<Begin Segment 37>

TI: Okay, so we're going to get started again. Today is, you know, our second day of the interview, and today is Saturday, May 22nd, and we're back at the Densho studio, and Dana is still on camera. [Coughs] Excuse me. Where we ended up yesterday was we had just, we were talking about the rescue of the "Lost Battalion." And before we move on, you were a pilot. And I think I recalled in your memoirs about you seeing a German plane flying. Why don't we talk about that a little bit?

VW: Okay. Well, I was standing on kind of a hill, and most of our unit was under camouflage so that the air, air traffic wouldn't be able to spot us too easily. And I was standing there and pretty soon I heard a noise, and I looked to my right, and a Messerschmitt was flying by at about, well, it had to be doing at least two hundred miles an hour, and maybe even more than that. And I saw him, I looked at him, and he's so low I could see him right in the cockpit. And before I could get my rifle around, of course, I couldn't shoot at him, and he was already past me. And I was watching him, and, of course, being an acrobatic pilot, that interested me because he was, he was in around the forest and trees, and he was emptying his arsenal right at our guys, right out ahead of us. And then I knew that he wasn't going to stick around very long, 'cause artillery fire was going in there, machine guns were flying around. So I heard him jam the throttle ahead, and he, after he emptied his arsenal and he pulled back on that stick and hung that Messerschmitt right on the propeller, and he went right out for the clouds, which (were) about two hundred feet up, those stratus clouds. And it was raining a little bit, which was bad, too, for him, and a little bit of snow at times, different times. And he pierced right into those clouds and he was gone. So I thought, well, he knew what he was doing, he was a pretty good pilot. But it really infuriated me that he was firing on our guys, but that's the way things go sometimes in the war. And so there was nothing I could do about it, but I did admire his ability to fly. I questioned his judgment, being in that area, though.

TI: But, you know, when you saw that, did it remind you or did you have any regrets about your not being able to fly like that during the war?

VW: Well, it had been great, yeah, but that wasn't my job now. So I was with the 442nd, and that's where I had to be, and I was doing my job.

TI: Now, any other thoughts about the rescue of the "Lost Battalion"? We had pretty much described what had happened. Any other thoughts before we --

VW: Well, I thought it was rather interesting because when our guys broke through, it took us four days to break through. And Sergeant... I can't remember his name at the moment, but he was weaving his way through, and [inaudible] a little bit open, so, and talking to the guy later on, I didn't talk to him personally, but the, but the feedback came that he saw him, one of our guys, the sergeant, and he looked and he thought, "Wonder who that is." And then he noticed that it was American, but he thought he was awful small. And then he realized that it was the 442nd that was coming. And then according to a number of officials, the exchange of information there, the guy just, he was so happy to see the 442nd guy. And like our guys, they're always pretty humble, and so they were a little, he was a little embarrassed that he was so happy that he just asked him, he said, "Would you like a cigarette?" That's about all he said. So, but then come to find out we saved 211 and we lost to casualties over 800.

TI: Now, what was the mood of the unit after the rescue? I'm thinking it was a great achievement, and yet, as you say, the casualties were really high. How would you describe the mood after the...

VW: Well, the mood was, it was one of the jobs that we had to do, and so there wasn't too much, there wasn't too much discussion of it at all except that, as later on, the days flew by, we began to realize what had actually, really actually happened, and how it was instigated into the, to pierce into the enemy lines. And I know that some of the guys, some of the Germans that we captured, I know that some of 'em wanted to know where our automatic artillery was, which I may have mentioned earlier, I don't know.

<End Segment 37> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.