<Begin Segment 29>

TI: So this task force was defeated, and then I assume you were rounded up and brought back to camp.

JY: Yeah. Oh, no, they didn't take us back to camp. The camp was empty. Apparently they were afraid there might be some bigger unit coming through, so they emptied the camp, the German camp. So we were told to surrender, and all of the prisoners were put back on the road.

TI: So you were then going to another place.

JY: Yeah, right.

TI: So where'd you go next?

JY: Well, we got flushed out of the forest, so we were recaptured. And then we didn't join the main group that was going, being removed from the camp, because we were delayed by two days. And eventually we got to Nuremberg, went southward.

TI: So this was another large camp.

JY: Yes, it was a large camp, a huge camp.

TI: And so what was this camp like? Kind of the same?

JY: Yeah, except a little more crowded, it was the same general feeling. But then we were only there for a short period, maybe two or three weeks, when we were marched out of there.

TI: And then where did you go?

JY: Well, this was a huge column marching out, and we were at the head of the column early in the morning. And we were just getting out of the city when the bombing raids, huge, huge raid was apparently on the way, just everybody stopped walking because we didn't know what was going to happen. And it lasted from about seven to three o'clock in the mid-afternoon, this raid, solid bombing. So it must have been thousands of planes.

TI: So they would do a bombing raid even though there were U.S. prisoners on the ground?

JY: Well, they couldn't schedule a big raid like that, it had to be planned quite an advance period to organize something like that.

TI: Okay, so you were just marching through when they... so it was just sort of the timing was unfortunate.

JY: So you could see several thousand men marching out of the barrack, straggling pace. Some of them would be far ahead and some would be still leaving camp. And so fortunately I was toward the head of the column, so the one still in, leaving the barracks in Nuremberg got hit.

TI: So you were lucky that you were in the front of the column.

JY: Right, exactly.

TI: Then where did you go?

JY: Well, then what followed after that, there was no more, that was the end of the war as far as battle goes. we were walking through springtime, now it's almost April or somewhere thereabouts. Springtime in Bavaria, going through rolling countryside, green, and as it were, I never touched it. And it's just a matter of just keeping up with the column, and I was assigned to take care of the sick soldiers, so I was going at a more leisurely rate, and guards were assigned to us. And one guard that was assigned to us was very, seemed like someone we fell into good luck, because he was clean-shaven, and he had, over one shoulder, a tommy gun, and on the other it looked like a musical instrument, and no rucksack for his rations. Hey, this guy, we lucked out. He knows how to get along with this situation.

TI: Because he didn't have a rucksack, because he had a musical instrument?

JY: Yeah, the rucksack would be for his... they gave a ration of bread and a chunk of meat to last him for a few days. And he didn't have that, and still he was quite comfortable. He knew how to get by somewhere. So I thought this was the kind of guy I need.

TI: You mean you thought he knew how to get by because he would know how to forage on the way?

JY: Yeah, he knew how to get along with people, make the best of any situation.

TI: I see, okay. And so did he, was he able to do that?

JY: Yeah, so we struck up and made use of my little German, opened up our pocketbook and find out what he did for a living before the war. He's a musician that used to play in Switzerland in a resort during the summertime. So we were in a very compatible kind of situation. And then one day he said, "I got to leave for a few hours. Do you think you can take care of your men?" I said, "No problem. They can't walk anyway, they're sick." He said, "Okay, just wait here and we'll be back." A few hours he comes back, and marches us out toward a real big farm. And the farmer's wife, we put the sick soldiers in the hayloft, the other soldiers are left out in the yard. And for a few days the farmer's wife cooks bread and soup for us. And they're very empathetic because their kids have been taken away to serve in the youth groups, so that was a nice interlude during the war.

TI: And so you really did get lucky with this German soldier who took care of you and could make friends with people.

JY: Yeah, I sort of have a vague image of him yet.

TI: That's good.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.