<Begin Segment 18>

TI: When you got back -- at this point, what was your position in the squad? Were you a squad leader or...?

FM: Assistant squad leader. Kubota was the squad leader. I was the assistant squad leader.

TI: And so when you got back, how, how were the men doing after their first taste of battle?

FM: Yeah. As soon as we come back, the squad leader always check on the men, see how they doing. So I check on some of the men, Kubota check on the rest of the guys. And everybody's fine, so...

TI: Okay. I think Kubota also mentioned that later on, when you went around the hill, he mentioned how, I guess the 100th sort of did a flanking motion around the hill and knocked out some of the Germans. Do you recall that, too?

FM: Oh, yeah.

TI: What was that like? What did you see?

FM: Oh, we saw bodies lying all over the place, bodies burning. Oh, it was really... the meat, you know, you could, bodies burning, the meat, you could smell all that. Yeah, we look at that, and oh, we felt sort of sick.

TI: But to Kubota that was a sign of how good the 100th was, too, the fact that they can go around and surprise them, and take out this group of Germans. Were you thinking the same thing about the 100th and how good they were?

FM: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Right, yeah. They're experienced fighters, and they know what they doing. We, first time we're out there, they told us to take that hill, so we charge up that hill like cowboys and Indians, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Bullets flying all over (your head). [Laughs]

TI: How did the men react when one of the guys in the company either got wounded really badly or was killed? How did you guys feel?

FM: Oh, yeah. Really felt bad. But this is war, so you can't help it.

TI: Was there anything that you guys did to sort of cope, help each other out, when something like that happened? Did you guys talk about it, or how did you handle that?

FM: Well, yeah... I guess we talk about it. Say that so and so got hit, and so, where he got hit, and all that.

TI: Periodically, you guys would get rest times or would go on leave. What was that like when you guys were able to go on a leave after this intense period of fighting? How would you guys just sort of relax?

FM: Well, while we're fighting and we pull back, we stay in the area. We don't go out to town or anything like that. You just stay in the rest area, take a shower and change our clothes. And within a few days we back on the line again, see. So it's not like we're going to a restaurant, or nightclub, or anything like that.

TI: Okay. So as you went through Italy, is there anything else that you can remember about the first campaign in Italy that was interesting, or anything that stood out in terms of a battle or a memory?

FM: Well, in some occasions, we would hike. As soon as it get dark, we would start marching. We march all night long, in the dark. You can hardly see the guy in front of you, and then, every so often we rest. And everything's so quiet at night now. So we would rest, sit down. Every now and then somebody would drop something, and you can hear that thing miles away, "Gatatatata!" Making all kinds of noise. And then just before dawn we would reach our destination, and we would attack. And the scary part is when they tell you, "Fix bayonet." You know, when they say, "Fix bayonet," that means hand-to-hand combat now. That was scary to me. But I'm glad we didn't have any hand-to-hand combat with the Germans, because they're big guys. And hand-to-hand combat, I don't think we had a chance with them, so I'd rather pull the trigger.

TI: But you would march all night, and then at dawn you would surprise the enemy?

FM: Yeah, we would attack at dawn.

TI: Because they wouldn't expect you to be so far, or be there, because you had marched all night?

FM: Yeah, right. We would get 'em by surprise, and we usually take the town, or whatever destination that we are supposed to do.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.