Densho Digital Archive - Sadaichi Kubota Interview (denshovh-ksadaichi-01-0021)

<Begin Segment 21>

TI: Tell me about those first few days of fighting when you first got there.

SK: Oh boy, I tell you. We were being trucked to the front and along the roadside, I saw a couple, three dead Germans and my stomach kind of turned. First time I'm seeing a dead person like that. So I guess the others felt the same thing. Well, this is war. Kill or get killed. So we went... gee, I forgot what the place was. It was a small village and (...) we were the leading element, and from our, from our platoon, we were the first squad. The second squad was sent first and we were held back, and before going about hundred yards, we were fired upon, and we were pinned down, of course. And one of our guys in the second (squad) never even had a chance to fire his automatic rifle. He was killed right there and then. He was a good ballplayer here, in the islands. Then we were told to relieve these guys so we went this way, climbed up the hill, small hill, and at that time we were being fired upon, but we fired back, of course. Then in the meantime, because of this pressure on (the enemy), (the second squad was) able to withdraw so when (...) this squad withdrew, we were told to withdraw ourselves. And at that time, 'cause we were being fired on as we went back, one by one we would go back. One withdraws, the others will be firing so that he will be safe coming back. And this one, Fred Matsumura, he was my second-in-command. I heard him swearing up and down. "What the heck happened, Fred?" He said, "Look at my bullet." In a Garand rifle we have a clip with (...) ten rounds like that. This bullet, it's kept over here. This bullet went right between the two rows of clip ammunition, and if it were closer, it would have, it would have ripped open his belly.

TI: Because if the bullet hit the other bullets, it would just have exploded?

SK: No, no. It didn't explode. It didn't explode because it didn't hit the primer. It didn't hit the primer, you see, so it just passed through the two rows of bullets.

TI: Okay.

SK: He showed me (the clip), said, "Oh, my goodness. You got good life, being saved like that,"(I told him). Thereafter, we were ordered to move forward along the roadside.