The next morning, September 7, 1944, while it was still dark, we boarded day coaches on a passenger train. The Japanese made us pull the window shades clear down. They didn't want civilians to see us. They said the civilians would riot and cause us harm if they saw us. I find this doubtful now. The civilians we knew in Japan weren't that way.

It wasn't anything like the train rides from San Fernando to Camp O'Donnell?
No!

What did you do on the train?
We just sat.

Did you get food and water during the trip?
Yes. When we boarded the train, we were given a box lunch. It contained a big rice ball, a cucumber, and an apple.

How long was the train ride?
It lasted several days because we weren't traveling very fast. The Japanese had decided in advance where each company of prisoners would go. The train stopped several places and different groups of people got off. We were in Company Four, the next to the last group to disembark. At Tokyo, we switched trains. The train we had been on went on to a coal mining town located in northern Japan at Hanawa. Our train went almost due west of Tokyo. We passed through the town of Takaoka, which had a big steel mill. The town was about fifteen or twenty miles southwest of our future camp. In the final days of the war, American B-29s firebombed this steel mill. We know because we went through there after the war. Anyway, it took about a half a day to get to our destination. The name of our new camp was Camp Nomachi.