Oral History Videos

Rusty Kimura
Interview Length: 2:16

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
Well, see, the classes ranged from class one all the way to 20 some odd classes, I think.  And I was in class 11.  So the degree of difficult, I think varied from number one down.  You know, it made it simpler for those in shall I say higher classes.  Go by number, the higher numbered classes are the weaker ones.  So I think the curriculum for those weaker in Japanese was more elementary, I think.  Just get them to learn to speak well and to recognize characters and so forth.  And I was right in the middle.  But our class had a great reputation.  We had teachers, one or two of the instructors said, “this is the best class in camp because strong in English and pretty good, pretty strong in Japanese.”  It's ironic because I was one who had practically no training in Japanese, you know.  So that's why I say, I stayed in weekends and studied for the first month or so.  And they taught what they call, "heigo."  That's military language, Japanese military language and Japanese customs and stuff.  The probable attitude of Japanese soldiers if/when they're captured and how to talk to them, how to interrogate them.  And like I said, we were taught the military language and how to interrogate them.  And what kind of information is needed at the time, depending on where you are interrogating.