<Begin Segment 38>

TK: The history of the 522 as part of the 442nd was that the artillery battalion was at times separated from the infantry and went on different tracks. Is that true and why did that occur?

MT: Yeah, that is true and it did occur. This occurred before, I mean, after we participated in the Texas division that was surrounded by the Germans. And at Bruyeres, we, I think we saved, I think there was about, less than five hundred Texans that were surrounded by Germans. But the infantry slowly volunteered to go in there. But all the other hakujin units tried to get in there and get 'em out of there but finally, I think, the 442 volunteered to go up there. And it was a slow process because it was November, about November, and snow, wet, cold. And the Germans had pulled back all up to a hill up there and they dug in and had logs over 'em and dirt over on top of that. So when the air corps tried to drop bombs in there it wouldn't affect it. They dropped medicine in there, they dropped food in there, they dropped ammunition in there, but they just couldn't get to the Texas outfit.

And so, but finally the casualty on the 442 was very heavy from what we come out, the people that we saved. And I think it was close to about eight hundred casualty at that time to save less than five hundred Texans. And so, with that casualty loss we were able to get 'em out of there and then we, they pulled us all the way back to Nice, France, and Cannes and other area to await replacement of Nisei, being segregated, they wouldn't... we had to wait for Nisei Americans to come back and fill us up. So we stayed in Nice for over a month there. And the artillery was shooting into from, just artillery in from Nice, in from the mountains into the German side and they would cross fire. It was just a... it wasn't a real serious fight but we kept, kept combat up and...

Then, after all of the replacements came into Nice and Cannes and area like that, they, like I, I don't know if I mentioned, but all the different armies, the thirty-, I mean, the 36th Division, 34th Division, all knew the 442 were crack troops and the 522 were cracked artillery units so they were asking for us to be assigned to them. So this is where they finally split the 442 to go back to -- [coughs] -- excuse me... to Northern Italy and we, the 522 went up into Germany and, because we were assigned according to their wishes and that's when we just didn't know it but we ran into the Dachau concentration camp. And we were, there was about, we were one of the units with the hakujin units that liberated Dachau and we, the first night there we bivouacked right there outside of the gate door there. But it was really sad. They were just so hungry. They were sick then and lot of 'em without teeth. They were half dead, actually. And they, but they came out of camp. And we were told not to feed 'em because they hadn't eaten for so long that if we fed 'em anything that they would have died there anyway. But we, when we camped there the first night we, our service battery, 522, camped right by the gate there and we made a sump where we, the kitchen potato peelings and things like that, we'd throw it in the sump. We had it roped off and some of the people would still come through and they grabbed the food and they ate it and they died right there. When we got there, there was quite a few Jewish bodies in the (boxcars) that... the camps, there was none dead in the camp. I went in there, but we could see on the wall where they had stacked up these dead bodies before. And the furnaces were there where they... but I understand that Dachau did not cremate 'em there. They shipped 'em out by boxcar and so... it was really pathetic to see all these Jewish prisoners there.

[Interruption]

TK: So you were, so when you walked in and you saw the dead bodies stacked up, can you go on from there?

MT: Yeah. The dead bodies were... well, when we got there we opened the gate and we saw all of these Jewish prisoners come out. Outside of the Dachau camp there's a lot of the forty and eight boxcars had dead bodies in it because, prior to our arriving at Dachau, the German Nazis and the SS officers had pulled back and they were gone by the time we got there. And then, so the Jewish prisoners themselves didn't know what happened. And then, on top of that, like I said, in the boxcars they didn't have time to get the bodies out of there but there were, they had emptied the dead bodies out of the camp itself. But when I went in there I saw some of the buildings there where you could see where the bodies were stacked up and just the, not the, but the aftermath of the bodies. The bodies were outside the camp. They tried, they tried to get rid of 'em as quickly as possible but by the time we were coming they were only left the bodies in these boxcars. And so, the Germans had pulled back and left.

But here again, these prisoners didn't know what had happened because there were, all of a sudden there were Germans all around there until then, then they pulled back as we came up. And then here they saw not only hakujins but they saw the Japanese American 522 coming in there and they couldn't understand who you were and what we were doing there except some of 'em, I guess, thought Japan had capitulated and had joined the American army. But again, immediately we tried to explain that we were Japanese Americans with the United States Army and not from Japan. And they, it took a little bit of time but they understood and they felt very relieved. But we were told the, not to feed 'em because the Red Cross would be coming along, but we did give 'em chocolates, chewing gums, K rations, a little bit so that it wouldn't bother their physical condition.

TK: Do you remember what you felt or how you felt when you walked through that gate and into the buildings at all?

MT: Well, actually, I'd say no, because at that time I think we were keyed up on surprise that we found the Jewish concentration camp, which we didn't know. And then we found out that it was a Jewish camp. But later, I thought, "What a coincidence. Here we Japanese Americans were liberating Dachau concentration camp where..." and here Mother was in a move from probably Tule Lake into Minidoka, and it was something that didn't occur to me exactly at that time but, because of the situation, but it was something I thought about, what a coincidence it would be that we were liberating Jewish people that were under the Nazi and here our parents and relatives were all in concentration camp in the United States.

TK: Approximately what month and year was that with the Dachau?

MT: Dachau was (April).

TK: of 19...

MT: (April) 1945.

TK: Okay.

<End Segment 38> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.