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TI: Okay, so Virgil, I'm going to now kind of jump ahead a little bit, because at some point, there was a decision to break off or split the 522 from the 442. Can you describe why that was, that was done?

VW: Sure. Well, General Mark Clark, who was the head of the army in Italy, and of course over the 34th Division which was an Iowa division, he wanted it back when he gave us over to France to help them get rid of the Germans in the Vosges mountains, he says, "I want 'em back now." And Patch didn't want to let us go because he needed us and he wanted to keep us when we went into Germany, too, to infiltrate the Siegfried Line, and Mark Clark and General Patch, according to Lyn Crost's report, they had quite a discussion about that. And the reports say that it almost went all the way up to Eisenhower almost. But I think General Devers, who was right underneath Eisenhower, made the decision that, that Patch would be able to keep the artillery part of the 442nd, and they let Mark Clark have the infantry back. And so therefore we were split. And some of the guys in the 442nd, the infantry didn't like that very well, 'cause they really liked our artillery backing them up, but that's the way it went. So we're the ones that went into Germany, and we were the only ones from the artillery that went into Germany.

<End Segment 38> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.