Working to Ensure the MIS Story Lives On
Friends of Presidio 640 launch an ambitious campaign to preserve and develop an interpretive center at the original MIS language school.
Harry Fukuhara, 86, of San Jose, Calif. has attended more funerals for his friends the last few months than he cares for. It’s made him realize that as each day passes there are less and less Nisei to tell the venerated stories of his generation.
Especially distressing for Fukuhara are the dwindling numbers of his fellow World War II Military Intelligence Service (MIS) veterans, a group of Japanese American soldiers whose Japanese language capabilities are credited with helping to bring about the end of the war.
But now a new group called the Friends of Presidio 640 is working to ensure the MIS story lives on.
Building 640 is located at the Presidio in San Francisco and is the original location for the first MIS Language School where a group of 58 JA students received Japanese language instruction during WWII. Friends of Presidio 640 is working to develop the historic site into an interpretive center and recently launched an ambitious fundraising campaign.
“It’s important for us to go out and tell the story of the MIS, not just to Japanese Americans but to all Americans,” said Fukuhara, MIS of Northern California chairman who has been helping to develop Building 640. “The vets realize that if we don’t tell the story … we’re dying off fast now. Half the guys are gone now.”
“What the JAs sacrificed for today’s civil liberties is a legacy for all Americans,” said Fukuhara’s son Brian, 45, who is president of Friends of Presidio 640. “These lessons are lessons we need to continue to learn.”
Friends of Presidio 640 — a group of volunteers comprised largely of relatives of MIS vets — hope to raise between $5 and $10 million towards the rehabilitation of the site and the development of an interpretive center. The Center will include interactive exhibits and will house MIS memorabilia and history. In addition to telling the heroic stories of the MIS vets, the Center will address themes of multiculturalism, tolerance, and the importance of language.
Built in 1921, Building 640 was formerly an Air Postal Service hanger before being developed by the U.S. Army into a top-secret MIS school in 1941. After Executive Order 9066 was put into effect the MIS school was moved to Camp Savage and later Camp Snelling in Minnesota. More than 6,000 JAs would graduate from the MIS language school, the forerunner of today’s’ Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey. Today, Building 640 can be found at the Presidio of San Francisco, a National Historic Site
Fukuhara was 22 years old and living at the Gila River internment camp when he volunteered to serve in the U.S Army. He was stationed at Camp Savage in December 1942 where after only three months of training he was sent to New Guinea. He would serve throughout the war and eventually take part in the Occupation of Japan.
“It was not an easy choice to make. We had to volunteer since Nisei were classified as 4-C enemy aliens,” said Fukuhara, who retired from a military career in 1971. “To volunteer out of camp at the time was difficult because there was a lot of opposition, even amongst the Nisei.”
“The MIS was never a unit, we were a service. So when the war ended our work was just beginning,” he explained. “We went from combat to a peacetime mission. Our peacetime mission was more important.”
Brian recalls how little his father would speak about his MIS experience while he was growing up. In fact most of what he learned came from stories his uncle and other veterans would tell him. He also helped his father with his correspondences and letters so like osmosis he eventually learned about the MIS.
“Building 640 is something close to me because of my father and other vets,” said Brian. “I am very proud of my dad. That in his 20s he had to make a choice to stand up as an American knowing his family was in camp. I can’t fathom today what he went through.”
A native of Hawaii, Sansei Gerald Takano, 58, heard little about the WWII internment story and the heroics of the JA vets while growing up. It wasn’t until his move to the mainland that he began to meet some of the veterans and heard their stories. Now he’s a volunteer board member of Friends of Presidio 640.
“Being from Hawaii I was isolated from the internment issues, what the MIS went through. That their families were interned but they were still loyal to the United States,” he said. “I think this story is just so compelling.”
Although Building 640 will tell the story of the MIS, committee members believe the story is relevant to all Americans. An important aspect of the Interpretive Center will be its focus on the universal aspect of language and how languages can serve to bring the world closer together.
“Language is important in all walks of life. It is a means to understanding other countries. Through language we get to know other cultures,” said Fukuhara. “The world is closer together today and language is of even more importance.”
Friends of Presidio 640 has been working closely with the National Japanese American Historical Society in San Francisco, along with the National Park Service, and Presidio Trust. Already $600,000 has been donated by the NPS towards the preservation of Building 640. The committee hopes to complete the construction drawings for the project by the end of May. They have applied for non-profit status and a Web site is currently under construction.
Although the process to preserve and interpret Building 640 is likely to be a long one, Brian and his fellow committee members hope MIS veterans like Fukuhara will live long enough to see the project come to fruition.
“There is an urgency. Many of the MIS vets are in their 80s and 90s,” said Brian. “A lot of them are going to die before it happens. We’re trying to preserve their legacy but we are losing the value from their first hand stories.”
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