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AL: Did many Nisei get captured as POWs, and conversely, did you take many German POWs? What was the POW situation?

AN: You know, talk about POW, I have a very interesting story to tell you. As far as I'm concerned, we had no POWs except one, and that happened to be my man, my own personal man. And that was not because he was with the 442nd. This young man, his eyes was bad. In fact, he shouldn't be in the army at all. His glasses were like Coke bottles. But he was with me, and one day he broke his glasses and had to go back to the battalion to get new glasses. Well, when the doctor examined him, he said, "You got no business in the army."

AL: This is a Nisei guy?

AN: Yeah, Bob Ito, Robert Ito. I think I got it in the book there. And so he went back, I never heard from him, and I forgot about him. I said oh well, he'll probably come back. But then I didn't see him until we had a reunion in Hawaii after the war. And I saw him, I said, "Bobby, what happened to you?" He said, "Well, when I went back, they wouldn't send me back to your, to the outfit." I said, "Why?" "Because of my eyes." "So what did they do?" "Well, they sent me to another unit way up north in Europe." "And what happened?" He said, "Well, when I went up there, the whole unit got captured by the Germans and I was a POW." [Laughs] I said, "I'll be doggoned."

AL: So you don't know of other Nisei POWs?

AN: No, he's the only one that I know. In fact, he may be the only one. [Laughs]

AL: Do you know if he's still living?

AN: Oh, yeah, he's still living. As a matter of fact, he came out in the, when they had the Congressional Gold Medal, came out in the Washington Post, it was on the front page as one of the recipients.

AL: It would be interesting to talk to him, for sure.

AN: Yeah, he's in Hawaii.

AL: Oh, well, that would be even more interesting. [Laughs] So I know the 522nd, I mean, I've heard that the 442nd was often credited with liberating one of the Dachau camps. It was the 522nd, is that right?

AN: Yeah, that's a field artillery outfit, yeah.

AL: But it was part of the 442nd?

AN: Yeah, that's part of the regiment.

AL: Could you tell us that story? What have you heard about that? What do you know about it?

AN: Well, as far as I know they were detached from the 442nd and went up north to fight with, to support another unit, an American unit. And that's where they ran into the POW camp. So they had a unique experience there. Of course, at that time, I didn't know that they were gone from the unit until afterwards. And I had a friend in there, and after the war, I got together with him and I said, "Tell me what happened." He gave me a rundown on what happened, and that's what I put in the book for you, the little I did.

AL: Could you tell us just a little bit about it on the camera?

AN: No, I really don't know too much about it except what I wrote in the book. All I know is that they were transferred to support there, and they had, they were in combat over there. And supporting it, too, because artillery. And I guess they won, they overtook the enemy, and they also were the first to hit one of the POW camps there, the German. And that's why the 442nd, the first time the Japanese Americans saw what was going on in those camps. So they got nice, lot of stories to tell about that, and how they were starved, what they went through in terms of watch them. And so they had a firsthand view going through, going through the different stalag over there.

AL: When did you first hear about the camps in Germany in Poland, the German death camps? Did you know about that at all during the war, that they existed?

AN: Yeah, I knew a little bit, not too much. But anyway, I knew a little about it. And what little I knew about it was the way the Germans were murdering the Jews, Jewish people, how they were shot and how they were burning them. And, of course, after the war, I went in to see the places, Holocaust. Awful, awful. I can't believe that the human race could go through such a thing as that. But anyway...

AL: Did you go see those camps right after the war, or you're talking about years later?

AN: No, just after the war. After the war we had a tour by ourselves. We had a reunion by ourselves, we had a tour, we went to the same, back to the same place where we fought during World War II, just to see all the... especially all the American cemeteries where our buddies were still buried there. And one of the places we went to was the German camp, stalag, where they were, that's where the ovens were there, burned and all that.

AL: Do you know which camp it was?

AN: Yes. I forgot the name of that number, but...

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.