<Begin Segment 11>
BN: I wanted to move on next to, towards the end of the war, or the end of the war in Europe. I guess you were in, you next went to, next to Massa?
GK: Oh, after Folgorito we went to Massa. And the next town was Massa and Carrara. Carrara is a very famous name where they mined marble. You heard of Carrara marble? That's where it came from.
BN: Then you described encountering an enemy soldier that possibly both of you thought initially was friendly, and neither of you ended up shooting, near [inaudible]. Do you recall that?
GK: I don't remember. But I remember this one. After Folgorito, the Germans started to withdraw, and like I said, 2nd Battalion went down and turned right, and they chased the Germans. And that's when Senator Inouye was in 2nd Battalion, one of the companies, and he earned his medal in that, pursuing the Germans. That was after I (took) Folgorito.
BN: You wrote also that that's where you learned of the death of President Roosevelt.
GK: Yeah. And funny kind... well, he wasn't close to us, but when we heard that he died, something hit us, like we didn't have a leader. Funny kind. I don't know why, but... but you know that incident there, after Folgorito we chased the Germans up north. And while we were on the mountainside, and then somebody else was shooting the Germans on the coastal line. Well, on the mountainside, we hit a streetcar going down the mountain to... I don't know whether it's Genoa or La Spezia. I think it's Genoa. So we rode the streetcar and liberated the town. I think it was Genoa.
BN: What do you remember about V-E Day?
GK: V-E Day? I don't know. I don't know the exact... what date was that?
BN: Oh, I should have brought that. It was in May, but I don't know the exact date. 15th?
GK: Because Folgorito was April 5th, so May, I don't...
BN: May 8th...
GK: We were chasing the Germans out. And I think it was right before they surrendered. That's when we processed them way up north, Lake Como, something like that.
BN: But the interesting thing is that we were guarding the prisoner of war camp, and April, because the cherries ripened about that time. So all the farmers around there brought the cherries to sell to the Germans, so we were guarding the Germans. I said, "You cannot do that." You could not sell to the prisoners. So what we did was we bought the cherries from the farmers, turned right around, sell it to the Germans, that's how we made money. But they had a lot of money because in one incident, when they were processing the German army, M Company boys ran across a box full of money, liras, and they took that. Well, the headquarters found out that somebody took the box full of money, so they said, "Okay, inspection. Everybody, inspection," they're trying to find the money. Well, we were L Company, right next to M Company, and M Company boys took the money. And then when they heard that we were going to have inspection, they hid the money. Know where they hid it? You know the open air toilet they dig? They put it in there. So the boys had a field day. They went and bought motorcycle and everything, they were riding around, but they were M Company. [Laughs]
BN: So you didn't see any of that.
GK: Oh, no.
<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.