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TI: Okay, so today we're Thursday, April 27, 2006, again, we're in the basement of the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane. I'm doing the interview, Tom Ikeda, and on camera is Dana Hoshide. And Fred, I have to thank you for coming back. I mean, yesterday we did three full hours, and we, it was just so good, so fascinating, that we asked you to come back to share some more, so thank you.

FS: I've got to tell you, I enjoyed it. It's been fun.

TI: So where we stopped yesterday was we were in the, the French Riviera.

FS: Yeah, the Riviera coast.

TI: And what, in that time period of the 442, that some people called it the "Champagne Campaign." And I just wanted to -- last night when I was thinking, I was thinking that here, you had some down time, and I was wondering if, if the men ever talked about what they had just accomplished with the rescue of the "Lost Battalion." Did, did they find out, either through themselves, or did they talk to other people that, or heard from other people that, that just a sense of what you had done?

FS: You know, I don't think we ever really talked about it in those days. And it wasn't 'til after the war was over that we realized exactly what had happened. As an enlisted man and just a dogface, you know so little. Your immediate surroundings are first your squad and then your platoon, and then the company. All we were, we were, we were aware of is that when we came off those hills, there were only eighteen or so of us left. And I guess it's part of licking your wounds. But we, I, if we did talk about it, it was in the, in the vein of, "God, old whatchamo got it," "Geez, whatever happened to, I wonder if whatchamo's going to come back from the hospital?" and so on. That was what it was mostly about. I don't think we ever felt heroic about it. It was not 'til well afterwards that we realized what had happened up there.

TI: Well, how about when you're in Europe, when -- you call yourself a "dogface" -- when you would come across other dogfaces from other units, non-Japanese American units. Were they aware of, of sort of the record of the 442? Did it ever, ever come up that, "Wow, you guys did some pretty amazing things"?

FS: Well, I just remember one of my squad members, platoon members, coming back from a trip into town, and he says, "You know, we were stopped, sitting there on the, on the street, and a guy came up and said, 'Hello,' and he saluted us. And he said, 'You were the best soldiers in Europe.'" I just remember that, I wasn't there, I just heard about it afterwards. So, so somebody was, some people were aware of us and our record, apparently.

TI: Well, how about the army PR machine? Did they ever, like, do newsreels or anything about the 442 that you were aware of?

FS: Well, it was... remember I was telling you the incident about the 442nd on, on the "Lost Battalion" rescue? That's how my sister knew about it, and she was aware of the casualties, and she was, and so she was the one who wrote to the Red Cross wondering what had happened to me. So finally, in that period in the early winter of '44, there was, there was a lot of public, apparently, publicity in the, in the, on the mainland about us. Considering that there were millions of men in Europe, and here we were a unit of only about five thousand men. So if you, if you'd get coverage at all, I think it was amazing. I can recall that, that the little, the newspaper out in Hillyard where we lived, had an article about me, that I was, I was in Europe fighting. [Laughs] And my friends from Hawaii said, "God, you got your name in the newspaper," you know, but I was the only Japanese American from Hillyard who was in the 442nd.

TI: Now, how did you find out about article? Did someone send it --

FS: No, my sister cut it out and mailed it to me, I don't know at what point that took place, but it made it sound like I was Eisenhower's number one man, you know. [Laughs] I took a lot of ribbing, anyway.

TI: Do you still have a copy of that article?

FS: No, I don't, no. But I, it was, it was very amusing at the time. I, I took, I took some kidding about that.

<End Segment 34> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.