Densho Digital Repository
Katsugo Miho Collection
Title: Katsugo Miho Interview VI
Narrator: Katsugo Miho
Interviewers: Michiko Kodama Nishimoto (primary), Warren Nishimoto (secondary)
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Date: March 10, 2006
Densho ID: ddr-densho-1022-6-3

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MN: And then what did you folks do with the schnapps?

KM: Oh, beer was, from the PX we had, once a week, if possible, we would receive our ration of PX material, which included candies and the number one item was a beer that we all enjoyed. But as I said, in France, we had green cognac, and in Germany we were exposed to schnapps. And schnapps is, I guess schnapps, vodka, they're all in the same line of liquor, almost straight hundred percent alcohol. I remember one incident that just about towards the end of the war, when things were rather relaxed, and we had some days of complete relaxation, and at one point we were told that we could completely relax and take it easy for one day or so, and so we all decided that we would help ourselves to the schnapps that we had on the truck. And I tried to... in those days, I wasn't that much of a drinker other than beer, and these schnapps and whatnot, not something we were accustomed to. So there was some orange juice, I remember, and so I mixed the orange juice and the schnapps. And somehow I remember that in France, there's a couple, elderly couple that invited once over, had put some sugar in to the jigger of vodka or cognac. And then I thought, well, I'll put sugar into this mixture of orange juice and schnapps. And for the rest of twenty hours, probably, I got sick. And I don't know how my gun crew members felt, but all night long, I was heaving and making all kinds of noise, and that was a very sad lesson that I learned, not to mix sugar in with any kind of drinks. But we all had our boys who were, none of our boys were bad drinking boys. They had, they were well under control even though they helped themselves to liquor.

WN: Now, was drinking done, most of the drinking done only during breaks?

KM: Breaks.

WN: Was there any problem with guys drinking out in the field?

KM: Not in our, not in my gun crew or our battery. The artillery boys were not as wild as the infantry boys, so to speak, and you don't blame them. Infantry boys go through hell. And we did not go through hell like the infantry boys did. So for most of us, it was controlled, and there was, throughout the campaign.

WN: And where there are regulations stating that liquor is not allowed?

KM: Not when you're on duty. Not when you're... there was absolutely no drinking, other than in your so-called free time that we had. The officers were very good about that. No rest period... you had rest period when we were off the line, we were off from action, for one or two days we were, as we said earlier, take a bath and change of clothing. This happened every so often.

WN: During those breaks, was drinking allowed?

KM: Yeah. So could someone conceivably carry a bottle of schnapps in their backpack and wait for a break and then drink?

WN: No, no, the breaks we're talking about were one-day breaks or two-day breaks when we were completely off the line. We were not on a standby basis, we were not in a position to fire our guns or guns at that point, they were already covered up and everything.

MN: But you also mentioned that you folks would get cigarettes, and then you folks also found some cigars.

KM: In this warehouse was, I don't know where the cigars came from, but there were a whole bunch of cigars. And a lot of us tried cigar smoking, but cigar smoking, you got to get used to it. And so just to temporarily get into smoking, you don't do that with cigars. For playtime, we indulge in cigar smoking, but not really, it wasn't available all the time. So the PX we only had cigarettes.

MN: Did you get into cigarette smoking during the war?

KM: I did because cigarette, we went overseas, it was all free. And there was a ration for every... every person was entitled to X number of beer cans and cigarettes. The basic supplies. And so non-smokers would bargain away their cigarettes or use them as a bargaining, bartering material. But drinking was the same thing. People who didn't drink made the best use of their ration.

WN: What percentage would you say of your battery, let's say, smoked cigarettes?

KM: I'd guess there were just a handful of the boys who did not smoke. I smoked because it was available, and it was something that you did to pass the time away. Even after discharge, I smoked for a while while going to college. Until I found that it was such a nuisance to, when you had to do your own laundry. After discharge, you had your own laundry and then the cigarette in your shirt made it so difficult to clean your dress shirts that we used to wear. Those that didn't have aloha shirts as such, we had mostly dress shirts, and it was such a chore that I gave up smoking. Although later on I started to indulge in cigar smoking.

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