<Begin Segment 76>

TI: You mentioned Sergeant Ventura, so I'm actually gonna read something that he wrote after the war describing this. So he wrote: "We six hundred men on the Nhpum Ga hill were convinced we could not survive. We expected to meet our God. Sergeant Roy Matsumoto stood up in the midst of the Japanese assault on our perimeter and fully exposed himself calling out to the Japanese as if he were a Japanese officer and ordered them to an all-out Banzai attack on our position. As the attack continued, Sergeant Matsumoto stood fully exposed to the enemy and they had to have seen that he was continually shooting at them with his pea shooter carbine. No other man in our battalion exposed himself. We were all in holes in the ground, firing from ground level. Sergeant Matsumoto was fully exposed and most certainly drawing attention of the enemy to himself. That he survived was and is a miracle. When I asked our commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel George McGee, why this man was not recommended for the Medal of Honor, he told me that, 'He was only an enlisted man doing his duty. Enlisted men do not get medals for this.'" Because what --

RM: So, I didn't get any medal.

TI: You didn't get a medal because what I've read and heard from you is many of the men on Nhpum Ga hill see you as saving their lives with this action.

RM: But some people believe that and think so. And so even now, after sixty years, they still send me card and present and, especially at Christmas time, people, either call me up or send me the card. They don't have to do that but I think they feel that I save it. But I, I was just a member of the team doing just my duty and I'm just a cog in the wheel.

TI: Although there, although there were many men who felt for this action that you should have gotten the Medal of Honor. I mean, how do you, how do you feel about that?

RM: Well, well, may be, it should, but since I came out in one piece, that's good enough for me. And I have knowledge that we survived and that's the most important thing for me and people appreciate what I have done. And so this medal don't mean anything, and see people happy because we survived.

TI: Yeah, because after, after Burma -- and I'm jumping ahead a little bit -- but you received the Legion of Merit award, which is, at that point, was a medal right below the Medal of Honor for your action at Walawbum in terms of intercepting the key information that led to the destroying of the ammunition dump. By all accounts, what you did at Nhpum Ga was, was much more heroic in terms of saving the unit and yet your commanding officer did not even recommend you for a medal. Why do you think that was, Roy?

RM: Well, I don't know, but not only me, but other people should deserve, still they weren't recommended so I think it was just his policy. He doesn't want to cheapen the medal giving it to everybody. But, to me, I have a satisfaction of surviving ourselves and that's the most important thing. And I'm happy at this age still in one piece and the way people treat me, I feel very honored and thank you, and so people treat me nice, that's one of my happiest moment.

By the way, anyway... after more than sixty years, finally the Secretary of the Army give me, awarded me the Bronze Star medal with a V device, that stands for "valor." So that's greatly honored, even though after sixty years, but better late than never. So I appreciate this still. So that means I was recognized and this is Secretary of the Army.

<End Segment 76> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.