Mr. Keinosuke Tanaka (1885-1964), an intellectual Issei Japanese from Yamagata Prefecture, was interned in an FBI detention camp and then was placed in a relocation center during WWII. His lengthy but interesting journal contains the interviews with a couple of POWs who he met at Lordsburg Camp, NM. In this article, I introduce Mr. Keinosuke Tanaka’s interview with a seaman who was captured after wiring that they found an American fleet on 18th April in 1942. (Mr. Keinosuke Tanaka wrote his journal before Japanese orthography changed drastically after WWII. He wrote in a small, skillful hand, which sometimes caused a great difficulty to me. I did my best to restore his sentences.) Through collecting related stories, I noticed three important points that were not written in the interview. 1) The seaman was the “second” POW on the Japanese side. 2) The famous Dolittle bombers took off from the aircraft carrier which he found while patrolling. 3) Japanese Navy had the concept of ‘suicide corps’ even for patrolling from the beginning of the Pacific War.
 Fortunately for me, I got acquainted with Mr. Keinosuke Tanaka’s three Nisei children. All of them overcame a terrible ordeal during WWII and made a great success of their lives in the United States. The eldest is Dr. John Tanaka, a very renowned researcher in Chemistry. His only daughter is Mrs. Iris Fukutaki, who is a highly intellectual lady and kept Mr. Keinosuke Tanaka’s journals. The youngest is Mr. Tyler Tanaka, a successfully retired businessman and still a great figure in the travel industry. Mr. Tyler Tanaka is now an important, admirable friend of mine. I’d like to express my gratitude to Ms. Masako Hanada, Ms. Ryoko Matsuno, Ms. Mitsuho Murata, Mr. Akira Horiuchi, Mr. Kenji Tanaka (Japan), Ms. Toshiko McCallum, and especially to Mr. Keinosuke Tanaka’s children (U.S.).

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