Military Intelligence Service Language School

Military Intelligence Service Language School. , Students at the language school studied sosho (cursive Japanese characters) and beigo (Japanese military terms). On average, students learned between 50 and 200 new characters every day. Japanese translators at Fort Snelling, 1945, St. Paul Dispatch-Pioneer Press, photographer, Minnesota Historical Society, During World War II, the military needed Japanese-language translators to work in the Pacific, but few soldiers spoke or read Japanese. To solve this problem, the War Department opened the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS) in San Francisco in November 1941., The school recruited many Nisei soldiers, American-born children of Japanese parents. In 1942, Executive Order 9066 forced the internment or relocation of Japanese Americans on the West Coast. The school faced a problem: relocate immediately or lose their students. Governor Harold Stassen volunteered to host the school here in Minnesota., The language school moved to a former Civilian Conservation Corps camp in Savage. In 1944, it moved to Fort Snelling. The former Band Barracks here served as the program's new headquarters., During their six-month course, students worked long days. They had classes in Japanese language, writing, and culture during the day and supervised study hours every evening. Students practiced by translating documents from captured soldiers. They also monitored broadcasts from Tokyo on a short-wave radio in the fort's Telephone Exchange., Enrollment at the MISLS peaked in 1945. That year, the school added classes in spoken Japanese, as well as Chinese- and Korean-language courses. While in Minnesota, the MISLS trained over 6,000 students. These servicemen and women used the skills they learned here as interpreters, translators, interrogators, and language teachers around the world.,

Daily Schedule , 7:30am , Each day, the school call sounded., 8am to 3:30pm , Classes ran from 8am until 3:30pm., 7pm to 9pm , After dinner, students had supervised study from 7:00 to 9:00pm., 11pm , Lights out., Weekly Activities , Wednesday Afternoons , Set aside for military training., On Fridays in the Summer and Fall , MISLS students practiced retreat formations on the parade grounds., Saturday Mornings , Exams were held., Saturday Afternoons and Sundays , Students had for free time at the fort or in Minneapolis or Saint Paul.

, The Women's Army Corps sent 51 students to the MISLS in June 1945. After graduation, many of the WACs worked as researchers, translators, and interpreters. Nisei Women's Army Corps (WAC) detachment at Fort Snelling, 1945, courtesy of the Seattle Nisei Veteran's Committee and Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project, Japanese translators at Fort Snelling, 1945, St. Paul Dispatch Pioneer Press, photographer, Minnesota Historical Society, Instructor Shigeya Kihara later reflected "How proud we were of our students, our enlisted instructors and of being Americans in the service of our country." G Company pass in review, Fort Snelling, ca. 1944, Minnesota Historical Society