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MA: Can you talk a little bit about when you got injured?

GM: Well, it was on the fifth day of fighting, October 9th or -- April 9th or 10th, and we were attacking five machine guns that were firing at us. And our platoon was single-file on the forward side of the hill, there was no foxholes or anything, we were just lying down on the side of the hill from getting hit. And there was four machine guns up in the front firing at us, and I looked up from where I was, and I, I was wondering how high those bullets were flying over our heads, and I, I saw these branches being clipped off.

MA: Could you hear stuff, too, like could you hear gunfire?

GM: Oh, yeah. Well, bullets you can, you know what the bullet is like when they're firing at you. If the bullet is being fired, it's a shot. But when it comes awful close to you, you hear a distinct crack, so you know it's getting pretty close. There's a different, it's experience that tells you how close the bullet is. But if it goes right past your head, you know that was close. But then you can hear machine guns firing all over, so you know it's not firing at you. But anyway, these four machine gun bullets are hitting about that high, hitting the branches above me. I didn't think too much about that, because I figured, well, if they're shooting that high, it probably won't get down to where I'm at. But then a little later, this machine gun fired right through us, from the flank. And Kim Muromoto was in front of me, and the bullet hit the dirt right in front of my face and right behind his heel. We were about that far apart, and hit right between us in the dirt. And from there on, I guess you go by instinct. He says, "Uh-oh, he's going to fire again," that's the first thing. If he's going to fire again he's going to hit me, maybe, so I'd better make myself into a small target. What I did was curled up into a little ball and got on this side, put my back towards it, and that's when it went right through my helmet by my ear, because my face was turned away from it. And that bullet sounded like a bomb going off in my ear, because it was right next to my ear. And it flipped me completely around on the ground, and I got hit, and I -- this is a matter of split seconds -- I said, well, I'm still alive, and the only way I could die now is to bleed to death. And so I said, "I better cover up the hole." I put my hand up to my face like this, and I was looking around for the opening in my face because I thought this whole face was blown off. That's what it felt because I can't, I don't have a mirror, so I'm thinking the face must have been blown off. And I went like this and looking for the hole and I couldn't find the hole, and I looked at my hand and, "That's funny," I had a hundred dots, over a hundred red dots on my hand, where I was going like this. [Pantomimes touching face with hands] And what happened was I had twenty-two scratches around my eye and down my cheeks like this, and they were just enough to draw blood. It wasn't bleeding, but just enough to draw some blood. And every time I went like this, I picked up twenty-two red dots. [Laughs]

MA: The bullet must have just grazed your face, then, right?

GM: Yeah, it grazed, didn't hit me at all, it went through my helmet. But the shrapnel is, and everything went around my eye and down the side of the cheek. And I told Kim, I said, "Hey, I'm hit." And he says, "Medics," and I said, "Don't call the medics here, he'll get killed," you know. So I said, "I'll go back to him." Well, I had to take my suspenders and everything off and give my BAR to Kim, 'cause he was my assistant. And took a few minutes to do that, and after I did that, I got up and ran right alongside of everybody back to the medic. And everybody's yelling at me, "George, get down." I forgot the machine gun was still firing. I didn't get hit, but I got to the medic and he put this sulfa drug on my ear and bandaged me up with a big old white bandage that I carried around in my, my kit. And it looked like a big white turban, and he says, "Oh, you're okay," he says, "you could go up there in ten minutes, you can go back up there." And I was thinking about this big white turban on my head, and I said, "What?" And he looked at me again and he says, "George, I think you're in shock." And I said, "What?" and he says, "Well, you better go down to the battalion aid station," but he says, "you better carry a litter down with you." He said, "Wait a while and we'll have a litter case for you to carry down." I waited a little while and nobody got hit after that, so there was no litter case, so he said, "Well, you better go down to the, the battalion aid station by yourself." I didn't know where it's at, he said, "Just follow the trail." So I followed that trail down the hill, got down to the battalion aid station, they told me to take my clothes off, get on the table, they give me a shot in the butt, and then said, "Put your clothes on, get in the ambulance." We got in the ambulance and went again to another tent some miles away, and the guy said, "Roll up your sleeve." And rolled up my sleeve, and they gave me another shot in the arm. I must have been in shock, because I don't know what's going on. Then went to another aid station, and he said, "Roll up your arm," and put the arm up and they gave me another shot. This is my third shot I'm getting, and I ended up in the hospital at one-thirty in the morning, I think. And I got hit sometime in the afternoon, so this is, whole thing takes quite a number of hours.

I got in the hospital and they give me x-ray and took the metal piece out of my ear that was lodged in there, and an officer came in, a doctor, and he says, "Did you eat?" And I says, "No," and he says, "Well, put some medicine on his face and give him a sandwich, and give him a shot." And I said, "Wait a minute," I says, "what the heck are you giving me?" I says, "I got three shots already." And the doctor there, he says, "You got three shots?" I said, "Yeah," he said, "How big are the needles?" I said, "Oh, about that big." [Laughs] It was, to me it was like that. [Indicates length with hands] And he said, "Don't give him any more shots." He didn't tell me that it was tetanus, it was all tetanus shots. Ended up in the hospital, and they had my face painted red from right down the nose, middle of the face, all red on one side. I don't know why they didn't paint the other side, but there was no scratches there. And they put me into bed, I got up in the morning, nurse says, "You can get up and walk around." I put my pants on and here was this big ol' hole in the seat of my pants, it had worn out. And I don't know where or when it got that bad, but I didn't have any pants, so the nurse there said, "I'll see if I can find one." He come back with a great big pants and way too big, and there was no other choice but to take it or stay in bed. So, but nine days later I was back on the line again.

<End Segment 34> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.