field guns, ammunition and reinforcements. The Japanese troops fought gallantly. When the Japanese attempted to come up the hill they were mowed down. The fiercist part of the battle did not last too long. Kawamoto was with an Army outfit but he did have contact with the Marines as well. Every once in awhile, they would get guys disembarking from submarines as well. These guys wanted souvenirs. It was a good business. Some of the guys made Japanese battle flags out of used parachutes. They would paint fictitious Japanese battle flags and sell them. The submarine guys were happy to give them 60 bucks for a flag. Kawamoto was not involved but he knew some of the guys who were in the business. One of the guys in his unit was a pro poker player.

As far as Yukio Kawamoto could tell, he did not experience too much racism or ill feelings towards him. Most of his interactions with people outside of his unit came in the chow line. They had two white officers and ten Japanese-Americans. Seven of them stayed at headquarters and the other three were distributed to the three regiments within the division [Annotator's Note: the 37th Infantry Division]. The Japanese would bomb their airfield [Annotator's Note: on Bougainville] with Mitsubishi bombers. They had a distinct noise so they nicknamed the plane Washing Machine Charlie. Kawamoto got along fine with everyone. GIs would find diaries in the field and would be excited to bring them in for translation. They had to bring them to Kawamoto before they could send them home or keep them as a souvenir. Kawamoto remembers one incident when he had to go down to the 129th Regimental Headquarters because they had a wounded Japanese POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war]. They wanted Kawamoto to come down and see if he could get some information before he expired. The Japanese soldier was a big husky guy. He had a big gash in his stomach. The aid station medic tried to save him. Kawamoto did not talk to the guy very long because he was obviously dying. They were not able to save him. They had a mobile hospital type set up. He was in terrible shape. Kawamoto noted that he had his guts hanging out from the wound. Most of the intelligence that they got was not great because it was intel they already knew. 37th Infantry Division headquarters took over a big shoe factory in Manila. They had a big dance floor type area and they ended up having a dance. They had Filipino girls. A lot of locals came to the dance voluntarily because they offered food and refreshments. Wartime Manila was a hard place to find a good meal. Kawamoto met a Chinese-Filipino mixed girl and she was a real beauty. Some of the guys were jealous of Kawamoto.

[Annotator's Note: Yukio Kawamoto served in the Army as a Japanese interpreter with the 37th Infantry Division in the Pacific Theater.] The biggest thing that the troops witnessed was their convoy going down Highway 1 in the Philippines. Manila had a mixture of Chinese and Filipinos. Occasionally, they would catch a Filipino woman who was married to a Japanese soldier. When things got quiet, Kawamoto had to attend a court martial so he could translate. A Filipino woman was upset how her Japanese husband was being treated. She was attempting to do everything she could to save her husband who was a Japanese sergeant. The military prosecutor was out to kill as many Japanese as he legally could. They captured one Japanese who had a huge bag of diamonds. Manila was captured fairly early in the year and things were beginning to get back to normal for the citizens. The Japanese commander was smart enough to realize that they could not hold Manila so he withdrew his troops into the jungle. After Manila was captured and secured the Japanese went into the hills north of the city. They fell back to the town of Baguio which was a summer resort type place. Kawamoto did get up to Baguio. Shortly after Manila was captured the war was pretty much over for Kawamoto. Back in the United States, the American government was closing up the internment camps for Japanese. Kawamoto's parents were at Camp Topaz in Utah. Their camp was closing and they were put on trains with 25 dollars and sent back to the West Coast to Oakland. Ironically, Kawamoto had gotten home early because his parents were in one of those camps. After the war ended and he was processed out, his first civilian job was in Oakland working for the agency that had taken care of Japanese internees. After Kawamoto got his leave, he was processed at Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City, Utah. Kawamoto was discharged immediately after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. Kawamoto's parents were from Hiroshima. He did not like the bombings but there was nothing he could do. The irony was that a lot of the atomic energy research was done by physicists like Oppenheimer at UC Berkeley. There were a lot of ironies. Kawamoto did not like the bombing but in a sense it ended the war earlier. The Japanese would have held out longer. Kawamoto had mixed feelings about it. He had an older sister living in Hiroshima that he never met. She was killed in the bombing. It was not that heavy a blow but it could not be helped.

Yukio Kawamoto's parents did not have to divulge too much about how their time in the camp went. Kawamoto had gotten a chance to visit his parents at the camp before he was deployed. It was an odd experience because he was in his Army uniform when he visited them. They had guard towers with armed guards watching over the camp. Kawamoto's parents were in a shack type structure. It looked like a second grade army camp. The facilities were not the best but they had private toilets and showers. The living quarters were buildings with partitions between them to divide the families. The walls were essentially paper and they could talk to the family next to them through the wall. Even in the desert at Camp Topaz, Kawamoto's father had a little Japanese garden. His mom kept a one star flag in her window in honor of Kawamoto. Some of the guys that were interned were pro-Japan. They did not like seeing that Kawamoto's kid was serving in the Army. Kawamoto was on the train to a small town named Delta, Utah. From there he got on an Army truck to head to Camp Topaz. They had an armed escort. Kawamoto forgot how many days he stayed there but it was in the middle of a desert. There was a barbed wire fence around the entire camp. Kawamoto's parents were proud. They were happy to see him come home in one piece. As for the war, they had mixed feelings. They had lived in America longer then they had lived in Japan. Kawamoto had two sisters born before him. Kawamoto never knew his older sister. His immediate sister that he knew died right before the war ended. She grew up with a cousin who was Kawamoto's father's cousin. Kawamoto never met his sisters.

Yukio Kawamoto was a precious child for his parents. The draft got him and he went to war. Kawamoto worked for the State Department after the war. His first job was a temporary job with the agency that had helped intern the Japanese civilians. Kawamoto got a job with the Oakland relocation office. Kawamoto worked with a UC [Annotator's Note: University of California at Berkley] graduate there as well. Kawamoto wore his uniform but he had a ruptured duck on it [Annotator's Note: ruptured duck was the nickname given to the lapel pin issued to discharged servicemembers to indicate that they had indeed been honorably discharged from military service]. The job was temporary. They told Kawamoto that they could use a bilingual speaker like him to help the internees who were now returning to the city find a job. Everyone in the internment camp was given 25 dollars so that they could get a train fare somewhere. Ironically Kawamoto ended up helping these people find housing and become settled after the war. There was a batch of wartime housing near the shipyard that provided shelter for some of the internees looking for a job. Kawamoto was lucky to get out of the service. He got back early because he was an only son and he was told he had to get back because the internment camps were closing. Kawamoto was discharged at Fort Douglas, Utah. He was in the process of becoming a civilian when the atomic bomb was dropped. Kawamoto is not familiar with The National WWII Museum but he believes that it should be there. World War 2 was a big event. Kawamoto believes that young people should know about the history of World War 2. It was probably the most major action the United States took part in during the 21st Century. Kawamoto believes that World War 2 is important because it was a major war. From Kawamoto's perspective, he wants people to know that Japanese-Americans served America admirably in both the Pacific and Europe. They were born in the United States and were Americans. At the same time there are a lot of things about Japan that Kawamoto admires. His wife is Japanese. She was born and raised in Tokyo. The World War 2 military experience was important to Kawamoto and it perhaps had an influence on Kawamoto's career. Kawamoto wanted to get into the State Department to create better relations with Japan.

Yukio Kawamoto does not think he changed too much during the war. He was born in Berkeley [Annotator's Note: Berkley, California] and grew up there. Kawamoto had friends growing up that he kept for life. One of his friends had an insurance business in California but then he moved to New Mexico and opened up his practice there. He had to move there because of his wife's medical condition. Kawamoto noted that even in his old age he had attractive women in his life. Kawamoto was still in college when Pearl Harbor happened. He was studying for a final exam when he found out about Pearl Harbor. It was an unbelievable thing to have had happen. Kawamoto could not believe that it was real. Kawamoto realized quickly what implications the Japanese attack could have on him because he was Japanese. The municipalities in the Bay area locked down Japanese-American citizens. They were not allowed near the coast right after the attacks. Even Kawamoto, as an American, was not allowed to go outside of a certain boundary. The irony was that shortly after the attack, in February [Annotator's Note: February 1942], Kawamoto was drafted. Kawamoto was still in college when he got his draft papers. Kawamoto's friend told him to forget the Air Force because that was like going to a funeral parlor. Kawamoto's buddy became a Marine and attended Japanese language school. There was a language school that started in Berkeley for the Marines but it ended up in Colorado. They had to move the class inland because the teachers were all Japanese. There was an imaginary line painted along the West Coast and no Japanese could live to the west of it. Washington, Oregon and California were the major states impacted. Alaska could have been impacted as well.