<Begin Segment 35>

TI: Well, so from, so we're in the French Riviera, then from there, what happened to the 442?

FS: Well, we, we sat there and replacements, we got a whole bunch of replacements. I don't know, maybe two or three waves of replacements. And then gradually guys came back from the hospital and so probably -- and we trained all the time. In addition to, in addition to, to sitting on defensive, we'd get, try to get new guys broken in, fitting in to the unit and stuff. And so I'm sure that we were full strength by sometime in February. And then, of course, word came out that, that we were going back to Italy, and somehow, well, at least, that was the word, the rumors, grapevine. No, officers never tell you a damn thing. You kind of, you kind of ferret it out. Somebody in the, in regimental headquarters tells somebody, and one of his friends in the one of the companies, and gradually it filters down. But nobody ever tells a guy down at the low end of the chain what the hell's going on. So anyway, that -- but we knew, we found out we were going back to Italy. And we were, we were loaded on some kind of troop ship. And again... this is where it breaks down. I can't remember whether we landed in Leghorn or in Naples; I don't remember that.

TI: That's okay. So why don't you go ahead, but you ended up sort of back where you...

FS: Yeah, we were back where we started. When we got back to, when we got back to Italy... this, it turns out that we were, it was, it was some sort of a secret operation because we were, we were sequestered, we were not allowed to leave, leave the campsite. And apparently, Mark Clark's intent was to use us as some sort of shock troops, to, to hit the line. When we got back there -- the surprising part of it was that the front had not moved at all from the time we left in September to the time we got back to, to Italy in March. It was just the same old, same old place, same old beat up area. [Laughs]

TI: So what were the rumors amongst the men? So what happened was you were transferred from France back to Italy, to go back to the, Mark Clark, the 34th --

FS: The 5th Army.

TI: The 5th Army.

FS: No, we did not join, we were, we were not, we didn't join the 34th Division. That was a disappointment. We were attached to the 92nd Division.

TI: Oh, that's right.

FS: Which was, which was the all-black infantry (division), and they were on the extreme west end of the line, was that the Adriatic? Yeah, the Mediterranean side. And, but we were under direct command -- it's my understanding -- we were under direct command of General Clark. He considered us... he, he was the guy who really thought we were something, and he liked the 100th, and when the 442nd came over and joined him, we were his elite troops, it was always afterwards. And he, he was the one who, who fought with, who struggled to keep us in Italy, but Eisenhower and his crew decided that they needed us in France to prosecute the war, to prosecute the war in France. But after we were so beat up, Clark prevailed on the high command, Eisenhower's command, to return us to, to Italy.

TI: And so how did the men feel about this? Here they're going back under General Clark, you're, it's sort of secretive. I mean, what, what were you guys talking about? 'Cause you knew something was up.

FS: Yeah, we knew that we -- well, I think, I think we recognized that the intent was to try to break the German, the Germans had this winter line in the really rugged, rugged mountainous terrain in Italy there, along the coast. They were in the mountains right off the ocean, and the Germans would get the high ground, and in order to, to move ahead, it was very apparent that you had to get those, get them out of the mountains. And that was obviously what, what they intended us to do. Not being a strategist... but it was very apparent. The one thing about Italy -- I think I talked about this before -- as we knew, the mountains were in front of us and the Germans were on the Coast. And the coast, the ocean and the flatlands were on our left, and pretty much we knew which way we were going. We were gonna go north, and the Germans were, would defend the ridges, and we would have to climb the ridges and push them off, and then they'd move back to the next line, and we would do that again. But this is what took place at the campaign in '44, and in the spring of '45, it was the same damn thing.

<End Segment 35> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.