page_title: Military Intelligence Service (United States)
section_title: US Occupation of Japan
hierarchical_section_title: Military Intelligence Service (United States) / History / US Occupation of Japan
caption_attribution_description: Tec 3 Ben Oshita (left) of Salt Lake City, Utah, interpreting the questions of Capt. Arthur A. Sandusky, staff attorney, asked of a possible prosecution witness for the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, in the Ministry of War Building, Tokyo, Japan. Miss Lenore Scott is the stenographer for the inquisition. This is one of the many important positions held by the Nisei in Japan. 9-3-46.
context_page_description: The Military Intelligence Service was a World War II U.S. military unit consisting of two branches, the Japanese American unit described here and the German-Austrian unit based at Camp Ritchie, described partly in Ritchie Boys. The unit described here was primarily composed of Nisei who were trained as linguists. Graduates of the MIS language school were attached to other military units to provide translation, interpretation, and interrogation services.
  Major General Charles Willoughby said, “The Nisei shortened the Pacific War by two years and saved possibly a million American lives.”
  They served with the United States Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, as well as with British, Australian, New Zealand, Canadian, Chinese, and Indian combat units fighting the Japanese.
context_section_description: Over 5,000 Japanese Americans served in the occupation of Japan. MIS graduates served as translators, interpreters, and investigators in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Thomas Sakamoto served as press escort during the occupation of Japan. He escorted American correspondents to Hiroshima, and the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Sakamoto was one of three Japanese Americans to be on board the USS Missouri when the Japanese formally surrendered. Arthur S. Komori served as personal interpreter for Brig. Gen. Elliot R. Thorpe. Kay Kitagawa served as personal interpreter of Fleet Admiral William Halsey Jr. Kan Tagami served as personal interpreter-aide for General Douglas MacArthur. Journalist Don Caswell was accompanied by a Nisei interpreter to Fuchū Prison, where the Japanese government imprisoned communists Tokuda Kyuichi, Yoshio Shiga, and Shiro Mitamura.
  During the occupation, Nisei members of the MIS addressed issues related to public welfare and the rebuilding of Japanese cities. George Koshi contributed in the creation of the Constitution of Japan, while Raymond Aka and Harry Fukuhara assisted in creating the Japanese National Police Reserve and the subsequent Defense Agency. Koshi, Aka, and Fukuhara would all be awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by the Japanese government for their efforts. The MIS also assisted in the demobilization of Japanese military personnel returning from various overseas posts, and contributed to the arrest and prosecution of Japan's military leaders during war trials that began in December 1945 and lasted until 1948.
  The Nisei servicemen weren't entirely without controversy, as soldiers with the Civil Censorship Detachment  were also responsible for implementing censorship during the Allied occupation of Japan. The Allied occupation forces suppressed news of criminal activities such as rape; on 10 September 1945, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers "issued press and pre-censorship codes outlawing the publication of all reports and statistics 'inimical to the objectives of the Occupation'."
  At its peak in early 1946, the MISLS had 160 instructors and 3,000 students studying in more than 125 classrooms. The twenty-first and final commencement at Fort Snelling in June 1946 featured the graduation of 307 students, bringing the total number of MISLS graduates to more than 6,000. What began as an experimental military intelligence language-training program launched on a budget of $2,000 eventually became the forerunner of today's Defense Language Institute for the tens of thousands of linguists who serve American interests throughout the world.
  In 1946 the school moved to the Presidio of Monterey. Renamed the Army Language School, it expanded rapidly in 1947–48 during the Cold War. Instructors, including native speakers of more than thirty languages and dialects, were recruited from all over the world. Russian became the largest language program, followed by Chinese, Korean, and German.
caption: MIS interpreter Ben Oshita questions a witness for the war crimes trials
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