A "Caucasian non-Nikkei" as he labels himself, Dempster Dirks considers the Japanese Americans he's known in his life to be "sources of encouragement" since his high school years. Another influence that led Dirks to his lifelong interest in Japan was his college roommate who had gone to Japan as an exchange student and entertained Dirks with his "stories of the Orient."
<br><br>Before the war, Dirks spent some time traveling in Japan, China, the Philippines, and other countries before heading back to the United States. Upon his return, he became a teacher at a private boys' military school in California and began formal studies in the Japanese language.
<br><br>After being drafted into the Army, Dirks remembers carrying around <i>kanji</i> [Chinese character] flashcards as he participated in basic training in field artillery. He furthered his study in the language at the Military Intelligence Service Language School in the Presidio of San Francisco, and at Camp Savage. His first assignment after graduating from MISLS was with the POW Station in California. It was Dirks' duty to conduct "auditory surveillance" of Japanese officers who came from various parts of the South Pacific Ocean Area.
<br><br>He also became one of the first teachers at the Advanced Training Center (later the Defense Language Institute) in Monterey, teaching courses to Filipino officers. Upon the closing of the training center, he served in various war campaigns, including Port Moresby, Biak, Leyte, and Okinawa. His major responsibility was to break coded messages used by Japanese air forces and to translate the information into English. While stationed on Biak, Dirks remembers one night when he and other American soldiers were watching a movie outdoors. When the movie ended and the lights came on, they found a Japanese soldier sitting right next to them, waiting to surrender.
<br><br>On Ie Shima Island, Dirks witnessed the sign that the war was coming to an end.
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It was a memorable morning: blue skies with cotton puff clouds. Suddenly, there came pairs of P-38s in a pass above the field--leading white planes with green crosses on the wings....For all of us at Ie Shima that morning, this was an emotional experience. THIS WAS THE "REAL END" OF THE WAR.
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<br><br>After the war, he finished out his military service with the 5th Air Force Headquarters in Japan. In Occupied Japan, he and other MIS men worked on getting Japan back on its feet; their work included getting the telecommunications system back in order and bringing water and electricity back to residents. After being discharged from the U.S. Army, Dirks continued to work alongside Japanese Americans--this time, in the United States as a resettlement counselor for the Issei and Nisei who were interned in the detention camps.
<br><br>He also finished his higher education, eventually earning a doctorate from the University of Southern California. He retired in 1985 from his professorship at El Camino College.
<br><br>Despite the valuable contributions the MIS linguists made toward the war, they did not always receive due recognition for their work. As Dirks explains,
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Being in the MIS, most of us received no deserved rank nor recognition for work well done. For example, I, a non-Nikkei, was taken from two officer candidate schools--one in New Jersey, U.S.A., and the other in Brisbane, Australia--at the convenience of the military--to serve in the MIS. I had entered the MIS holding a sergeant's rating. In 1946 when I received my honorable discharge, it was a tech-sergeant rating I held.
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