Sexo

Male

Birth date

1918-4-22

Local de nascimento

Watsonville CA, U.S.A.

Inducted

1941-3-3, Presidio at Monterey CA

Tipo de alistamento

Volunteer

Ramo das Forças Armadas

Army

Tipo de serviço

War

Tipo de Unidade

Combat

Unidades onde serviu

100th Battalion - Co. C, 3091st Refrigeration Company, 3833rd Quartermaster Gas Co.

Military specialty

Supervisor of Army cold storage in Manheim, Germany.

Stationed

Monterey, CA; Banning Park, CA; Long Beach, CA; San Diego, CA; Ft. McCllean, AL; Wasatch, WY; Morgan, UT; El Paso, TX

Separated

Camp Beale CA

Unit responsibility

Guard duty

Personal responsibility

My responsibility was to do my best to defend the United States from all enemies and to come home alive!

Major battles (if served in a war zone)

Battle of Bruyeres with 100th Battalion

Awards, medals, citations (individual or unit)

Bronze Star, Combat Infantryman Badge, Distinguished Unit Badge, Purple Heart earned during Battle of Bruyeres. The 442nd earned the presidential citation (DUB).

Living conditions

A soldier in battle must sleep with his clothes on and sleep in a slit trench because you never know when you may be attacked! The only time you get any entertainment is if your unit is relieved and in a rest camp.

Most vivid memory of military experience

The second day of combat during the Battle of Bruyeres, the company commander told me and another man to escort a prisoner to battalion headquarters. As we were going up the ravine towards headquarters, mortars started popping about 20 yards from us and my buddy started to panic! He says,'Let's shoot the prisoner and tell the commander he got killed!' I told him we can't do that because killing a prisoner carries a death penalty. I was very disappointed with my partner because he had fought with the 100th in the Italian campaign. We finally got him to Battalion Headquarters and my partner says he's going to stay there until things quieted down a little. Our CO had told us to come back as soon as possible because he wanted to start advancing as soon as we returned. I asked the Battalion CO if there was another route I could take to get back to our command post. He said to walk over the ridge and I'll come to a road that will take me right to our headquarters. When I got to the road and started to jog towards our headquarters, a couple of jeeps loaded with replacements passed me by and stopped about 50 yards away to unload. Just then, about 6 mortars started to explode on the unloading men. I saw one explode on a guy's helmet. The jeep headed back with the wounded when I heard something hit a limb right above me. I hit the dirt flat. A mortar exploded about 4 feet from me. I was flat on the ground, but my right hand was on the pistol grip of my rifle to break my fall. I got up to run when the jeep driver stopped and said 'get in..you're hit!' A piece of shrapnel shattered my thumb and I didn't even know it. I went to the 27th evacuation hospital, then to the 36th general hospital in Dijon, and to the 72nd station hospital in Marseilles to remove a bit of steel lodged between the bones of my thumb. Soon after that, the throbbing stopped and I was released to go back to my unit. When I returned to my company, my commanding officer sent me to guard duty on a road leading from Monte Carlo to Sospel. I was with two other Niseis, Weesh Takahashi from Southern California and John Naganuma from Hawaii. The Army billeted us in a cabin across the road from the owner's house, a John Ellena, born in Sacramento who came to France in his teens. We gave our rations to the Ellenas and we ate with them. It worked out very well for all concerned because food was hard to come by during the war and we didn't have to cook. After two months, the 442nd pulled out of the area and moved to a staging area near Marseilles. I was transferred to the quartermaster corps and went to Manheim, Germany to work at the 7th Army Food Depot (Rations for the 7th Army - about 1/4 million men). I had a degree in refrigeration from the United Engineering School in San Francisco, so the commanding officer put me in charge of cold storage. We unloaded several carloads a day and also issued a like amount from cold storage. It would have been simple if we could issue rations direct from the cars, but we could not do that because we had to issue out of storage to make room for the incoming cars. It was a great lesson on logistics. Soon after I was transferred to the 3833rd QM Gas Co. I was put in charge of about six Polish POW's the Army had liberated from the Germans. There was a direct fuel line at the loading platform with feeder lines plugged into the main supply line. The prisoners would fill the jerry cans and load them onto the railroad cars which took the fuel to the front lines. We were lucky we never got bombed by the Nazis because there would have been a great explosion. But, we kept Patton's tanks moving and the war was soon over. About this time the relocation camps were about to be closed, so my wife and my parents would be released with no place to go. Since I had 4-1/2 years of service by this time, I asked for a discharge so I could help my parents to relocate. When I was sent to Shafe Headquarters, I was told to see Major Arle. In meeting him, I recognized him as being a corporal in F Co. at San Luis Obispo Army Camp. I was soon transferred to a unit being formed to be sent to the States. The first priority was given to units being transferred to the Pacific area because the Pacific war was still in progress. Finally I got aboard the Swedish ship M.S. Sommlisdiik and made it back to New York. From there, I took a plane and made it back to Beale Air Base near Sacramento on October 14, 1944. I caught a bus to San Francisco and took the train to Watsonville. I got a taxi from the station and arrived home about midnight. I was glad to see my mother and father, but it was a traumatic moment because we knew my brother would not be coming home. But I was glad to see my daughter for the first time.

Missed most whilst in the military

You miss most the feeling of being safe. I missed my kid brother when I found that he had been killed!

Most important thing, personally, to come from military experience?

I can ask anyone who discriminates against me if he has a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star, a CIB, and a Presidential Unit Citation. I know that my kids and grandkids feel that they are bon-a-fide Americans because their grandfather and uncle fought for America and their uncle gave up his life to his country.

Additional information

Perhaps you wonder why I did not advance beyond PFC. After basic training, I and the rest of the draftees were sent to the 160th regiment in San Luis Obispo. All the non-coms and officers were all National Guards personnel from L. A. County. Most of the skeleton personnel was made up of national guard personnel and us draftees were sent in to fill in the missing links. Every weekend all the Angelenos would get weekend passes so they could go home - most of them had cars at the post, an easy 5 hr. trip to L.A. All us other draftees who did not have cars or were from out-of-state, stayed in camp. One Sunday, the charge of quarters assembled all the guys in camp and put us on detail cleaning the area and latrines. After we finished, I complained to the Charge of Quarters, I didn't think it was fair for us draftees without cars to stay and do all the cleanup while the guys with cars could go to L.A. The Charge of Quarters passed the information on to the lst Sgt. and the lst Sgt. made a notation on my service card that I was insubordinate and was not to be recommended for any promotion! So I stayed a PFC for all of 5 years in the Army, but I don't regret it one bit. If I had been a platoon leader, I might have gotten killed in combat because I wasn't the kind of guy who stayed behind, if I was the leader! Tho I did not advance beyond PFC, it wasn't because I wasn't capable, but I did not want to have a position of a leader because in combat, I would put myself at risk and I had just received word from my wife that I was the father of a baby girl.