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TI: Going back to Nhpum Ga, so this, this battle was a real turning point in terms of what happened in Nhpum Ga hill. Because at this point what happened with the Japanese and the 3rd Battalion breaking through, what happened next?

RM: Well, if we were annihilated, would be no Myitkyina and they'll be a complete failure for General Stillwell because we won't be able to open up the Burma Road; but fortunately we survived, and also, if 2nd Battalion were annihilated, 3rd Battalion would suffer big damage, too, because they had more superior forces and more weapons and manpower. So then this turning point, we survived, therefore we were able to march to Myitkyina and capture air strip, therefore we were able to send in the reinforcement by plane and later on able to capture Myitkyina and open up the Burma Road and able to supply our allies in China. So...

TI: Right, so after, after, so four months of combat, the mission that you started off with -- because the original mission was to capture Myitkyina.

RM: Yeah.

TI: That was the goal of the mission and so it took four months. The air strip was captured. At that point, of the original three thousand men that started off, there were only two hundred men who were left standing to fight.

RM: Yes.

TI: You left with the very last group.

RM: Last group of seventeen men.

TI: Of seventeen to be evacuated. I mean, at that point, given that you accomplished the mission but took such huge causalities over the last four months, what were you and the others thinking about? What were you thinking about?

RM: Well, we thought it fortunate the fourteen men, language team, everybody survived. No one got killed, so we just fortunate and thankful God that we were able to accomplish our mission. Then the grateful nation recognized this and they made a monument in Fort Bragg -- I mean not Fort Bragg -- Fort Benning, Georgia, praising the fourteen men who have done.

TI: And we'll get to that later, but I was wondering, as you were being evacuated from Myitkyina on that last, that last group, the last group of Merrill's Marauders, from a successful mission, what were you thinking about, about the price that was paid to do this? Was it a success?

RM: Well, mission was successful but since we expect the 85 percent casualty, and almost ended that, but most of 'em, people, causality, were not exactly wounded, but sickness we encountered. Lotta people disabled but most of 'em survived. But anyway...

TI: But Roy, something else came up -- I mean, when I think about this. So you finished the mission, it took four months. Going back to when you volunteered for this mission, back at Camp Savage, they said this would be this dangerous secret mission --

RM: Yeah.

TI: -- three months, 85 percent casualties. You completed the mission. At this point why weren't you and others sent back to stateside?

RM: Well, we don't know why but since we thought we gonna be return to the stateside, but didn't happen because more important mission coming up. So, "After you complete that, then you be rotated." So, in other words, they broke the promise, it didn't turn out, but it kinda disappointed us. But since, after that was most of the people, for most of the people it was not a combat area, so it was headquarters in India, so we have to follow orders so that was the order and we went there and then things turn out and supposed to be back in three months, took me a few years before I rotated back to States. I went back in '52 so... [laughs]

<End Segment 77> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.