<Begin Segment 28>

TI: Okay, so now you're on the top of the hill, you're kind of out of breath.

GS: So then first day of the battle, 1st Platoon and 2nd Platoon are ahead, but couple thousand yards ahead, and we're back in reserve, 3rd Platoon. But then we had a new "90-day wonder" lieutenant join us named Lieutenant Schmidt. So he was kind of worried, he's pacing back and forth, everything's quiet and he's nervous as all hell. So I stuck my two fingers under my nose and I, "Sieg Heil in case we lose." I thought he would laugh, he chewed me out. [Laughs] Then artillery shells started coming in.

TI: But before we go there, you did that because you wanted to loosen him up because you thought that...

GS: To relax him. He was nervous, he was back and, pacing back and forth.

TI: And you thought that was going to make everyone else nervous, and you thought it would be just good to...

GS: So I tried to humor things, make people laugh. And they all, other guys laughed but he didn't laugh; he chewed me out for that. So artillery shells, now I hear this one coming in, boom. That was incoming. I found out what incoming was. But when you hear it, little fluttering going on, that's outgoing, that was our guns going. But when you hear something go [makes sound effect], that's incoming. So when that came in, blew me up and I was over there, ten feet, and ached all over, and got up, sores all, looked, and I got a nick here. But I looked down, Yohei Sagami from Wenatchee, Washington, was talking, we were talking what are we going to do when we get out and this and that. He's laying down, facedown, I picked him up, turned him over, he got hit in the jugular vein, and the pulse, blood was coming out every time he'd, pulse beating. And I couldn't stop it without choking him. I tried to put a pad on there, but still, he couldn't breathe, and had relaxed, but blood was coming out. Medics came, but he died, he'd lost too much blood, he died. So that was my, one of my first buddy dying. Then when the artillery was gone, then we tried to dig in, and couldn't dig in. You go down six inches, hit tree roots and rocks. "What am I doing here?" Finally, the artillery shells stopped, and they were going to counterattack, so the German soldiers were going to starting coming to try to take the hill back. So then we had to dig in, try to dig in wherever we can, and then we finally chased them off.

So then we had to continue on taking the hill, so we go so far and we spread out, we're on top of the hill, I'm down on this end of the, left side, and others were up here, main bunch was up here, and a guy hit a landmine. Tripped a trigger, lost his leg, somebody else got hit in the sides, so now we had to probe for landmines. So we had to lay on our stomach and pull out the bayonet and dig in inch by inch. What if I hit a trigger? Sweating, you know, and oh god, what do you do when you hit the trigger? Gonna blow up in your face. Oh, I started praying, holy mackerel, I hope I don't hit the mine. But I'm on the left side, so it was clear and I didn't hit any mines. But three of 'em on top of the other side, on top of the ridge, hit the landmines.

TI: And the reason you're using your knife was you're supposed to hit the edge of it so that you...

GS: Edge of the mine.

TI: And then you would know, you could then identify...

GS: And you could dig around it.

TI: But if you, if you went too far --

GS: Hit it too far and hit the trigger part, it would blow up. So you were, you were probing down, hit something, then you don't want to, you want to back off, kind of probe around and see, and then dig the mine out. But so far I was lucky, my side was clear 'cause I was on the left side.

TI: So Joe, I want to ask you, at this point, so this was, one, you were near a blast and your body was thrown, you watch Yohei Sagami die right there, he was right next to you, you just had to deal with these mines and this counterattack and all these different things, and when you finally have a moment to just think a little bit, what were you thinking? I mean, what, this is all of a sudden, it's just inconceivable to me everything that just happened.

GS: Everybody was looking for the lieutenant, too.

TI: And looking for... so tell me about the lieutenant, what happened to the lieutenant?

GS: He disappeared.

TI: This is Lieutenant Schmidt, that you called the "90-day wonder." And I should mention, so "90-day wonder," you're talking about these men who get...

GS: OCS for ninety days.

TI: ...quick training to become an officer.

GS: Quick training, became a lieutenant.

TI: They were originally just a regular, kind of, infantry or something, and then they get, they get promoted or they go through this quick training. And so he's missing, so what happened to him?

GS: So Takamoto called down to headquarters and the captain says, "Okay, he's back here with us shellshocked." He didn't even get enough, actually, to hear it, explosions went off.

TI: So when that first artillery hit, he was shellshocked and made his way back to headquarters.

GS: Made it back to headquarters. We were looking, we thought he got wounded or he's laying somewhere and looking for him, couldn't find him.

TI: So now I'm thinking, so here your squad leader...

GS: And Takemoto says, he's called up and says, "He's back down at headquarters." So then...

TI: So what, so again, what are you thinking at this point? What's going through your mind? This is really your first real taste of all this, and it's just so concentrated. What were you thinking?

GS: Everything was happening so fast, you know, you didn't have time to think, "What's next?" My god, and when you had to probe for mines, I thought, "Oh my god, what am I doing here? What if I hit the trigger and it blows up in my face?"

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.