Accompanied by his mother, Tateshi Miyasaki went to Japan in 1918 at the age of five. While his mother returned to Idaho, Miyasaki was left in Japan to live with his uncle and aunt. He attended elementary school and middle school for a total of 10 years. At the age of 16, Miyasaki returned to the United States and graduated from high school in 1935.
<br><br>In early 1941, he was drafted into the Army. While on assignment with the 41st Division, Miyasaki was approached by recruiters for an Army language school that was to be established in the Presidio of San Francisco. Soon afterward, he received orders to report to the school and began his language training with the first Military Intelligence Service (MIS) class. Among the first class members was John Burden, who later would become the team leader and enlist Miyasaki as his "righthand man."
<br><br>Once the first class graduated, Miyasaki, Burden, and two other Nisei linguists headed for the South Pacific. They arrived in Guadalcanal and quickly became involved in interrogation work at the POW compound. In addition to interrogation and translation work, they also gave orientation lessons to the division troops to acquaint the soldiers with the "nature and character of the Japanese soldier." They continued on to New Georgia where they found that because the enemy had retreated to nearby islands, there was less opposition. Still, Miyasaki remembers some close calls while on the island.
<br><br><BLOCKQUOTE><I>
We had to move our headquarters farther inland because the enemy apparently knew our position and fired a few rounds of artillery shells into our position....On one occasion at night, a lone Japanese bomber came over and dropped a fragmentation bomb which exploded at treetop level and caused a shrapnel to penetrate the tent and injured one of our G-2 personnel who failed to take cover in the foxhole.
</I></BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>In August of 1943, Miyasaki and the others settled onto Vella Lavella Island where the 35th Infantry Regiment was involved in combat with the enemy. While on the island Miyasaki and Burden interrogated a Japanese medical officer who had been captured while swimming ashore. Miyasaki remembers that the prisoner's first instinct upon capture was to die.
<br><br><BLOCKQUOTE><I>
He wanted to die because he felt that it was such a disgrace to be a captured POW. However, when he thought of his family, he decided to live and return to his family after the war.
</I></BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>On Vella Lavella, the MIS team encountered more enemy attacks. On one particular morning after an all-night firing episode, Miyasaki got up and began to prepare the morning coffee when he was suddenly met with rifles from two New Zealand soldiers who thought he was the enemy. Luckily, Burden returned in time to convince the soldiers that Miyasaki was an American. 
<br><br>Later, Miyasaki joined the COMSOPAC headquarters where his primary work involved translating captured documents. Soon after, he headed for Fort Snelling and began teaching Japanese to newly recruited students. It wasn't long before Burden came to the language school to ask Miyasaki to join him in China. They arrived in Chungking in 1945 and Miyasaki was assigned to do translation work. With the end of the war, Miyasaki and his group were given even more captured documents to decipher. During this time he received a promotion to Master Sergeant and headed for Kunming and Nanking to work with Japanese POWs. Miyasaki remembers meeting many high-ranking Chinese officers and officials and being surprised to discover that most of them were graduates of the Japanese Military Academy. 
<br><br>Having accumulated enough service points, Miyasaki was discharged in late 1945. Along with a Bronze Star Medal, he received an Oak Leaf Cluster for his service during the South Pacific campaigns.
