World War II

Roy Nishiguchi's oral history of Gerlach duing WWII, (UNR's Nevada Silver & Blue: Tell Me How Nevada Was, From the files of the University of Nevada Oral History Program)

Fighting For The Same Side

Roy Nishiguchi, a Fort Ord, Calif.-based U.S. Army medic, saw his Japanese-American family become outcasts during the war. His father, Masaichi Nishiguchi, had been a section foreman for the Western Pacific Railroad in Gerlach, Nev., 70 miles north of Reno, since 1933. But after Pearl Harbor the railroad forced him to leave his job and his property in 1942. Roy Nishiguchi, who attended the University for two years just after war’s end, picks up the story in his own oral history, dictated in 1992. He is a soldier in conflict, devoted to both family and country. His excerpt about wartime in this country tells the other side of the Art Smith story, although both Smith and Nishiguchi, ironically, were fighting for the same side.

Many years before the war my dad was carving a toy boat for me, whittling away and talking about war. He said, “roy, if Japan and america fight who you going to fight for?” i said, “Japan.” He said, “Baka (fool)! You were born in this country; you are an american. You fight for your country.” i was about 2 or 3. “You told me how Japanese would fight to the death for their country,” i said. “i’m Japanese, so i’ll fight for them.” He said, “You are american. This is your country — you fight for this country.” dad wanted to be an american so bad that he even adopted Sam for his first name; but because of his race, he was out — immigration law prevented those born in Japan from being naturalized. even though he was bitter about this, he studied american history and read american literature. “i’m going to keep on reading,” he told me. “everything i read is for me. Whether anybody else wants it or not doesn’t matter.” My dad loved his job and thought that being a section foreman for the railroad was all a man could want. He had tried to persuade me to follow in his footsteps: “You have your house furnished; you have your coal, and your kerosene for lighting,” he had said. “What more could you ask? You can’t get that anywhere else.” The railroad was his life. in January following Pearl Harbor, the Western Pacific kicked my father out — took his job away, claiming he was a security risk.... He and Mom were ordered to leave their house and get off railroad property, and since the railroad practically owned Gerlach, they didn’t know what to do. Their other son, art, had been inducted into the army the week before, but one of my friends who hadn’t yet been drafted helped them. He got a bunch of fellows together and rented a little trailer for Mom and dad. it was just big enough to hold a double bed, and they moved it to a site that was off railroad property, which meant it was out in the desert, out in the sagebrush. Stuck out there in the boondocks that’s what my mother and dad lived in through the winter. No toilet facilities, no nothing. My sister Mary and her husband, Chad Chadwell, journeyed from Tennessee to care for my preteen sisters, who had been separated from Mom and dad. When Mary wrote to me and told me about the situation, i borrowed money from army buddies and made my way back to Gerlach. i walked out to the trailer and knocked on the door. at first there was no response: Mom and dad were scared! They were afraid that someone had come out there to blast them. i called out, “it’s roy,” and my dad finally opened the door. Well, there wasn’t a thing i could do for them. i only had a seven-day furlough, and no money. What could i do? i didn’t know anything. My friend Paul Wayne told me, “Go back to Fort Ord. We’ll look out for your mom and dad.” So i went back to Fort Ord, and eventually Mary was able to rent a house in reno and move our family into it. The army pulled all the Nisei off the West Coast and transferred us to inland units. although we didn’t know where we were going, i, for one, thought that i would soon be in combat. Boy, was i wrong! We Nisei were americans, soldiers in the united States army; but for a year following Pearl Harbor, my group was given only the kinds of jobs that had been performed by work details from the stockade. i ended up assigned to the 85st Service unit at Camp Wolters, Texas, a trained medic serving the army by emptying garbage cans.

after the war, Nishiguchi enrolled as a 30- year-old at Nevada on the Gi Bill, but did not finish his schooling. He became material facilities officer at Stead air Force Base, located just north of reno, and then was warehouse supervisor for K-Mart in reno. He retired from K-Mart in 1986 and died in 2002. In 1995, the program published excerpts from Art Smith’s and Roy Nishiguchi’s oral histories in War Stories: veterans remember WW ii. Roy Nishiguchi