<Begin Segment 33>

TI: So let's, let's keep moving. So you're going up, up Italy, and so what happens next?

VW: Well, we got all the way up to, well, we went through Florence, but very quickly. Then we went over, we were on the mountaintop, and we were looking down at Pisa, the Leaning Tower of Pisa. And we saw the Germans down there moving back and forth, running around with their jeeps and stuff, and we could have had a pretty good kill there, but that was off limits. They didn't want to wreck the Leaning Tower of Pisa. So the Germans knew that it was off-limits, too, so they weren't afraid of doing anything around the town there. I used to see 'em driving their jeeps and stuff, walking around down there and so on, but couldn't do anything.

TI: Now, I'm curious, this kind of off-limits area like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, you mentioned the Vatican in Rome, was that also followed by the Germans, too? That they wouldn't destroy these sort of, these historical treasures?

VW: Yeah, it was pretty much so, yeah. And they respected that pretty well. It's funny... during the war, quite often, sometimes there's be some kind of a lull, a peace, for the medics to move in and move the wounded out, bring the wounded out. And so once in a while, though, there was some SS or something, they might kill the medic, which they weren't supposed to do in war. But sometimes they would. And then that'd really make us angry. And, in fact, one, we were moving a GI out, one of our, some of our guys on the stretcher, and some sniper killed him on the stretcher. That made them so angry that they put the, they knew the guy was gone, and so they, they formed a bonanza, a banzai, and they rushed, they rushed the Germans right there. And the Germans saw 'em coming, and it was near, getting near dark, and so some of the Germans ran; they just left. And then the others were, some of the others were captured because they were so afraid of the 442nd. Some of the guys who were captured, we talked to them, and they said -- oh, that was another thing. They wanted to see the automatic artillery, but we never had any automatic artillery then at all. [Laughs] But they wanted to see the automatic artillery, and we laughed at 'em and we said, "We don't have any automatic artillery." But we were so fast, it sounded like, sounded like... we were jamming those shells in fast, and they were going out, and it sounded like automatic artillery.

TI: Oh, that's funny. So not only were you accurate in, in finding things, but the teams on the guns were very fast and efficient.

VW: Oh, very much so, yeah. Fast. And our, our calculations were fast, too, so that made a difference, too.

TI: Well, in fact, I read someplace that in some cases, your calculations were so fast that they sent sort of like inspectors saying, "You must not be following official, sort of, specifications or steps because you're doing too fast." Do you recall anything like that?

VW: I do remember them talking to some of the officers about it, yeah. But I didn't hear the conversation, no, myself. But yes... and also, some inspector came... I don't know whether he was inspector or whether he was high up in the artillery of another outfit. He says that his artillery were, were the best you know. But we went and saw the records, he had to walk away because he couldn't possibly match the 522nd artillery because of the record that we had. And I remember reading about that, in fact, too.

TI: Well, because of that, did the army ever send more people just to learn from the 522 in terms of their technique?

VW: I don't, I don't recall that, no. No. Not in war, it's pretty hard to do that.

TI: Now, how much contact did you and other people in the 522 have with the infantry, the 442 guys, the guys fighting?

VW: Well, sometimes in a rest area, we would, I'd go over and talk to some of the guys and so on. And some of our 442nd guys had volunteered earlier and went, and joined the 100th when they were the only ones in Europe at the time. And his name was Nishimura, and, but he was later killed, shot in the head. I often think about that, but that's the way it is sometimes. 'Cause war is, war is pretty cruel. But if you talk with the Bruyeres people in France, those French people, I have a real story to tell you about that.

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.