<Begin Segment 86>

TY: Well, see, I got wounded October 19th of that year.

MY: '44. '44.

TY: So it must have been shortly after you got to Crystal City. And after I got wounded, I get, they sent me to Italy, so all the letters that came to me, I got, I got it about two or three months later.

MY: Oh, yeah.

TY: See, because I was wounded in France, and then they flew me to Italy, in Naples, and I stayed in the hospital there --

JY: When was it? October of '44 when you got wounded?

MY: If they were there before -- they went to Crystal City before that.

TY: Yeah, you were there before, but how soon before that? In the fall is, is September, October.

JY: Yeah, there's a discrepancy there. Because I feel like we heard about your being wounded when I was in Cincinnati.

TY: Cincinnati?

MY: I do, too.

JY: You know? That somehow...

TY: Well, that period, I didn't write much letters then. Because I was being moved around so much.

MY: Oh. We didn't hear from you for months and months and months.

TY: Yeah, for a long time. And then I heard from --

MY: And we were wondering, did something happen --

TY: And then one day, the chaplain at the hospital, I think, came --

MY: Yeah, that makes sense.

TY: -- and says, "I think the Red Cross got in touch with them." I said, "What?" [Laughs]

MY: Yeah, because Dad, Mom and Dad -- I mean, we didn't hear from you and we didn't hear from you --

TY: I was so embarrassed. [Laughs]

MY: You know, we thought he was missing --

TY: So maybe it was in that time. I don't know.

MY: We thought you were missing in action, or something.

TY: Oh, that was, that was really...

MY: And he didn't write for months and months and months.

TY: No, no.

MY: Months and months.

TY: No, no. [Laughs]

AI: Well, at least it --

MY: Because we were worried about him for a long --

AI: -- at least it must have seemed like months.

TY: [Laughs]

JY: [Laughs]

MY: [Laughs] But I remember we were worried about him, and then finally, and that's why I think we contacted, I might have contacted the Red Cross to have them track you down.

TY: Well, what I, because I remember --

MY: And they tracked you down. That's kind of efficient, isn't it?

TY: Yeah, the Red Cross... and then, and then the chaplain came to see me and says, "You know," he says, "when's the last time you've written to your folks?" [Laughs]

JY: And you said?

MY: "I don't remember."

TY: "Oh, a month ago." No, because I --

JY: Then what did he say?

TY: -- during that time anyway, there was a time that I didn't get letters from anybody. I didn't get any -- usually it was, people sent me --

MY: Because it was held up, someplace.

TY: Yeah.

JY: Or it didn't catch up to you or something.

TY: People sent me, periodically send me care packages and all this, and that's the time that Toshiko sent me this five-layer cake...

MY: Five-layer cake?

TY: Yes.

MY: From the United States?

TY: It was chocolate. I think it was a chocolate cake. And it went to France, okay? And then I was wounded there, so it followed me all the way to Italy, and then to, and then the recondition center, after I got out of the hospital in Italy, and then I went back to France, and it caught up with me after I went back to France. About four months later. And when I opened that box up, it was green.

MY: [Laughs] Did you eat it?

TY: I had no idea. I surmised that it was chocolate cake, but I had no idea whether it really was. So anyway, for a period, for a period of several months, the letters didn't catch up with me. And I got it all in one bunch. A great big box like this, when I got back to France they gave me, when I joined the outfit. And it must have been that interim that I probably didn't write letter, because I was moving around so much. [Laughs]

MY: And you were wounded --

TY: Oh, that was a good excuse, I guess, but...

MY: Yeah, and then, that was when, then we got a picture of him in his bathrobe.

TY: Oh, I sent it from the hospital, I think.

JY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right, that's right.

MY: He sent us a picture. Yeah, and then --

TY: Yeah, and crutches.

JY: And that was in Cincinnati.

TY: No, that was in... what?

MY: We got the picture--

JY: I mean, we got the picture in Cincinnati. That's why I thought --

TY: In Cincinnati?

JY: Yeah. Because I remember Mom getting hysterical, when she, we got the telegram --

MY: Picture.

JY: -- the telegram saying that --

MY: That you were wounded.

JY: -- I forgot what it said, but, like "your son has been wounded," or something or other.

TY: But you got the picture in Cincinnati. My God.

MY: Yeah, because --

JY: But wasn't there a picture in the --

MY: There was a newspaper article in the --

JY: -- yeah, in the Cincinnati Enquirer about you getting a, the Purple Heart or Bronze Star?

MY: But that's later. That was later, because a Purple Heart would be later --

JY: That might have been later.

TY: That was later.

MY: -- much later.

JY: Maybe that's what I'm mixing up. That might be what I'm mixing up.

<End Segment 86> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.