<Begin Segment 16>

TI: But now that you're in Italy, how long was it before you saw your first action?

FM: Oh, I don't know. About, I don't really know. Maybe about a month, 'cause you have to travel from area to area. Every place you go, you spend a day here, or a day there. And they went to assembly area, a villa outside of Rome, I think, a city, a place called Civitavecchia.

TI: At this point, I believe the 442 met up with the 100th?

FM: Yeah.

TI: And so describe those first few days of fighting. What was that like?

FM: Yeah. Anyway, the 100th were already in that area when we arrived there. So first thing I looked was, I had some friends in the 100th, Molokai people. So I went around asking, "Where is Company C?" Say, "Oh, Company C out there." So I look around, and I found this person, Molokai person out there. So we talked about the war. I say, "Hey, what's it's like out there?" He says, "Oh," he says, "it's pretty rough out there. So just be careful."

TI: Did he give you any hints or any suggestions? Can you remember anything he told you to...?

FM: No, no. Nothing like that.

TI: Did he seem different when you -- you knew him back in Molokai growing up, and then, now that you saw him after he had been in the 100th and had seen fighting -- did he seem different to you?

FM: No, not really. He seemed like the same person, yeah.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.