<Begin Segment 29>

TI: Now, each time you went out, I mean, there was a good chance that you'd be wounded or even killed.

FM: Oh, yeah.

TI: And did that, again, it just didn't seem fair. You'd go out there and fight, and risk your lives, and then you'd have to come back and be put back into the stockade.

FM: Yeah.

TI: At some point, Hayashi, I believe, was killed, wasn't he?

FM: Yeah.

TI: Was this during this last battle of the Gothic line?

FM: The last battle, yeah.

TI: Now when you went back to the stockade and Hayashi had been killed, what did you and Kash talk about? I mean...

FM: Well, we felt really bad. At the time that Hayashi got killed, Kubota sent me down. He says, "Go down and take couple of days off." So I walked down the trail, I went down to where they had the headquarters, whatever. So took a shower, changed. And I was having dinner, I think. And Kash come walking down, "Hey, what you doing down here?" "Oh, Kubota told me to get back. Get some rest." So he and I had dinner, we talked and things like that. And then, before you know it, we heard that Hayashi got killed. So Kash, "What? Hayashi got killed?" So he rushed up again, up to the -- he says, "I'm going to look for him." They said that they couldn't find him. They couldn't find the body. So Kash ran up, went back to the battlefield. And he tried to go find Hayashi, but he couldn't find him. They found him a couple of days later. They took his shoes, and his clothes.

TI: That must have been very difficult for, especially the two of you.

FM: Oh, yeah.

TI: Because you had spent so much time with him.

FM: Uh-huh. It was really tough. I think he's the only guy we lost in our first squad, got killed. Hayashi's the only one, I think.

TI: And it seems so, and to me it seems so sad, too, that he had to, again, be in the stockade under this cloud, and then have to go fight and do that.

FM: Yeah. So the charges against him were dropped, I think, because since he's dead, you know... were dropped.

TI: Did you or Kash ever talk to Hayashi's family about -- did they ever come to you and ask what happened, or were they curious?

FM: No, but Hayashi's sister is married to one of the I Company guys. I talked to her, yeah.

TI: So they found out.

FM: Uh-huh.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.