<Begin Segment 37>

TK: Could we perhaps talk about, maybe, perhaps your most frightening moment during, during the war?

MT: After, it was kind of interesting, we started combat just south of Rome, but it's amazing, somehow all the... I would say what erai people of the world wanted to, I guess, preserve Rome, artist artifacts and things. So we stopped combat south of Rome and then we went all the way through Rome until we got north of Rome, I'd say about twelve miles north of Rome, and then we started the combat again because the Germans pulled back ahead of us as we came through. But we got, and then we started combat again. And then, when we were about four miles south of Florence, Italy, we were gonna take Florence and, but we, the 522 Artillery, we were resting about four miles south of Florence. And at about four o'clock in the afternoon, and we were all, were gonna go back into combat and we had loaded up with all of our trucks and the guns and everything all ready to go out when the Germans just... in north of Florence, Italy, started shelling us with their .88 artillery. And our artillery, .105, we would lob it into the enemy, but the German .88 was like a rifle. They would shoot it right into us. And so just north, I think they were just a little bit north of Florence when they started to shoot into us and they, they pinned us down, especially the service battery, down with all our ammunition and guns and everything like that. And the first shell, it goes... they would shoot the first one over, artillery shoot it over and then the second shell will come in short and the third shell we knew would be dead center on us. And so the minute that the third shell came in we all dispersed and we were in a grape field and there was a road nearby there with a pipe where the water was coming through. And so we all ran for there. By the time I got there, Lieutenant Woolner was right up the back there and so I had to fall on the ground and the rest of us fell and the .88 shells kept pinning us down and one shot about, oh, landed about ten, fifteen feet from us and exploded.

And it, well, we were just scared because the shells were coming all over in the grape field there. But we have our steel helmets. And we were really frightened and, because the shells were landing all over. And finally this .88 shell landed and it exploded and the shrapnels got into my lower back. But what really, I think, saved me from all this situation was, Cherrie used to write me every day by air mail from Price, Utah. And I kept all those letters and even though I'd read 'em I kept 'em and I had about a dozen of 'em in my back pocket, in both pockets and these shrapnels came up right up through the, all the letters. It was just like coming through a telephone book. And they slowed it down. But I think otherwise, if it came in a direct hit it would've killed me. But as scared as I was, I was thankful that the letters had stopped these shrapnels from injuring me too much where... it could've got me in the kidney and the liver and I would have never made it.

[Interruption]

MT: Going back to the injury, when the Germans pinned us down and were shooting those .88 shells into us, we were pinned down for, oh quite some time. But I, I'd like to explain how scared I was. I was so scared that laying against the bank of this grape field, the steel helmet, I felt my whole body just crawl right up into the steel helmet and that's how scared I really was. And to further explain, I've heard of people say that just before they die or are gonna die, their whole life scan goes right past 'em. But my whole life of my scan -- lifetime went right past me and before I passed out. And the next thing I knew I was in the field hospital. But it was really scary. And lot of people, Caucasians say well, they weren't scared, but I tell 'em it's not true, you're scared. But I really felt myself climbing up into that helmet. When I woke up next I was in the field hospital and it was terrifying, the fact that the guy on the left of me, I think, he lost both of his legs and the man on the right of me had lost one leg and an arm. And they were just moaning and groaning. And here, I was hurt and everything, I was suffering and everything but not, not when you see they lost their limbs and I was very uncomfortable that way that so much of me was still there compared to these fellows.

And I... it was about two days later or three days later, I asked the nurse to give me my clothing back so I can leave the hospital. And they said, "Well, no, you can't leave until the doctor releases you, and so, until then you just have to take, be treated by the doctors here and the nurses here." And so, so I managed, about the fourth day or fifth day, I managed to find where my clothing was and I got it. And then I went AWOL. I left the field hospital and, and, like, I felt like a dummy, actually, I guess, because I never realized that we were still in combat and that every day the password would change. And for the first time I was really glad that -- at Pearl Harbor time I wasn't -- but that I had a Japanese face. And even though I didn't know the password no more, that I could find, try to hitchhike back to my unit and... it took me a couple days. And but they, with my face, they knew I was near the 522nd Combat Team and so, but it took me a couple of days and I found the outfit, but I was marked down as AWOL and... but I just couldn't stay there. I mean, it was just --

TK: Let me get this straight. I mean, AWOL is Absent Without Official Leave.

MT: Yeah.

TK: But, in fact, you were AWOL from the hospital trying to get back to your unit. Right?

MT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it happened to a lot of other infantry people, too, because they, I don't know why, us Niseis, that we just didn't want to stay there and go back to the... we want to get back to the unit as soon as possible, quickly as possible.

<End Segment 37> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.