Gordon Yamada left Manzanar Detention Camp to enter the U.S. Army in late 1944. Though his group was supposed to head for Europe to participate in the Battle of the Bulge, the war in Europe soon ended and Yamada was sent to Camp Ritchie, Maryland, for counterintelligence training. While stationed there, he remembers how he and approximately 60 other Nisei soldiers were chosen to undergo a peculiar training exercise.
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We were required to wear Japanese uniforms and parade around the lake at Fort [Camp] Ritchie, emulating Japanese soldiers so that they could use us, 60 of us, break us up into groups of 10 or 20 or whatever they planned, and they were going to ship us to the basic training stations and the camp basic training facilities of the Army throughout the United States. And we were supposed to parade around in front of the other new inductees and they were going to say, "This is the enemy" and that was us. This is what the enemy looks like--and that was us.
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<br><br>Realizing the futility of this exercise, the U.S. Army abandoned the program after a few short months. Yamada and the other Japanese Americans were then shipped to Fort Snelling. Being the last class at the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS) in Fort Snelling, the Nisei graduated and then immediately left for Japan to work for the Occupation forces. After a short assignment with the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS), Yamada was discharged from the Army and received a civilian assignment with the Tokyo Kanagawa military government.
<br><br>Yamada and his team, which included a Japanese interpreter, began work on stripping Japanese manufacturing plants of machinery that had been used in war efforts. For example, plants that produced fuel, shipbuilding plants, and other industrial plants totaled 840 in Japan. Of these 140 were in Tokyo, and Yamada and his crew would work with Japanese government officials to ensure that the facilities followed proper procedures in dismantling and removing machinery parts and preparing them for shipment overseas. In the end, this reparations program was cancelled and most of the machines remained in Japan. Yamada says, however, that the program helped Japan rethink manufacturing processes and move toward innovation.
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So although we confiscated what machines could be used, they didn't want to use that old technology so they went to oxygen smelting which is a more modern technique. And that's what happened throughout Japan....So now, that was the start of the new technology for Japan...And 50 years later, 40 years later, 30 years later, everybody wondered, "How did they get so strong?" Well, we helped them do it. Because we helped them, we forced them to use new technology to get back into the world.
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