<Begin Segment 18>

TI: Later on -- and we probably won't get into it very much -- but you take pride as an officer of not having fatalities or very many fatalities in your --

DI: I had only one.

TI: And I was wondering if in your mind as an officer you really thought about the orders or the actions to really protect your men and if watching what happened to the Lost Battalion if that influenced that?

DI: For one thing I did what an officer was not supposed to do. The common practice, don't get too close to your men. Don't get intimate with them because the loss would be so devastating. But I made up my mind that I had to know each person as intimately as I can because I wanted to be selective. I did not believe in calling up my platoon and saying, "I need six volunteers." That's nonsense. If I've got a mission that's a deadly one, I'm going to surround myself with men that I can depend upon, men who are well trained and who have the discipline. And so I got to know every one of them. Now, for example, we had to censor letters. Today I don't think they do that, but at that time one of the responsibilities was to look at letters and if anything wrong was put on it, you cut it out or cross it out because this was military secret. And in these letters often times the innermost thoughts are expressed. Let's say you're married and you just got word from your wife that you're a father of a son now, first son. And you write back and say, "Oh, I'm going to do everything to go home. I want to see Toshio," or what have you. At that point you may not be the type of person I would want in a deadly patrol 'cause you would be too cautious, right? If I got another letter that I'm censoring and that letter said, "I just heard from Jack that you're messing around with so and so. Well, these things happen. Wait until I get back, I'll..." All that stuff is down here and I'm reading it. You're in no shape for rational thinking and discipline. I'm not going to take you. And so I used to go out on many, many patrols. In fact, during a period of sixty days I remember I led seventy-two patrols. That's a lot of patrols, more than one a day. And of the seventy-two patrols, I would say that at least ten of them were rigged with the understanding of the colonel because I could not pick certain people all the time. So I would have to have some rigged patrols where I would involve the others and make them think that this is a real bloody one. And if you started yelling out, "Throw that grenade," they were going to hear things [Laughs] even if a German is not there.

TI: So this was very important for the morale of your group across the board that everyone feel like they were a key component. Even though you realized that...

DI: Absolutely. When I felt that a man was getting close to breaking up, the stress was too great, 'cause all of us are in the same condition. We need a little break. I would see to it that there was some reason without losing face -- I remember, for example, I took off a fellow's glasses. I say, "It's dirty." And I made believe I was cleaning it and I dropped it and I stepped on it. And I said, "Oh, I'm sorry." I said, "You better go back and get a new pair." Well, we all had extra pairs in the duffel bag, but I say, "You go back and get a new one." And then I'd call up the captain and I would say, "Keep him there for about a week. Don't send him back."

TI: That's amazing. That's interesting.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.