In 1942, Grant Ichikawa volunteered to go to Camp Savage, Minn., from Gila River Detention Camp. Before he made his decision final, he met with his family. His father said, "Well this is your country and if you want to volunteer and fight, even against Japan, if that's what you want we'll support you.... The only thing is, don't do anything that will bring shame to the family." [Uncommon Courage]. 


Ichikawa entered the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS) on November 1942, became fluent in Japanese, and graduated six months later. After completing basic training at Camp Shelby with the 442nd Regiment, he left the United States and joined the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS) in Brisbane, Australia. By the time prisoners had arrived at ATIS, the Allied forces wanted to extract strategic information from prisoners ranging from information on American POWs to the types of weapons being manufactured in Japan.


At ATIS he worked in the interrogation section for about one year and then transferred to the 39th Division in the Philippines in July 1945:


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That's why I call our service extreme patriotism.... In our case, we know we're going to go to the Pacific Theater and fight against Japan.... You're in camp because you're being accused of being pro-Japan, or possibly espionage agent, cannot be trusted and all these things, and then here you are volunteering fro the same Army that put you behind barbed wire fence ... that you're willing to fight against the very country you're suspected of being loyal to. [Uncommon Courage]
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After less than a month, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the war ended. Ichikawa first helped coax Japanese troops from hills in the Philippines by sending prisoners up to the Japanese camps to convince them to surrender. He soon left for Yokohama, Japan, and witnessed the destruction caused by firebombs:


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Yokohama was heavily bombed because that's where they had the factory.... Yokohama was flat. They had firebombs, you know, dropped on it. It was devastating. So our first impression was, oh boy, war is terrible. My uncle lived in Yokohama. He had a business. He had a nice house. It was all gone. [Uncommon Courage]
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In Tokyo, Ichikawa received orders to work with the United States strategic bombing survey unit:


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Our group was the atomic bomb group. And we visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In Hiroshima, the people were still picking up bones with chopsticks, you know, relatives dying, friends dying. [Uncommon Courage]
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Teamed with scientists, mathematicians, and physicists, Ichikawa worked as their interpreter. The team gathered and measured the physical power and destruction of the bomb. On the mission he saw many Japanese walking around hungry and still sick from the radiation:


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When they looked at us [Nisei], I think many of them, many of them probably felt we sort of betrayed them or something, I don't know. But also many of them also were very thankful that we were there to bridge the difference between their culture and the Americans.... so we were there to be the bridge.... I ran into almost no opposition to our being there. [Uncommon Courage]
__END_QUOTE__

After finishing his work on the atomic weapons, Ichikawa returned to Tokyo ATIS and became the assistant assignment officer. He soon received a promotion and became the head assignment officer for all of the linguists who had just come from the intelligence school. As soon as he could, he visited his relatives and brought them as many rations as he could:


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They were all tired of the war. The whole Japanese population was tired of the war. And they were thankful that the war had ended the way it did. Now they can rebuild and I think they were happy to see us.... I was able to visit the family home. [Uncommon Courage]
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In 1946 Ichikawa met his wife, one of the first women civilians to work in the Occupation. She worked in the censorship detachment, and they were the first Nisei couple to marry in Japan. 


A year later in 1947, Ichikawa left the Army and returned to California to become a farmer. As he left the Army, he signed up for the inactive reserves which stipulated he would only be activated for a major war. Just as he started his civilian life, the Korean War began in 1950 and he returned to Japan. Luckily, his MIS training gave him the option of going to to work in intelligence in Hokkaido rather than fighting in Korea. 


Ichikawa completed his tour of duty, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made him an offer. Since the end of WWII, Occupation Forces continued to look for Russian spies who had entered the country during the repatriation of Japanese POWs from Siberia. The CIA needed his linguistic skills to carry out the search. Instead of returning to farming, Ichikawa took this new opportunity and made two tours of duty in Vietnam and Indonesia where he continued his career in intelligence and linguistics.

