Densho Digital Archive - Howard H. Furumoto Interview (denshovh-fhoward-01-0009)

<Begin Segment 9>

HF: Well, we had started our trek on the Ledo Road to reopen the old Burma Road so that we would create a back door entrance into China. And just at that point in time, as we were anticipating our first confrontation with the enemy, we got word from headquarters that Calvin, my foxhole buddy and I, were to report to the Office of War Information in the rear echelon. And to our great disappointment, we had to obey orders, and we did go back to the Office of War Information where we performed our duties for a period of about a month, producing so-called "white propaganda" for the Office of War Information. But then, by that time, the Nisei soldiers had proven themselves on front line combat, and they were in urgent need of our services again, so we were flown into the combat zone, Calvin and I were flown in by one of these small aircrafts. That's right, I can't recall the designation right now, but anyway, they flew us in one by one as a matter of fact, because the plane could not handle two passengers, just the pilot and the interpreter, and we went down in sequence.

Then we were introduced to our former troops again, and just about that time they were about to push on into Myitkyina, the final objective of the Merrill's Marauders North Burma campaign. But before we could reach our final objective, there were a number of obstacles that we had to overcome, among which were enemies behind the line, and of course the tremendous mountain terrain that we had to pass, not to mention the numerous diseases, including dysentery, there was amoebic dysentery, malaria, and then disease unknown to the American troops known as scrub typhus. We were, our battalion in particular, C Battalion, was to pay a very heavy price to scrub typhus, more than we had sustained in actual combat. Because at that time, there was no antibiotic to counteract the effects of scrub typhus.

[Interruption]

HF: Right now, the blood bank of Honolulu will not accept my blood. And the reason for this is that I had sustained repeated attacks of malaria, and even to this day, with that type of history, the blood bank refuses to use my blood.

LD: What are all the other kinds of diseases you guys had out there?

HF: Personally, I sustained, of course, attacks of amoebic dysentery because the drinking water was polluted with these organisms. And when one is thirsty, even in spite of the use of halogen, we did not allow sufficient time for the chemical to react with the water, so the organisms were not killed and we came down with amoebic dysentery.