<Begin Segment 22>

AL: What was... well, one question, just back during wartime, could you describe a little bit the civilian impacts? As these battles are raging, what was happening to the civilians?

AN: Well, I don't know too much about... well, the two main countries, of course, Italy and France. The Italian people, of course, were going to, like any other country at war, hardly any food, and trying to make [inaudible] with things that they had. Like, for instance, now, one day we had a whole pot full of mush or something, and we gave it to them and they warmed it up. And one day I was invited to this one family to eat spaghetti. Well, that wasn't a big fancy meal, but it was just spaghetti and a very light sauce, but they didn't have the real ingredients. But I enjoyed their cornbread called polenta, and they baked their own cornbread, that was delicious, a huge round thing like that, that high, and you cut it with a string. But that was Italy. So they were going through some difficult times like any other country would during a war. In France, it was the same thing. We noticed they lacked all the good food that they used to do. War, every country during the war is about the same, I think. Even here in the United States. We didn't have everything what we wanted.

AL: What do you think would have happened if the Axis has prevailed?

AN: If the what?

AL: If the Axis had prevailed, if Germany and Japan and Italy had won -- of course, Italy dropped out, but if they had won the war, what do you think?

AN: If they won the war? Well, it'd be a sad day for all of us, I think. It'd be a sad day. I think we won't stand for it. I don't think the United States ever even think about giving up. I think our country was determined to win and that's it, no two other ways.

AL: So was there ever any doubt in your mind that the United States would win?

AN: Oh, yeah. There was no doubt in my mind that we were gonna win no matter what. But what was saw, and what we did to them, we know their strength was depleted, or was depleted real fast. And so as far as I'm concerned, these United States, as far as I'm concerned, is God's country. After all, my knowledge of this country that we live in was established by the Lord Himself, if you go back. We didn't do it by ourselves, it was established by the Lord, appointed by the Lord to be just part of his, the world, going to be us as an example to the world, that this is the way I like to have the people live during their mortal, mortality, and that we are an example to the world. Because He will establish it, He has helped our forefathers come up with a constitution and everything. And the main thing was that He wanted this country to establish that we will exercise our free agency. This is the key thing, we have our free agency, where other countries don't have it. They think they do, but they really don't have. That we'll establish and exercise our free agency. And if there's any other countries that try to usurp this free agency, we have the right to defend it. You know, come to think of all the wars, not one war have we... we never started a war in our life, but we have entered the war, but we never started the war. All these wars that we're going through right now, we never started them. We never caused it, so we didn't begin any war, but we did enter the war. Because they were now infringing upon our lives. To this day, that's the reason why you don't see any devastation of war in this country, it's always outside our country. But the day when they come and damage one bullet in here, then we're going to have some real fighting. Because we are the kind of people can defend this country, because we know how it was established. It was established by the Lord itself, as far as we're concerned. Our forefathers have so said this. If you really study their, the history, you find out that the good Lord Himself has helped us take a portion of this land in the world that ours...

AL: So when you were in the military, obviously your faith is very important. When you were in the military, how did that change how you approached your tasks in the military? I mean, did you have chaplains with you? Did you have any Mormon chaplains in your units?

AN: No, in our unit we didn't have, but we conducted our own selves. We can; we were trained to do that. And so like in the 442nd, we told the chaplain, "Chaplain, you know us Mormon boys from Hawaii?" He said yes, he was a chaplain from Hawaii. Said, "Oh, yeah." So we said we're going to conduct our own meeting. Said, "Oh, yeah, we know you can do it. Go right ahead." So we conducted our own services by ourselves. He knew that we could do it.

AL: So what would you say like the religious makeup of your unit was, like in terms of Buddhist, Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, no religion? What were the different groups that were represented?

AN: I really don't know. Most of them were Buddhist. And so, of course, I didn't attend any of... I didn't attend Buddhist at all, services, but they had regular Christian services by the chaplain. So that and then us Mormon boys, LDS boys, we had our own.

AL: Do you think there was any difference in how people approached combat based on their faith or no faith?

AN: I don't think so. I think we all... I think our, the way we approach combat was not by religion, religious belief, although we Mormons entered the war with that belief that no one's gonna take away our free agency, okay, that's one, and number two was, of course, no one's gonna have any racial prejudice against us. So we went in with the right attitude, with the right spirit. So I think there was nothing wrong with all of us going together.

AL: Did you have contact with your family or your fiance?

AN: During the war?

AL: During the war? Like how would you communicate with --

AN: Oh, just letters, regular letters back and forth.

AL: Were they censored?

AN: Yes, I think they were censored, yes. They were censored.

AL: Were you injured? I noticed in your list it said you had a Purple Heart. Was that during World War II?

AN: Yeah, uh-huh. I just had one of the shrapnels pierce my leg over here, you know. It was not too big deal about it, I mean, it's just because I drew blood, they called it Purple Heart. But it wasn't that serious. Of course, it hurt a little bit, but the man who looked at me said, "Oh, Art, you survived." I said, "How bad is it?" "Oh, don't worry, I'll just patch you up, keep on fighting." [Laughs]

AL: Well, can you tell us about, the day of that picture, the famous picture of the 442nd, you're the man at the far left, and there's the, what, three or four guys with the flags? What were the circumstances of that picture?

AN: That was the, after the war, after the rescue of the battalion. And I think that was the one that we were being decorated, some of us. I think that's when I got my Bronze Star. And I believe that's the one that the general said, "Where's the outfit?" and our colonel said, "Well, this is it." We just had a handful of people, you know. That was the ceremony.

AL: That's General [Dahlquist]?

AN: Yeah.

AL: So did Mark Clark replace [Dahlquist], or was Mark Clark with a different group?

AN: No, Mark Clark was above him. Oh, yeah, Mark Clark was the number one general. He was above him. Well, Mark Clark was above him by then, I mean. Mark Clark had Italy, Dahlquist was France, so Dahlquist was another general.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.