<Begin Segment 24>

TI: Okay, so Fred, we're now into our third hour, and let's, I wanted to go back to Europe. We had just talked about some of the interesting fighting sort of incidents with, with you before going...

FS: This was, this was the prelude to going to war. [Laughs]

TI: Now we're, let's go back to Naples, and you were staged there. And so where'd you go from Naples?

FS: Okay, well, we're staged there, we didn't, I don't think we did particular training, we hiked to keep in shape and stuff. Then they, they loaded us in landing craft, and we went from, from Naples to Anzio. And of course Anzio at that point had already been, the war had passed through Anzio. And so they landed us in Anzio, we, they had these... God, these crummy little landing craft, and we, as I recall, we stayed fairly close to the shore, and so we were getting the surf effect. God, I don't think I've ever been so sick in my life. Oh, God. It was that sideways motion. [Laughs] But the real pleasure I had is a guy in our company, he was a cook at the time, and he claimed to, he said he was a, had been a sports fishing guy in Los Angeles, and he used to brag about he'd take this Hollywood celebrity out and that Hollywood celebrity out and all that kind of... and he was so sick he couldn't stand up. And I, I took, he was kind of a boastful guy, I really took pleasure in seeing that guy so sick. [Laughs] Isn't that kind of mean?

TI: 'Cause here he was supposed to be a really, really good open fisherman, open sea fisherman.

FS: Yeah, and anyway, that was, that's kind of mean-spirited. So we, so we landed at Anzio, and we just hiked up to where all the combat had taken place and the war was over, the war had passed through there already. And within a few days, they loaded us in trucks, and we headed north, and we went, we went through Rome, and Rome at that point was still an open city and dark, and so we drove through Rome and then headed up to where the, where the line was. Gosh, I can't remember the name of the thing, but we, we were, we met, we joined the 100th Battalion, they were up in that area already, and they joined us as our 1st Battalion, and so then we were a full infantry regiment at that point.

TI: And did you have much interaction with the members of the 100th at that point?

FS: Well, the... somewhere along that, our guys got to see, guys from Hawaii got to see their friends from, in the 100th there, and I... but they, they were, they were... they joined us and then we were committed as a regiment, as part of the 34th, 34th Division.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.