Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Henry Bruno Yamada Interview
Narrator: Henry Bruno Yamada
Interviewer: Matt Emery
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Date: July 3, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-yhenry-01-0007

<Begin Segment 7>

ME: When did you first get injured?

BY: I got injured in France, in the Vosges Mountain, just prior to the Lost Battalion.

ME: What happened?

BY: We were advancing, and then we heard lotta mortar shells. There were, there were tree bursts all over and, my friend and I were right next to each other. Both of us got hit on the leg. And the other person who was in the machine gun squad, got killed -- three of us were hurt then. And there were some other people got hurt, but I don't recall what their name were.

ME: So how many -- everybody was wounded, and how many people died there?

BY: Well, out, out of that moment, just one of, one of the person that was with us, he got kill. And my gunner, and -- I mean, assistant gunner, both of us got hurt. I don't remember. But I know quite a bit of people got hurt.

ME: What was that like seeing your friends get killed, seeing your friends wounded, and seeing yourself get wounded? How did you deal with that?

BY: Oh, gee, I don't know but, it wasn't nice. Shi -- Shiro, I think, got wounded, too, several days later. This -- when we got wounded I was just two days before the, reaching the Lost Battalion. And one day before that we were pinned down, the whole company were pinned down and, Shiro and, and everybody was on the verge of retreating. And Shiro would say to, to, not to retreat. Keep on going. And, and he relinquish a very bad disaster.

ME: What was Shiro like on the battlefield?

BY: Oh, he was a fantastic person. I think he, he was a real marvelous person. Plenty of guts. He would never retreat. I think he was well respected. Everybody liked him.

ME: Great soldier, huh?

BY: Yeah, he is. Same thing, even in Italy, the last portion we had, Po Valley. He, he held the company together. He's only a noncom, now. There was officers, but he, he does the job as an officer. And he holds the company together, and tells us not to retreat -- hold your grounds.

ME: After you got wounded, how long did you have to stay in the hospital area?

BY: I stayed in only about eight days.

ME: Eight days?

BY: Yeah.

ME: What were you thinking at that time? Were you ever thinking, oh, this -- did it ever seem hopeless to you or...

BY: No. My, my wound wasn't too bad. Got it wrapped up and, in fact, in fact, they didn't know that even the bullet went through the, my, other leg was bullet or shrapnel, but they don't, they didn't know whether it went right through my leg or not. They had it wrapped up -- when they released me, when I went back to the line, I found out that the, it came out the other end.

ME: Oh.

BY: And there was a big scab there.

ME: Uh-huh.

BY: Yeah.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.