<Begin Segment 23>

RP: Tell us the story about how you got wounded.

RD: Well, we were out on, we went out on patrol several times, it was whenever there was a patrol going out, maybe it'll be [inaudible], of course they call it voluntary. Went out and... the first time I went out, we got on there, we got attacked by artillery and some mortar shells. And we got back, and you had to be in service, under fire, combat zone twenty-four hours, so at that time there was only six of us that had the combat infantry badge. And then this one night on the 28th of February, there was something going on out in front of us out there. So the sergeant, and me and my BAR man went out, we walked down through the ditch there and everything else. And then they went off, everything's in hedgerows down there, you know, big bushes. And they went off and they were someplace, and I was left out there by myself to stand guard. The next thing I know, I hear these hand grenades and the fire and everything else and spotted us, and they came through there. I said, "Let's get out of here," and we took off. I was packing more weight, but I passed 'em all up. So everybody always said, they said, "How come all your wounds were in the back?" I said, "Not running toward the enemy." And they come back and I tripped off the booby trap. Lay there for a while, and well, the rest of it I'll forget about.

RP: So you were shipped back?

RD: Pardon?

RP: You were shipped back to the United States?

RD: Yeah. I didn't get back... they went to the battalion aid station. Now, I don't remember, I remember a sergeant, medical sergeant picking me up, picked me up last, make sure the sergeant, he was laying in the ditch. And I wanted my BAR, didn't want to leave it there for the Germans. He said, "Leave it there," I said, "No, I want it." He wouldn't let me get it. So he took me back and I remember him taking me back, I don't remember too much, and I remember waking up in the battalion station, battalion aid station. Then I come to find out that, well, Corporal Arthur's daughter-in-law got in touch with my son there on e-mail, he found out, here it was about three or four years ago, and they were understanding that I lost my foot because the bone was sticking out of my show on my right foot there. And I told them no, and they said, they said, well, Corporal Arthur said he had to laugh about it because I sat there and I said, "I feel sorry for you SOBs. I get to go home and you guys got to stay here." And I don't remember that at all. Probably some morphine shots that I had to... I don't remember a lot of that stuff. And then they sent me to a... I don't know, field hospital in Rennes, France, and I was there through March, and then April they sent me to another place, Oxford, the hospital there. And in May they shipped me back to the, to the States. And I landed here in... well, you read that name on there, whatever it was. Staten Island? Yeah, Staten Island, yeah. And I was there from about May 'til the 26th of July. Oh, no. From there they shipped me to -- we traveled all across the United States, all the way from there to Vancouver, Washington, where Barnes General Hospital was, and we had a hospital train there. And we had these big, wide windows there, and we lay there and we look out the windows and see all, everything there. And usually some of the towns we stopped, people would be there waiting, and they'd give us ice cream and different things like that, we were treated all the way. Then we came all the way down along the Columbia River, and then come down into Barnes General Hospital there. And I was there until... and then they split us, so us guys that were ambulatory would get up and walk around. We went, their own rooms and cleaned up, did our own latrines and stuff like that, you know. Cleaned up and went to town, we got to go to town every night if we wanted to.

KP: Can I ask a couple questions? So you were in Brittany most of the, all the time you were in France?

RD: Yeah, yeah, I was on the line there, yeah.

KP: And where did you get training for your BAR?

RD: Pardon?

KP: Where did you get the training for the BAR?

RD: Oh, we, before I went overseas, I was BAR man there. We trained on everything. We had submachine guns, automatic 45s, and every kind of piece for artillery and mortars or anything like that, but we trained all of that and then...

KP: You told an interesting story to me and --

RD: Oh, I said that... yeah, when I got that gun, we cleaned the Cosmoline and everything off it, and after we got back to an area, we came back to an area, and it was out in this hayfield where they got big round mounds of hay out there, and in the center they got a hole cut in there. And the lieutenant and I went out there to zero the gun in and try it out a little bit. I think I got two clips of shells through there before artillery fire come in. And we were just back there, way back off the line and everything, way back there. And we pinned down in that haystack for over half an hour. And I was just in there zeroing out a BAR. Well, they always said the life of a BAR man overseas, on the line, was fifteen minutes. As soon as you fired, you drew artillery fire. That convinced me right there.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.