Chet and the Prisoners - 3

Chet

February 20, 1942

This place is something else. I' ve never seen such a bunch of people before acting in such a quiet, organised manner. The Jerrys are rowdy and demanding and before the Japs came, they got in trouble for some people trying to escape. And somebody even dug a tunnel, and managed to get out. They caught him before he had got very far, but now they've got some big German Shepherd dogs, and they patrol the barbed wire fence that keeps the two sets of huts separate.

It is so cold, and these poor Japs come mostly from California, where they haven't even seen snow before, much less had any fun with it. Nobody is out sliding around or building snowmen. They don't have adequate clothes for one thing, and they just look confused and shell shocked.

The Jerrys have got themselves organised and they have a barber shop and a store to buy simple food and drug store type stuff. They even have a canteen and a cafe. They have a set up for their own interned doctors and dentists to see the ones who are in need, so we don't see all that many of them in our hospital unless they are really sick. I guess the Japanese are trying to get that organised too. 

These barracks the Japs live in – I had the chance to look around one the other day. There
are 25 men in each one, and it is just one big room, with the showers and toilets against one wall. Then everybody has a bed with the head against the wall. There is a rudimentary sort of heater, but it
doesn't do much more than keep the ice from forming – although I'm sure there is some on the windows in the morning.

There are articles about this place sometimes in the paper, the Bismarck Tribune. Apparently one of them, called Jiinosuke Higashi, committed suicide the other day – hung himself in the laundry room, which they do have to share with the Germans but they each have use of it on alternate days, so they aren't all there at once. They found him there the next morning. But I guess he was depressed, but they must have known he was going to do it, because the paper reports that they had a farewell party for him the night before. Maybe suicide is acceptable in their culture. I've heard a bit about kamikaze pilots who deliberately crash their planes, knowing that they will be killing themselves in the process, and they are heralded as heroes for doing that. They sure don't seem to have much respect for anybody's life, it seems to me.

This is really a bad winter, and I can see that there will be some days when we just won't be able to get out here. The snow plows don't come out this far. When I go to the pen, I can get there along the main highway which is cleared straight away, so I seldom have any problems, unless it is a really bad blizzard. But at Ft. Lincoln  it is almost like we are in the country in a separate little town.

Ann got a letter from her sister-in-law saying that a Japanese man from Carrington has been sent to Ft. Lincoln . Everybody is up in arms about it, because he has been living in the area for a long time – maybe 20 years, and he owns and runs a place called Rainbow Gardens, which is really popular. So I promised her I would see if I could find him and keep an out for him.

Later -

I found him without much trouble at all. He's called Harry Hayashi (pictured above) . He's pretty much on his own here, as most of the other guys came with friends from California or wherever. He was so pleased to have somebody talk to him, so I promised to go early next Sunday and have a long talk with him.

Harry came from Japan to the United States as a cabin boy on a steamer about the turn of the century. In 1921 he made his way to Carrington, about 40 miles north of  Jamestown, and worked in a bakery. Within a few years he opened his own café and married a local woman. He bought several
acres of land on the edge of town and opened the Rainbow Gardens. This business became a North Dakota showplace: brightly painted motel units surrounded by a garden with a fish pond, waterfalls, and streams. His adjoining café and pavilion attracted nationally known bands and eager dancers. By any standard, the Rainbow Gardens was a huge success.

Then, Harry discovered that the government, without warning, had frozen his assets. Within days his business was closed, and he was taken to Fort Lincoln.  Apparently the  Carrington
business people tried  to get him released but it  did no good.