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PW: I definitely want to ask you more further in about reunions, but let's go back to, let's see, I guess it's 1944 now, and we're in France. And you've just returned back to the unit. What happens, what campaigns follow after that?

LS: You mean in 1945 when I went back to Italy?

PW: Yes, I'm sorry, it was 1945.

LS: Okay. So the 442nd was taken off for rest in southern France, and we get all these replacements, and so now we've got 250 men in every company. I Company had only eight men left when they finished with the rescue of the "Lost Battalion." So in April 1945, General Clark wanted the 442nd to come back to Italy. And the reason is, for almost six months, the 5th Army had been attacking what they called the Gothic Line. This is near Massa Carrara where the marble comes from, the Italian marble. The mountains are up like this. The Gothic Line is like six of these mountains anchored by Mount Folgorito, and each one is cross fired with machine guns. Well, the 92nd was actually a black or "colored" in those days, "colored boys," trained to attack Mount Folgorito. And no trees there, it's pretty much a bare mountain, but it's four thousand feet up and it goes pretty steep. Every day, this is what happened. General Clark didn't want the Germans to know the 442nd was there, and we did all the traveling at night. We came in by boat, traveled by truck at night, it's hidden in the daytime. And when we got close to the Gothic Line, we marched at night. And the mountains are up here, there's a valley here, a little stream here, and on the opposite hillside, there's a village called Azzano. So we infiltrated into that village, scattered all through the village. Daytime, with our binoculars, we could watch the Americans get shot down, just trying to make headway and get shot. And then about two days later, we were told, this is our plan. At the dark of night, we're going to move out of Azzano, start climbing Mount Folgorito, and we have to be very quiet, and it was very steep, so we can't carry much weight, strip off any unnecessary items, your backpack. All you carry is your weapon, enough ammunition, one canteen of water, and some food if you want to in your pockets. Well, dark of night, it's pitch dark. Somehow, Colonel Miller, who was then the commanding officer, had found a fourteen-year-old Italian boy that had, there were goat trails around those hills, and he knew where everyone was. And I guess he volunteered to help lead our group. And the 3rd Battalion, I'm in the 2nd Battalion, the 3rd Battalion was the lead battalion. Well, Guido Gozzani, the kid, leads L Company up at night, and they're pushing from behind, they're pulling, trying to be as quiet as they can, because any noise, you don't want the Germans to hear. Finally, Shig Kizuka from Watsonville, was the third L Company soldier, and he told me afterwards, we huffed and puffed, kept quiet, and we could see where we were. This outcropping, and you could see the barrel of two machine guns. And so we got as close as we could under, and he kept bringing everybody up, huddled real close, and waited for daybreak. And said when the sergeant gave the signal to go up, they moved up around. Up on top, there were two Germans, sound asleep, and they went, tut-tut-tut, and they went up on top and started shooting and the boys come out. And the Germans -- it was daybreak -- the Germans were just getting up, going to eat breakfast, disorganized. And, of course, they had trucks at the top. It was kind of like this, and then flat, there was a road that went all the way to the beach. They got their trucks and so forth, they started loading up and moving out. Eric Saul is a military historian, and he's told the story in Seattle, he's told it all over. And he said the 442nd didn't take six weeks, didn't take six days, the 442nd conquered the Gothic Line in thirty-two minutes. And that was, it's just an amazing story. And I've been back there twice to tour northern Italy, and I look at that mountain, and I don't know, even in broad daylight, I don't think I could climb it. It's just unbelievable. It has to be the greatest thing that the 442nd did. We didn't lose many men, but from there, we had to chase the Germans. It's all marble and shale, and you can't dig, you can't hide, out in the open. As for Dan Inouye, he was also E Company, that's where he got shattered.

But eventually, they pushed the Germans across the hills over to the coast. That's where Massa Carrara, and then the highway going north. So the Germans went up to Genoa, and I'm not sure how far it is, not very far, and then made a right turn in the Po Valley. And there's a small airport, Gheddhi Airport, at a little place called Brescia, and they just stopped and surrendered. And I'm going to say maybe two or three thousand well-armed Germans, and maybe three hundred of our Americans, dog tired, but they surrendered. Laid all their weapons down in order, and they're real ordered, you know, Germans were very orderly. They obeyed their orders. And then I think they took over like a school, a large compound. They did their own guard duty, we didn't guard them, they guarded themselves. We were just dog tired, we were worn out. And to us, Germans surrendered, the war was over, just collapsed.

[Interruption]

PW: I'm sorry, so, and this is probably maybe summer by now, summer of 1945?

LS: No, it's still April, it's still kind of like springtime. The weather is still cold at night.

PW: Were you meeting civilians along the way through all these villages and places?

LS: Massa and Carrara were the nearest cities, and the Germans in the four or five year occupation had been very brutal. For any reason, they would go to a house, the young people were gone, they would haul out a man if he were there, an old man, and bring his family out and then shoot him dead right in front of them. Any young men, they kidnapped, take them to work in prison camps and so forth, and they would search the houses. They stripped any weapons they could find, so the Italian men are mostly old people or very young kids. And they had no weapons, so somehow, Colonel Miller, they approached Colonel Miller. And when the 442nd got to Massa, they asked, "Can we get some guns or weapons? We'd like to chase the Germans, too. We know that you could use our help." So I don't know how many, but he did give a number of Italians our M-1 rifle and ammunition, and they participated in one hill where they were chasing the Germans. And it's a historic hill, and I can't remember the name, it's a little village of maybe one or two hundred people on a rolling hill. And this huge, 25-foot marble statue stands there with a cutout, and that cutout is the shape of a human being, and it sits to the side. So if you come to that location and you look through that cutout, that's the hillside where the Italians slaughtered all the Germans that were trying to flee. And they gave me a replica, it's about this big, of that whole thing, and it's just amazing. But from there, of course, the Italians, if you ever go to Massa, they have a museum. They call it the atrocities of... whatever, and I think it's kind of like, you have to have a special permission to go into it, because there were so many pictures and memorabilia of atrocities of the Germans. I guess they don't want to open it to just anybody.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.