<Begin Segment 16>

TI: When you received your battlefield commission, this was right about the time of the Battle of the Lost Battalion, and you, I think, rejoined the 442 right after that battle. And an event that happened right after that battle was that General Dahlquist requested a retreat parade where he had the 442 assemble so that he could address them. Describe what happened at this event.

DI: Well, when the battle ended, I was then an officer, officer for a couple of days. I was told that the colonel received a message from General Dahlquist ordering him to assemble the 442nd in some field so that he could address us and give us the official thanks and gratitude of the 36th Division. And so we were called to participate in a retreat parade, which is the high formal parade where the band marches and each company in turn, we go through a whole ritual of, "E Company all present and accounted for, F Company all present and accounted for." And so we assembled in the field and the general looked out at the regiment and he started berating the colonel, actually scolding him. And I got this from officers who were there, he said, "Colonel, I told you to have the whole regiment out here, but apparently you disobeyed my orders and you sent most of your men out on furlough or passes." And the colonel turned around and said, "This is the regiment. Only two men from each company are left in the company area to guard the equipment. The rest of them are all here." And he was so dumbfounded, he could not talk. See, what he had seen was, for example, I think it was K Company, the company commander was a staff sergeant and there were nine men behind him, two men in the company area -- a total of twelve survived the Lost Battalion battle. I Company was almost close to that. The company with the largest number of personnel was my company, E Company. We had forty-two men, but when you consider that full contingent of officers and men of a company was a hundred and ninety-seven... and granted that we went into battle, we were already cut by one third because we were in battle elsewhere. But to come down to that number with 800 casualties, the general could not speak. He presented a plaque. That plaque was somehow handed over to a clerk, and that plaque ended up in somebody's duffel bag, and it was not located until long after the war. And right after that our colonel asked for reassignment. He says, "I can't continue this."

TI: Because of what, working under the General Dahlquist?

DI: To be called upon to lead his men to death. You see, we knew we were expendable. We knew that we were so good that we were requested by other units to serve as shock troops or assault troops. That's what we were. We were put from one area to another. And after the Lost Battalion we went down to the south to regroup ourselves and get replacements. When we went back to Italy, we were the assault troops to lead the last charge.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.