Densho Digital Archive - Jiro Sugidono Interview (denshovh-sjiro-01-0023)

<Begin Segment 23>

TI: So when you joined, which group did you join? Which company...

JS: (...) When I was in Camp Shelby, I was in the weapon platoon. They were teaching me how to shoot a machine gun, mortar shell, mortars. But when you went over there, I still was in the weapon, I was a machine gunner. But just before we went to that last push, they pushed me into headquarter. And that's, that's right after the last push, I was in the headquarter, and me and this Frank Takahashi was in headquarter, and Shig Kizuka was in the second platoon. They were the first one on top of the hill, and like he said before, if they didn't catch 'em when they were sleeping, you wouldn't have been here, 'cause the machine gun was right there. And we came from the back, see, I don't know, maybe I was lucky anyway.

TI: And so you're talking about when, when they went up that mountain and broke the Gothic Line, you're talking about that battle. But at headquarters, what was your role? What kind of things did you do?

JS: Well, actually, I was supposed to be a jeep driver. And that's why... I'm supposed to, I sleep in the front part of the whatchacallit, the barrack, and that's where they have the, every morning, I guess it was about five or six o'clock in the morning, they have roll call. And that's where everybody's supposed to go and roll call, but I don't know why, but even right now, I can't, I have a hard time getting up. Somehow, the captain looked into my tent and I was sleeping there, "Take that name" [Laughs] And that whole week I was pulling guard on that compound.

TI: Oh, so because you overslept, you had to pull extra guard duty.

JS: (Yes), 'cause I didn't make the roll call. Every morning they do that. There was a friend of mine, he passed away, Mas Okumura, he's an original, too. He was in L Company. (Yes), he used to laugh like heck every time he sees me pulling guard.