Learning Japanese at Fort Snelling during World War II
One of the first things we saw when we got to Fort Snelling was a row of storyboards posted along the sidewalk leading to the visitors’ center. One of them showed a photo of three young Asian-American women in uniform, with a quotation above them:
“I was born in the states, in Nebraska, and I’m an American just like you.”
Sue Ogato Kato. Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, U.S. Army 1943-46.
As I read further, I learned that Sue Kato translated Japanese documents for the American army. I was eager to learn more. Fort Snelling did not disappoint.
In addition to serving as an induction center for new recruits during World War II, Fort Snelling was home to the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS), where second generation Japanese (Nisei) like Sue Kato were trained to read and speak Japanese to prepare them for work as interpreters, interrogators, and in some cases as spies.
Shortly before the war began, the American military recognized they would need Japanese linguists. The military, sharing the general prejudices of the time, would have preferred linguists who were fluent in Japanese but were not themselves Japanese. It turned out to be a very small population. Their next choice were second generation Japanese immigrants, the Nisei, who proved to be less fluent in Japanese and more American culturally than the military leaders had expected. (Only three percent of the Nisei already in the army spoke fluent Japanese,) Even those who spoke Japanese well were not familiar with military terminology in that language or details of the Japanese army.
A month before Pearl Harbor, the Army opened a small class of 60 language students in an empty airplane hangar on Crissy Field at the Presidio in San Francisco. The first class graduated in may, 1942, the same month that the American government began to move Japanese-Americans into internment/concentration camps. With California, western Washington and Oregon and southern Arizona designated as an Exclusion Zone from which Japanese were barred—and overt hostility in California for Asians, even those in military uniform—the school needed to be moved away from the West Coast. MISLS moved to Minnesota, first to Camp Savage and then, as the number of students grew, to Fort Snelling.
More than 6,000 linguists graduated from MISLS, including many recruited from the camps. The curriculum was intensive. In addition to becoming both fluent and literate in Japanese, students learned Japanese army jargon. They learned to read a special style of Japanese used in personal correspondence. They studied captured documents and Japan’s history and culture. They learned to read maps and monitor radios. In 1945, the school added courses in Chinese and Korean and civilian administration in anticipation of new challenges after the end of the war.
Once in the field, MISLS graduates translated and interpreted documents, interrogated prisoners, and communicated with civilians. They convinced soldiers and civilians to surrender at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. One of their most important contributions was translating the “Z Plan,” captured documents which outlined Japanese plans to counter attack in the Southwest Pacific in 1944. General MacArthur’s chief of military intelligence, Major General Charles Willoughby, later claimed The Nisei shortened the Pacific War by two years and saved possibly a million American lives and saved probably billions of dollars.”
Their work continued after the war. MISLS graduates served with the army of occupation in Japan and during the Pacific war crimes trials, where they monitored the work of Japanese translators for accuracy.
In 1946, the school moved to Monterey and was renamed the U.S. Army Language School
From the Archives: Curiosity’s Cats
By the time this post is available for you to read, I will be deep in the final day of a four-day exploration of a previously untouched and barely organized archive. I hope to come out the other end knowing whether I have enough material to write a proposal about a subject I’m interested in. (And no, I’m still not giving you any hints.). I had hoped to have a new blog post for you today, but it’s only halfway done and I’m running short on time and brain power. Instead I’d like to share a post about doing research from 2014.
Wish me luck!
Research is a big part of my writing work day. In fact, I read far more words than I write in my constant search for a topic, a story,* and/or a telling detail. I have special glasses for the hours I spend on the computer, and eye drops that I generally forget to use. (Excuse me, while I pause and lubricate.)
More importantly, I have library cards for five local library systems, am an active user of Interlibrary Loan, and frequently max out my borrowing privileges. Because contrary to popular opinion, you really can’t find everything on the internet.** Sometimes you need to browse the shelves, skim an index, read a primary source or an authoritative history, succumb to the allure of the archives, or ask a reference librarian for help. Some of the most satisfying moments of my career have occurred in libraries.***
Bruce Joshua Miller, editor of Curiosity’s Cats: Writers on Research, makes no secret of his discomfort with researchers’ increasing dependence on digitized sources. The 13 essays he commissioned for the collection share a common mandate: tell a story about a research project that required techniques beyond computer searches. The resulting collection could have been an extended Luddite shudder against technology or a simple exercise in nostalgia. It is neither, though several of the essays include a variation on “I’m not a Luddite, but…” and the final essay (Marilyn Stasio’s “Your Research–or Your Life!”) uses nostalgia to pointed effect. Instead, each piece explores the complicated and often personal relationship between writers and their research.
The essays, written by novelists, historians, journalists and a filmmaker, vary widely in topic, tone and method. Some give detailed accounts of methodology, like historian of science Alberto Martínez who gives a step-by-step account of the convoluted and creative process tracking down a single elusive fact: the date that Albert Einstein had the intuitive flash that led to the theory of relativity. Others, like essayist Ned Stuckey-French, who describes research as a way of life for his entire family, are more impressionistic. Despite the book’s focus on non-digital discoveries, several also celebrate new opportunities of on-line digging.
Whether funny or poignant, describing the insights that come from getting lost in a strange city or the development of a research path over the course of a career, the essays in Curiosity’s Cats celebrate the joy of research on-line and off.
* Topic and story are not the same. This is the first lesson any writer must learn if she wants to survive.
**Though you can find more than you may realize if you know how to look. I take a lot of pride in my on-line search skills.
***Not to mention some of the most embarrassing. If you meet me in person ask me about the “sexist man alive” incident at Chicago’s Harold Washington Library. Let’s just say librarians don’t always whisper.
Fearless: A Q & A with Cathy Curtis
I am delighted to have biographer Cathy Curtis back on the Margins to discuss her new book, Fearless, the first comprehensive biography of Irish writer Edna O’Brien (1930-2024). Pull up a chair and enjoy the conversation!
What drew you to Edna O’Brien’s story?
I had been a longtime fan of Edna O’Brien’s novels and short stories, always keen to buy her latest book. While I was in the final stages of my previous book, I looked for another contemporary writer whose work I admired, who had not yet been the subject of a comprehensive biography, and who had led an eventful life.
Writing about a figure like Edna O’Brien requires living with her over a period of years. What was it like to have her as a constant companion?
Delightful! She was a mercurial person, quick to take offense, but her other traits were endearing to me: her passion for ultra-feminine clothes; her impulsive generosity; her abiding love for her two sons; her passionate romances with men unable to cope with her intensity; her wry sense of humor; her ability to use her intimate experiences as the basis of memorable fiction; her unwavering belief in the power of the written word; and above all, her extraordinary perseverance in the face of personal tribulations and literary snubs.
Are there any special challenges to writing about a woman who was a literary superstar in the second half of the twentieth century?
All five of my biographies are about notable women whose careers blossomed during the second half of the twentieth century, the historical period in which I feel most at home. But my previous books were about Americans. The challenge with this biography was to learn more about Ireland’s tragic history in order to comprehend the values and constraints that molded Edna’s way of looking at the world.
It was important to know that the Great Famine of the mid-nineteenth century had decimated the population, that Ireland’s fight for independence from the U.K. took agonizing decades to (partly) achieve, and that living under the total dominance of the Catholic Church had a terrible effect on human lives. I rewrote each chapter dozens of times, letting it “breathe” for weeks and returning to add more information, or to clarify what I had written.
Edna O’Brien died in 2024. Did her death change the book in any way?
She was in her late eighties and in declining health when I began researching the book in 2019, so her death was always on the horizon as I wrote. Afterward, I was able to write about her deeply moving funeral Mass (which I watched in real time on Vimeo) and to incorporate quotes from some of the people who wrote about their memories of her in the Irish and British press.
What was the most surprising thing you learned?
I had no idea how long it had taken for Edna’s work to receive serious recognition in the form of awards and reviews that did not belittle her writing as too overblown, too involved with women’s dashed romantic hopes, or “too Irish” to be the equal of works by prominent British writers. During her last years she finally received a bouquet of major awards, including the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, the David Cohen Prize for Literature, and the Prix Femina Spécial—all for her entire body of work. But her novels were never even shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the most famous British literary award.
Did the writing of this book lead you to make other discoveries?
Yes, I began reading the seemingly endless stream of brilliant novels by younger Irish authors. The last chapter of my book takes a final look at Edna O’Brien’s life and work alongside brief mentions of remarkable novels by ten contemporary Irish women authors who in some way owe their candor and literary inventiveness to her writing.
Cathy Curtis is the author of four previous biographies of prominent 20th-century women in the fields of visual arts and literature: Grace Hartigan, Elaine de Kooning, Nell Blaine, and Elizabeth Hardwick. Fearless: A Biography of Edna O’Brien will be published on September 9, 2025. Curtis is a former journalist, a member of The Authors Guild, and a past president of Biographers International Organization. Her website is www.cathycurtis.net