<Begin Segment 3>

gky: When you all invaded Palau in September of '44, what was that like?

DO: Well, it's actually hard to say, you know, because when we left Bougainville and Guadalcanal, I mean, and then on the way we had -- I don't know, actually, maybe twenty days left to travel. And the exact word, the Japanese submarines and whatnot, and every -- one thing I like about our military, we had chaplain aboard where we go and we have services on the boat. And one thing, my impression, never forget is during the time we were on the way, not too many would go up on the deck for services. The day when the captain of the ship said, "Tomorrow, boys, tomorrow's D-Day and Godspeed." And so when we get a service, practically everybody was on the deck, polishing the guns, whatever it is, waiting for the next morning. And up on the deck early in the morning, and I saw, my vision, I saw on the horizon, I saw hundreds of ships line up. And as I see over the horizon, you can see the islands that we're going to invade, and the first grass I saw was nice and green, [inaudible] and everything and we saw the Air Force started to bombard that place. We really saw the Air Force to get through bombarding it, next thing, I ship on the islands. Then the first wave start going in. And the first, and the second, and by the time I went in on the third wave, by the time I started going in with marines on the third wave, I saw already some of the boys are wounded coming back to the ship. And what a tragedy, I thought, battle like this, especially with top fitted, double A physical young boys, and you see them already wounded, and I saw some of them on the beach.

gky: When you saw those first bodies pass by you, or you passed by them, how did you feel?

DO: Oh, feels very lousy to be -- I feel so sorry that all these young boys have to be injured like that.

gky: And, I guess kind of another thing is, this is your first battle.

DO: Yeah, and so when I saw those boys, sure I want to take revenge for them, you know, get after those enemy.

gky: Did you have escorts here?

DO: No. Oh, on the island? Yes. Because, I was only, at that particular group, I was the only language specialist, so wherever I go, I was escorted by maybe two, three marines, because I was more afraid of the marines than the enemy, because I being a Japanese, and Marine people as a whole are trigger happy. Anything that they see moving, they shoot and before they say stop.

gky: Was that scary?

DO: Yes. So, one time I went around to look for souvenir and I got a scolding from the commanding officer. [Laughs]

gky: Because you didn't have an escort?

DO: At that time, I just went on my own.

gky: Gee, didn't it scare you?

DO: Oh, yeah. Well, I thought I was already secure, quiet.

gky: You know, someone like me will never be in war. Can you describe it a little bit to me so I can understand it?

DO: Well, it's the first experience to be in the war, so I just have to change my mind, get my mind that I got a job to do for the country. And actually, I had no idea whether I was going to come home or not, so I'm one of them. So, it's all your mental attitude, at that time. The situation there, that's all you had to accept your condition and do the best in the situation.

gky: Did you expect to be in battle?

DO: Well, I expected that, but not actually hand to hand because we were more in the intelligence and they wanted, we get vital information for the units so we can save a lot of American lives. And that's what we did, and I'm very proud of that. Because of our vital information that we extracted from a lot of the prisoners, and the information from the translations that we did, that our military had much more easy to set up the operation because of the intelligence information.

gky: So you feel that what you were doing was pivotal in the war?

DO: Well, in fact it was very, very vital, so I honestly feel that we really did a very good, loyal duty to the country by translating. And it's very important that we translated correctly, too. Past tense and future tense, that's all very important. And because of that, our boys' lives were saved on many battles because they can set up the command post, and set up the prime operation.

gky: When you were at sea, or when -- after you had invaded this island and come back, some of the sailors were, Japanese sailors were buried at sea, and the American military gave them full military...

DO: Yes. This one experience I had is before I really got on shore, we had one Japanese sailor brought back that was wounded by our boys. And I stood by him while he was being treated, and I saw his low part of his abdomen, that machine gun bullet hole right through on the lower part of the stomach. And, you know, I saw our own boys give blood to this prisoner, try to revive him. American blood is going to through this -- we tried to save his life because we wanted to get some information from him. But eventually he passed away, and then we gave a royal military service on the ship. And I was very, very proud to be an American and saw the way we do things.

gky: When you all went to invade to Palau, what was that like? Just describe the island to me.

DO: Well, actually, it was nice and clear. To be honest, I was kind of scared, too, because we're just on the beachhead. And as we reach the beach, we had to... Toni Sunomoto, which is the buddy that I was with, he and I dug our own foxhole and slept on the beach for a couple of nights. I was kind of scared because seemed like the enemy's rifle sound from a distance away.

gky: Palau is one of the Solomon Islands, correct?

DO: I beg your pardon?

gky: Is Palau one of the Solomon Islands?

DO: Solomon Islands? No, I don't think so. I don't know.

gky: No? Okay. Did you do any cave flushing on Palau?

DO: Yes. I ran into one of the Marines, and we went from cave to cave, flush those -- because the Japanese, they don't come out easily. And one of them came out and I saw the skin all peeled off because of the flame, and he was taken back to our medics.

gky: Gee, that sounds kind of gross.

DO: Oh, yeah. Because all the body, on the arms, all the skin was already -- just like a chicken curry. It's a surprise he still survived.

gky: Do you remember what it smelled like?

DO: Well, actually, at that time you don't... it's not dead so you don't smell it, but I smell a lot of dead bodies, yes. You can smell at a distance. When the wind blows, you get all the smell coming. Because it's hot, too, so he rots fast, too.

gky: Did you see any -- did you all flush civilians out of caves as well?

DO: No, I have not seen no civilians.

gky: So, civilians weren't involved in...

DO: Not in those islands, yeah. There's no civilians on those islands; it's only military.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright &copy; 2001 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.