Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: George T. "Joe" Sakato Interview
Narrator: George T. "Joe" Sakato
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Denver, Colorado
Date: May 14, 2008
Densho ID: denshovh-sgeorge-01-0032

<Begin Segment 32>

TI: Okay, so, so after the log incident, then what happened?

GS: Then we moved out and so we had, we took that finally, that hill, then we had to go to another hill to, only a couple squads of us were taken. So our unit was going, we took, we chased the Germans off the hill, and we were twenty-five, twenty feet apart. On my right flank was the automatic rifle, so I was shooting at the Germans and the rest of the troops were down there, so we chased the Germans off the hill. Then the sergeant's on top of the hill and he says, "Come back," so then the Germans were still shooting at me and I'm shooting back at him, but then I'm climbing the hill. But I go about ten feet and, whew, I gotta rest a minute. And I go up another ten feet, and I couldn't give my pack to the guy, he was twenty-five feet over that way. So I have to carry all this, and I'm going up the hill, and when I got to the top of the hill, "Where's our, what happened to our platoon, or our squad?" They left me; they thought I got shot down there. Holy cow, and here it's about four o'clock in the afternoon or five o'clock in the, and I said, "Where's our line? That way or that way or that way?" They had bushes that, about so high, lot of the bushes underneath these different trees, and openings, there was all... so I got to one big bush, got down, lay down on my back and I cut some of the branches off and put it on top of my face.

TI: Now were you trained to do that? I mean, what, what made you think to, to kind of do that depression and cover yourself?

GS: They told us how to cover, protection, behind trees and bushes or camouflage your, camouflage. We were told about that. I says, "Well, how am I going to camouflage," so I just, another, see my face, and my OD color was, give us away, guy, passed me up right next to me could see me. But the patrols were, I was away from the walking area in a bunch of trees, bushes here, and another area where people could walk. So it was still dusk and I could still see a little part. So I'm laying down there and I hear a twig snap. You listen for sound; your actual sight, you can't see, 'cause somebody's hiding behind a bush or somebody's talking, you can hear that. I could hear them talking and so I, so I thought, so the sound, a twig broke, so I kept still and I watched, and some Germans were saying something and went by and I saw the helmet like this. That's a German patrol. So then another couple hours went by and I hear another sound going. But I see the helmet, didn't have the flare on the outside, "Oh, that's our company." Said, "Hey, what company is this?" Guy turned, F Company come up. He's about ready to shoot me because then I didn't know the password. He says, "What password?" I don't know the password. "E Company, they left me here and I'm lost." So that finally got back to the company. In the meantime, the company's back, and Masaoka's writing a citation for that hill.

TI: But I'm curious, when you got back to E Company, 3rd Platoon, did they say anything to you when you got back?

GS: "Where were you?" "You guys left me," I told 'em, "you thought I got killed down there. God darn," I was chewing them out.

TI: So were you actually mad? Were you mad at those guys?

GS: Oh, yeah. I was madder than... they left me. Could have at least come down and see where the hell I'm at. Come back and so Ben Masaoka was writing up the citation for that hill, then the captain says we got to go see a colonel somebody on this other ridge over here.

<End Segment 32> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.