Japanese American Military Experience Database
Shoso (Sho) Nomura
U.S. Advisory Group (postwar)(in Taiwan)
Dixie Mission
Interrogator, translator
Other Countries: India; Nationalist China; Communist China
Our principal entertainment was on Saturday nights. We went a short distant across the Yen River from our compound to Mao's headquarters, where he hosted our weekly dance parties. Our dance partners were the young students from their (the communists) English school. So these dances provided a wonderful opportunity to practice their English, conversing to all of us of the Dixie Mission.
We were sent a supply of soft balls and soft ball bats. And, believe it or not, we had ball games with the Japanese prisoners of war. Although they never played soft ball before, the POWs soon learned and provided great competition in these games which we played in a make-shift diamond we laid out in the dry river bed.
It was then that I learned that my parents were being subjected to all sort of slurs and insults from die-hard supporters of Japan. Remarks to the effect that their son and the other MIS (Military Intelligence Service) volunteers were 'inu' (dogs), traitors, spies and other despicable names. It's the fact that we were away and unable to defend our parents from this type of cruelty from their fellow internees that I missed most. It was difficult to understand their thinking.