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Okay, if I may have your attention once more now this evening, we have another guest with us who has volunteered to come in and speak to you about his World War II experiences. His name is Dr. Kenji Ogata. The doctor is because he's a dentist here in Sterling. My last name Ogata is Japanese, but he's what's known as an Issei American. That means his parents were born in Japan, but he was born in the United States. So he's a first generation American.

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He entered the military service, I think, was it 1944? '43. And '42, all right, '42 to '45. He told me that he was one of only two Issei American that flew combat in World War II in the European Theater of Operation. Now, when he joined the service, and he was a volunteer, because again, most of the Issei were 100% loyal Americans, and they wanted to prove that loyalty to the rest of the citizens,

00:01:03.000 - 00:01:31.000

many of them because the young boys joined the service during the war. Well, he said that initially he was slated for the medical corps. Most of the Issei were slated for the medical corps, but he wanted very much to get into the Army Air Corps. Well, he'll tell us how he did that. He was able to get around that and eventually get into the Army Air Corps. And I hope he tells us a little bit about, too, about the fact that his family was from Sterling, this area, so his parents were not in the relocation camps out in California,

00:01:31.000 - 00:02:09.000

but they were already located here in the Midwest when the war began. Anyhow, he was finally able to get into the Army Air Corps, and he was assigned to, I believe, the 15th Air Force. The 15th Air Force was located in Italy, and he was a gunner, a turret gunner on a B-24 Consolidated Liberator. He was stationed at Foggia, which is on the Adriatic coast of Italy, and most of those planes flew missions against Ploesti, Romania, and other targets in Eastern Europe.

00:02:09.000 - 00:02:44.000

So he's going to tell you about his combat missions. Maybe he'll tell you a little bit about what it was like to be a crew member of a Liberator. All I remember is they used to nickname him the Flying Coffins. I don't know if you ever heard that. Probably wouldn't want to hear that when you were in the service. But tell us a little bit about what it was like being Japanese-American in the war, in Europe, during the Second World War, and as a crew member on an active aircraft. So, Dr. Ogata, if you'd like to tell us this story, and then we might interrupt you from time to time and ask you questions as you go along.

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So we appreciate very much you coming in and sharing your experiences. Please feel free to interrupt me any time you want to. We can go in any direction you want to. I'm not really sure what all we had in mind. The only uniqueness of my position is the fact that I am a Japanese-American, and we had a little different experience than other people in World War II because of our background.

00:03:20.000 - 00:03:57.000

I was trained in the civilian pilot training program at the Sterling Airport and received my pilot's license in 1941. And, of course, when Pearl Harbor happened, why, I volunteered. Of course, by this time, they didn't want me flying an airplane, I guess. I don't know whether they thought I would fly it to Japan or what they had in mind, but that was a different day and a different time.

00:03:57.000 - 00:04:31.000

It's amazing how many people don't even know that the Japanese, all of the Japanese, whether they were born in this country or not, were incarcerated in concentration camps during World War II. It's probably the most shameful thing that ever happened. What's even more frightening is that it happened again to some group of people somewhere down the line because it was by presidential order, if I remember right.

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The whole thing was unfortunately handled very poorly. Money and politics, I guess, had a lot to do with it like anything does any time. Did you know who the gentleman was who was in charge of that in Washington to get this whole thing going? No.

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Dr. Milton Eisenhower. Is that right? Eisenhower's brother, that's correct. Well, I know General DeWitt Clinton was in charge of the evacuation.

00:05:05.000 - 00:05:22.000

That's right, in California. Warren was the Attorney General. That's California, that's correct. Unfortunately, both of them hated Japanese people for whatever reason.

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Basically, racial. Everybody that was in charge of that was that kind of a person. They wanted the land, too, not just bases. The Americans had the best wine growing areas in California.

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Absolutely, and it's worth billions today, which they got for nothing. They got back, I think, a nickel on a dollar in 1966. They were lucky if they got that. That's right, because they had to prove they owned the land.

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Of course, Randolph Hearst, Randolph, the old man, he was the guy that was having fun. I can remember I hated to see a Hearst paper talking about the Yellow Hordes and all that. The Yellow Herald. But that's another day and another time.

00:06:09.000 - 00:06:29.000

Fortunately, I did not end up in the infantry like every other Japanese American did, because they didn't really know what to do with them. All of these things that happened during World War II were done verbally. There's no written record of any of it.

00:06:29.000 - 00:06:47.000

You couldn't prove or disprove any of those things. I remember being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when I enlisted after Pearl Harbor. I was all gung-ho. I really wasn't thinking about the manifestations of things.

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I was ashamed that they did what they did. Being of Japanese extraction, it was embarrassing to say the least. I did enlist with a whole bunch of acquaintances from Sterling, Rock Falls, Dixon. We all took the train from Dixon, and we were sent to Chicago,

00:07:14.000 - 00:07:36.000

which was the Sixth Corps area headquarters at that time for six states, I believe. When I got there, there were several hundred people in this room, all volunteers. Somewhere along the line, I heard my name. So I went forward, and there was a major sitting at the table.

00:07:36.000 - 00:07:49.000

What was even more embarrassing, a recruiting sergeant who used to live here was married to a Rock Falls girl sitting there. He was a Master Sergeant. I think he was a nice gentleman.

00:07:49.000 - 00:08:05.000

He had nothing to do with this. But the major started to call me every kind of an SOB that he could think of, and he blamed everything that was going on on me. Of course, by this time, you could hear a pin drop in that room.

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I didn't know how to react. I didn't even know why it was happening, but anyhow, it happened. Unfortunately, at the back wall, there was a door, and in walked a colonel in full artillery uniform, even with the boots, a campboy, I beg your pardon.

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He just listened for a minute and realized what was going on. He came forward, and he had two aides with him. He reached up and he tapped this major on the shoulder, and the major spun around, and he realized who this was, and he came to attention.

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The colonel just said to him, "That will be all of that." He said, "Young man, you come with me." So I went around the table. He took me to his office, and he was head of the VI Corps area at the time.

00:09:07.000 - 00:09:22.000

He said to me--this was the 6th of January, I believe. >> '43? >> '42. >> '42? >> '42, yeah. >> That's right, real soon after the war started.

00:09:22.000 - 00:09:41.000

>> Yeah. >> A week or two. >> Yeah, because on Monday morning after Pearl Harbor, I went down to enlist, and then we were given this date. Anyhow, the colonel said--he was embarrassed about what happened,

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and he wasn't about to apologize, for heaven's sake, but he said to me, "If you want to go home, you can go home." I said, "Well, why would I want to go home?" He said, "Well, the war has just started, and you've gotten an example of how some people feel."

00:10:02.000 - 00:10:22.000

He said, "I don't know what will happen to you when we send you to a replacement center." He says, "As far as I know, there have been no unborn instances." But he said, "If you want to go home, you can go home." He says, "I have the power to send you home."

00:10:22.000 - 00:10:45.000

I said, "No, I'm here for a reason." With that, he smiled, and he said, "All right." He said, "You wait here, and we'll make arrangements." So I was then sent to Camp Grant, which was a Medical Corps training center at that time.

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Plus, they had a beginning of a general hospital there. So I was put into the Medical Corps as a basic trainee. And I can remember we didn't sleep much that night, and we had to get up early in the morning and take tests to see what they would do with you,

00:11:13.000 - 00:11:36.000

and their intelligence tests and all that stuff. But anyhow, it was plain to see that I wasn't going to get into the Air Corps. So anyhow, I went through training in Camp Grant in the Medical Corps. As training went on, I saw more and more Niseis coming there.

00:11:36.000 - 00:12:02.000

And I get to talking to some of them. A lot of them had been in the engineers, the artillery, different branches of the Army. They were all being taken out of there and sent to Rockford to the Medical Corps. Apparently at this time there was no policy.

00:12:02.000 - 00:12:22.000

As I said, all of these orders were done verbally. And I guess everybody was just sort of playing it by ear. Anyhow, when we got done with our basic training, we were assigned to the station hospital at Camp Grant, which was a general hospital.

00:12:22.000 - 00:12:50.000

And it was also a reception center for the six-state area. So we started just getting more and more Japanese-American faces. Hospital was about 50 percent, I think, Niseis eventually. I remember for two years I tried to get out of there.

00:12:50.000 - 00:13:07.000

I volunteered for--I remember one funny incident. I volunteered for a Japanese language school. I thought if I could get into intelligence, I could get out of this joint. So by this time I had served a lot of KP and extra duty

00:13:07.000 - 00:13:25.000

because you're not supposed to volunteer for things like this and go to headquarters without going through channels. I didn't bother to go through channels because I knew they'd say no. So this particular time I went over to intelligence headquarters

00:13:25.000 - 00:13:46.000

and talked to a sergeant and told him what I wanted. And he said, "Well, just a minute. I'll let you talk to the colonel." So I walk into the colonel's office, and here's this guy. He's about 6'6", and he's blond, Swedish, probably, very good looking.

00:13:46.000 - 00:13:59.000

He said to me, "What can I do for you?" And I said, "Well, I understand that they're taking candidates for Japanese language school." He said, "That's true. This is up in Minnesota." I said, "Well, I'd like very much to go."

00:13:59.000 - 00:14:16.000

He said, "Do you speak Japanese?" which I didn't and don't. And I said, "Oh, yeah." With that he starts spouting Japanese to me. I'm just standing there with my mouth open.

00:14:16.000 - 00:14:35.000

That's what I kind of figured. But anyhow, he was very sympathetic. He said, "You wouldn't do because we need nisei who can speak the language." He said, "What we're doing is teaching them Japanese military nomenclature

00:14:35.000 - 00:14:55.000

so they can listen and tell us what's going on." He said, "You wouldn't stand a chance if I let you go." I volunteered for glider training because I could fly and bat. I guess I volunteered for about everything that was available.

00:14:55.000 - 00:15:18.000

It took me two years before I finally got sent out of there. It was on, I believe, New Year's Eve. They sent me to Fort Sheridan. They told me in Fort Sheridan that--I think that was--

00:15:18.000 - 00:15:43.000

when my orders came through, it was the last date that anyone could transfer anywhere into service. That was all stopped because of war. Once you were where you were, that's-- They told me that the reason I got in was because Cap Arnold decided that I could be in the Air Corps for whatever reason

00:15:43.000 - 00:16:01.000

because I'd sent a lot of requests. Maybe they were--I don't know what he had in mind. But I did get in. There was only one other--to my knowledge, there was only one other Japanese-American who flew combat.

00:16:01.000 - 00:16:12.000

He preceded me. I think he was from Nebraska. He flew in Killer Kane's outfit that did a lot of Ploesti. They did the first Ploesti raid.

00:16:12.000 - 00:16:42.000

Was he at Fuji also? Somewhere. He was in the 15th Air Force, yeah, because Killer Kane preceded us. See, there's a big turnover. My group, which is about 200, 800 at the most-- A group is sort of like a company in that they're--I forget how that runs now.

00:16:42.000 - 00:16:55.000

But there were something like 3,000 combat members that went through my group. Because you only flew, what, about 30 missions and then were rotated back, right? Combat missions. 35, yeah.

00:16:55.000 - 00:17:03.000

35? Mm-hmm. Okay. So that's why you won't be there in the combat zone for a short period of time because you fly your missions back to the States.

00:17:03.000 - 00:17:21.000

That's right. So I went there in August, I believe, and then I was on my way. I had enough missions and enough points and everything that I could go back to the States. And that was in April of '45, just before either--

00:17:21.000 - 00:17:36.000

Or just before the E-Day. Yeah. And I'm coming home, I saw some of those destroyers tossing mines out. That was an exciting thing.

00:17:36.000 - 00:17:56.000

We had a submarine scare about two days out of New York. We were 10 days at sea and there were two more days to get to New York. We had this scare and they were throwing mines all over. And I thought, "Oh, God, I've gone through all this to go."

00:17:56.000 - 00:18:11.000

But-- Where did they send you to school once you got in the Air Corps? We went to Las Vegas, Nevada to-- That was an interesting experience.

00:18:11.000 - 00:18:28.000

Got on a train in Chicago and there were some Seabees on there. Now, Seabees were really big heroes in those days. Those guys had seen a lot of action in the South Pacific and they were all civilians. And there were a bunch of them on the train and they were going back to the West Coast.

00:18:28.000 - 00:18:48.000

They were going back to the South Pacific. And I got friendly with-- I don't know how they went by rank, but they had a different system. He was quite a group they had on a train and we'd meet in the smoking car.

00:18:48.000 - 00:19:09.000

There was a conductor there that-- He obviously didn't like Japanese because he was always talking about the Japs. He'd always look at me when he'd say, "Jap." By this time, it took me two years to get in the Air Corps and I wasn't going to scoot up by--

00:19:09.000 - 00:19:20.000

You guys are certified there now. I don't know. But finally, he made this Seabee sick and tired of listening to that. He finally told him to shut up and not father's friend anymore.

00:19:20.000 - 00:19:31.000

And he did not for the rest of the trip, which was very nice of him. But then I went to Gunnery School in Las Vegas. At that time-- Was that Nellis?

00:19:31.000 - 00:19:35.000

Maybe Nellis. It's right outside of Las Vegas. Nellis Air Force Base. Air Corps Base.

00:19:35.000 - 00:19:42.000

No, that doesn't sound right. Okay. That doesn't matter. Yeah.

00:19:42.000 - 00:20:00.000

Anyhow, they used B-17s there, so I trained in B-17s. While I was in Gunnery School there, another interesting experience is-- Russ Anderson was a boy who used to live in Strongman. I don't know if any of you are aware of him.

00:20:00.000 - 00:20:18.000

But he was a Gunnery instructor at Las Vegas. And the head of all the instructors was a United States champion skeet shooter. Unfortunately, he didn't like Japanese people either. He really gave me a hard time.

00:20:18.000 - 00:20:34.000

He was going to flunk me out and everything. But because of Russ, he managed to talk him out of that, so I finished that. Then we went to Lincoln, Nebraska. Lincoln, Nebraska is where people converged from Bombardier School,

00:20:34.000 - 00:20:53.000

Navigator School, Cloud School, armored gunners, radio operators, and crews were formed there. There were ten men on a B-24. There were four officers, pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier.

00:20:53.000 - 00:21:09.000

The others, the nose gunner, the radio operator, the engineer, assistant engineer, tail gunner, vaulter, gunner. I hope I got six. We were enlisted men.

00:21:09.000 - 00:21:29.000

So the six of us found ourselves, and then we went to look for the four officers. They had a big staging area where all these hundreds of crews were going to meet. I remember, as it turned out, my pilot was a young man from Anniston, Alabama. We subsequently became very good friends.

00:21:29.000 - 00:21:47.000

We're good friends to this day. But the first thing I heard come out of his mouth was when the six of us came up and joined the four of them, he said, "I hope there are no nigger lovers among you." And I said, "Oh, boy, here we go again."

00:21:47.000 - 00:22:03.000

[Laughter] I'll turn you right down, sideways. But it just turned out he liked a lot of southerners. They have a strange thing about the black.

00:22:03.000 - 00:22:29.000

I can remember being very friendly with a lot of southerners during World War II. When I got to know them real well, I said, "Well, how come you like me, you don't like black people?" The standard answer used to be something like, "Well, you ain't a nigger." They had a real funny thing going up there.

00:22:29.000 - 00:22:47.000

They didn't hold anything against you? No, but most of the southerners, if they were from families with money, most of them were raised by a black mammy, and they ate with her, and she changed them. She did everything that a mother would do for them.

00:22:47.000 - 00:23:03.000

That was one person that was totally separate from all the rest of the black people. That I couldn't understand either. That's when it's nice. Why couldn't maybe one or two others? No, that's not the way it worked.

00:23:03.000 - 00:23:22.000

Anyhow, we got together, and then we went to Tucson, Arizona. We trained there as a crew, and you went out in the desert. You dropped bombs on various things, and they had airplanes, faster, usually twin-engine airplanes. They would tow some sort of a sleeve-like thing.

00:23:22.000 - 00:23:40.000

It would be about as long as this room, about this big around. Then you'd shoot it, though, with all the various positions in the air. We had two guns in front that were on a turret, in fact, they were automatic like that, 250 caliber. We had on top the top turret where the engineer was.

00:23:40.000 - 00:24:08.000

That turret rotated 365 degrees and could go 90 degrees this way. We had two guns in the back behind the wing on the sides, each 50 calibers. I was down below just back of the bomb bay, and my turret could go 360 degrees and 90 degrees in this direction. Wall turret.

00:24:08.000 - 00:24:28.000

Wall turret. It was on a hydraulic lift, and it was up inside when you took off because the B-24 sat very low to the ground. It was a tricycle landing gear where the B-17 sat this way. We sat this way.

00:24:28.000 - 00:24:50.000

There were a few occasions overseas where that wall turret was stuck in that position. It couldn't get it up. There was only a certain way to get out of that thing. So when they landed, a lot of guys were killed when they landed because they couldn't get out.

00:24:50.000 - 00:25:04.000

You had to get out through the aircraft. There was no other way to get out through the aircraft. Well, if you could get your guns up into this position, then you could drop that gun. You could bail out that way?

00:25:04.000 - 00:25:23.000

Well, nobody ever-- I was going to say, with your chute, I don't think you'd fit. Well, they tried to make us wear seat packs, but there wasn't room enough in it. That ball was only 36 inches in the outside diameter, and you got 250 caliber machine guns in there with a spray sight here.

00:25:23.000 - 00:25:45.000

Were you claustrophobic before the war? Yes, I was, but I could see out, so that didn't bother me. We wore a chest harness, and I was small enough I could take that chute in with me along the side. I figured if the worst came to worst, I sure as hell was going to try that.

00:25:45.000 - 00:26:02.000

You don't want to get squished. I think it would have worked if you could hook one thing. It would be probably hard to hook the other one, because when you're falling at 126 or-- You're running to get your feet up.

00:26:02.000 - 00:26:37.000

But anyhow, we trained in Tucson as a crew. Then Wilma was able to come out, and we had a sleeping room. We were married, and our landlady almost converted her to Christian science. I come home, my little bride was in tears, and I said, "What's the matter?" She said, "Well, she's probably trying to--"

00:26:37.000 - 00:26:58.000

Well, you don't have to listen to that. [Laughter] Anyhow, we then went to Topeka, Kansas, where we all picked up new airplanes. Topeka, Kansas, we flew to New Hampshire.

00:26:58.000 - 00:27:21.000

From New Hampshire, we flew to Newfoundland. We were fortunate we got to stay there for five days, because the weather was too bad. We just sort of wondered where we were going. They wouldn't tell you where you were going.

00:27:21.000 - 00:27:42.000

I don't remember exactly now, but after you took off from Newfoundland, you were supposed to fly for three hours, I guess, east. Then they opened these sealed orders to find out whether you were going to go to England or wherever. What was the date of this time you were flying across?

00:27:42.000 - 00:28:08.000

This had to be in August of '44. We flew from Newfoundland to the Azores, then from the Azores to Marrakesh, I think, then to Tunis, and then to Italy. I'm trying to remember the name of that base in north Tunis.

00:28:08.000 - 00:28:23.000

Do you know what the name of that base was? No, I do not. We were only there overnight in each case. My first experience in Africa was I met another guy from Rock Falls, Illinois. He was wounded in the African campaign, and he was recuperating.

00:28:23.000 - 00:28:40.000

He was a mail clerk. He recognized—I had written Wilma a letter home as soon as we got there, and threw it in the mail. He was sorting the mail, and he saw my name, and he realized that I must have just gotten there.

00:28:40.000 - 00:28:54.000

He quick looked up where we might be, and he came over and found me. Did he know you? Oh, yeah. He was a Rock Falls furlong boy. As I say, he was recuperating because he was wounded,

00:28:54.000 - 00:29:18.000

and he was waiting to be sent back to wherever he came from in Africa. He said, "Let's go eat." I said, "Okay, I'm hungry." We get in a big mess line, and this is my first use of the canteen for good.

00:29:18.000 - 00:29:45.000

They practiced at home. It's like in MASH. We get done eating, and now we've got to get rid of the Garbys. All they had were these 55-gallon oil drums with the ends cut off.

00:29:45.000 - 00:30:06.000

These little Arab boys and men and women, they had little tin cans and all kinds of utensils. I said, "What are they doing?" They said, "Well, they want what you didn't eat." I said, "Well, I don't want to eat. They don't want that."

00:30:06.000 - 00:30:17.000

They said, "Yes, they do." I said, "Why can't I put that in?" They said, "Well, you don't have to give it to them. Throw it in the barrel, and they'll get it out of the barrel.

00:30:17.000 - 00:30:35.000

Just do it whatever way you want to. They're going to get it." I said, "Okay, I'll give it to them." That was a little eye-opener. I thought I'd seen poverty before, but when you see that, it kind of shakes you up.

00:30:35.000 - 00:30:58.000

From Furnished, did you flew to--is that where you flew to, did you fly there? We left our airplane somewhere in the southern part of Italy, and we were flown by a stripped-down B-24 to our squadron group, which was near Castelluccio in Italy.

00:30:58.000 - 00:31:19.000

Our pilot, I guess, had just finished all of his missions, and he was having a good time because I don't think he ever got over 100 feet off the ground in that B-24. Where did you fly? I mean, where did you end up? Yugoslavia or Romania? Where our missions were?

00:31:19.000 - 00:31:52.000

We bombed in Greece, Yugoslavia, Albania, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Austria, Germany, Poland. You went as far north as Poland? Yes, that was the longest mission we ever flew. We flew into--we had permission from the Russians to fly into Russia and fly back out to bomb Poland.

00:31:52.000 - 00:32:11.000

You didn't like Russia? You just used their airspace? No, we just used their airspace so that they wouldn't know that we would be coming from that direction. And that's the first time I was shot down on that mission. That was the day after Christmas of 1944.

00:32:11.000 - 00:32:40.000

The day before Christmas, I had to fly a mission, and that's the only time I ever had a premonition that I was going to die. As you can see, I didn't die, and I felt very good about that when I came home. We had some kind of mechanical trouble, and so our airplane was the last one to get back in our group.

00:32:40.000 - 00:33:06.000

We were late enough that the mess hall closed and everything, so when we got back, they had to reopen the thing to feed us, and they were madder than-- and we weren't too pleased about that because we figured that we'd done a little something that day, and you know, the tower wasn't asking too much to be fed.

00:33:06.000 - 00:33:34.000

People are people under any circumstance. But needless to say, I imbibed the sauce a little too much that night, and I was enjoying my reprieve and the fact that my prediction was wrong. So we certainly didn't consider the fact that we might fly again the next day,

00:33:34.000 - 00:34:04.000

and of course at 3.30 in the morning, they'd wake you up, and then you'd have to go eat breakfast, and you'd go to briefing to find out where you were going the next day, that day. So I had a really good headache, and I decided I wasn't going to go to briefing, and I told my crewmates that I was going to sack in, and they could tell me where we were going, and they said fine.

00:34:04.000 - 00:34:32.000

So I didn't go, and when they came back, you really get pretty busy, you know. We never had a chance to talk about where we were going, how we were going to go, and route in or route out. So as a consequence, when we flew into Russia and back out and bombed this place, which later I -- it was called Auschwitz, and I didn't realize until long after the war

00:34:32.000 - 00:34:58.000

that Auschwitz is what we commonly known as Auschwitz. Our target was not that camp, but some military target nearby. I think it was a railroad marshaling yard plus something else. And we -- I thought until two or three years, three, four years ago that we lost --

00:34:58.000 - 00:35:29.000

we had one engine shot out by an aircraft fire, but three or four years ago, I met my navigator who was on -- he was from another crew. We didn't -- you didn't always fly the same people, basically because of attrition. And anyhow, he was just out of navigator school, 18 years old, his first mission, and he admitted to me,

00:35:29.000 - 00:36:05.000

we never could figure out when we jumped out, usually the pilot is last, like a captain of a ship, I guess. And the pilot thought I was gone and mistakenly went out, and I'm sure this is true because, as I say, he's a good friend and he had a lot of bravery, and I never requested that. But anyhow, I was the last one out of there, and I was the only one that ended up in enemy territory.

00:36:05.000 - 00:36:28.000

It should have been the other way around. But in discussing it with the crew, we never could figure out until we got to talking to this navigator who came to -- the first time he ever came to a reunion, and he admitted that he was a little confused that day, and he thinks he had us going in the wrong direction when the order came finally to bail out.

00:36:28.000 - 00:36:39.000

And we agreed that he was probably right. [Laughter] >> Did you land in Poland? >> No, I landed in Hungary.

00:36:39.000 - 00:37:10.000

And if you -- I have to share this with you. It's kind of -- to me, it's interesting. During World War II, there were a lot of crewmen in B-24s that were killed by error. When I say by error, in a B-24, the men in the back, the only way they could exit was the door near the back on the floor.

00:37:10.000 - 00:37:41.000

It opened up. And so you sat down on the edge and rolled out. And you had -- because of the angle of the thing, you had to sit on the back edge facing the front and roll forward like that and go out. What happened is apparently -- and I saw it happen many times on missions where B-24s were hit by a fighter or an aircraft fire

00:37:41.000 - 00:38:01.000

and they were forced to jump, that these guys would go out there and you're going a couple hundred miles an hour. And the minute you hit the air, you start going like that. And these men, in their excitement, would pull their chute. And as the thing would open up, they'd wrap up in it.

00:38:01.000 - 00:38:05.000

>> Oh, they'd wrap up in their chute. They wouldn't get detained on the aircraft. They'd just wrap up in their chute. >> No, they'd just wrap up in their chute.

00:38:05.000 - 00:38:41.000

>> Because it was supposed to free fall a little bit. And so it got so bad, plus the fact that the Germans by December of '44 were -- had their backs to the wall and they were shooting anything in sight, especially guys in parachutes. So I remember it was just a couple of weeks prior to that that they had an officer from the paratroopers come and talk to our group.

00:38:41.000 - 00:38:59.000

He was going around talking to all the groups I got. But he was trying to explain -- because as a crew member in wartime, they never had time to show you how to use a parachute. It was all verbal. >> So you didn't have any practice jumps?

00:38:59.000 - 00:39:21.000

>> No practice jumps. So -- and you hope you never had to use one. But two mistakes they made was, one, they would wrap up in them. Two, they often opened their chutes right away and it's a long time coming down.

00:39:21.000 - 00:39:58.000

So I can remember instructions being that this would happen to you as soon as you went out. And if you would throw out your arms, straighten out your body, that you would then almost immediately come down at a 45-degree angle, free fall. And he said, under no circumstances would you open your chute above the clouds or in the clouds, wait until you went through. And he said, probably if you could judge something between 1,500 and 1,000 feet, it would be a good place to pull your chute.

00:39:58.000 - 00:40:28.000

And he says, you all know flown enough that you can judge that by a house or if you're fortunate enough to see an animal, which you probably wouldn't see in those days, but -- or an automobile, a truck. >> You can make it out. >> So anyhow, when I jumped out, I rolled out, I can remember thinking, you know, that guy is right. It went like that.

00:40:28.000 - 00:40:48.000

Then I threw my arms out and sure enough, you just sort of -- just come down like that. And it was really a euphoric feeling. I had never -- it was daylight. And the total ground was cloud cover and I couldn't see.

00:40:48.000 - 00:41:14.000

And I didn't get a chance -- my intercom was shot out so that -- over the target and so that I couldn't communicate with anybody until someone hit the turret with a hammer to let me know I was supposed to get out of there. So it was only then that I realized that we were going out. So you can't talk very well on the noisy airplane. In the movies you can do this.

00:41:14.000 - 00:41:28.000

[ Laughter ] But anyhow, it was just exactly like this. I could just hear his words. I thought that guy really knew what he was talking about and looked around.

00:41:28.000 - 00:41:38.000

And to me, I think clouds are beautiful. Even when I fly, I love to look at clouds. >> You were going through one? >> No, I hadn't gotten there yet.

00:41:38.000 - 00:41:54.000

See, I didn't know what our altitude was. I found out later that we were at 5,000 feet. But I didn't know that then. So we had a long time to fall.

00:41:54.000 - 00:42:18.000

So it's a euphoric feeling because for the first time in your life, you're like sort of suspended and there's nothing that you can touch anywhere. And you have no sensation of falling. I don't remember what terminal velocity is, something like 126 or 162 miles an hour. Those two figures run in my mind, and I don't know which is which.

00:42:18.000 - 00:42:24.000

But you go that fast, and that's all. >> Did you wear glasses at that time? >> No, I did not. >> Okay.

00:42:24.000 - 00:42:41.000

>> That came many years later. [ Laughter ] >> But so I'm really enjoying everything, you know, and fast approaching these clouds. And I'm thinking to myself, remember what he said, now, you don't open your shoes in the clouds.

00:42:41.000 - 00:43:02.000

So, okay. The minute I got into these clouds, I could swear that I heard a beautiful voice choir singing. And at the same time, it was as though someone took my hand and did this. And I'm thinking, no, no, I don't want to do that.

00:43:02.000 - 00:43:18.000

You're not supposed to do that. But I did, and it did, and I pulled my cord. And, you know, when you go from 126 miles an hour to uh-uh, that's kind of a stop. And so I looked up.

00:43:18.000 - 00:43:29.000

And in the clouds, I could see the chute was open. And as I looked down, and I just hit like that. And fortunately, I was in a proper attitude. I was totally relaxed.

00:43:29.000 - 00:43:42.000

So when I hit the ground, I hit so hard that I rotated twice. And I can remember my heels hitting the ground. And I thought, God, I thought my legs fell off, you know. But I was just --

00:43:42.000 - 00:43:49.000

>> So you don't know why you pulled it? >> No, I don't. I can only share that story with you. You can think what you think.

00:43:49.000 - 00:43:56.000

>> Do you believe in guardian angels? >> I think so. >> I think so. >> It was really scary.

00:43:56.000 - 00:44:08.000

So, you know, if I had waited a fraction of a second longer, I wouldn't be here to tell you the story. >> Maybe your mother was praying for you. >> Somebody was, I guess. >> I've heard stories like that.

00:44:08.000 - 00:44:26.000

>> I guess my time hadn't come yet. Anyhow, it was total ground fog, couldn't see as far as the other side of the room. It was about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. We carried with us a little escape kit about this big and about this thick.

00:44:26.000 - 00:44:47.000

And we had all kinds of pants and these flight suits. And in that escape kit was $50 in American dollar bills. And they all had gold seals on them. That was, I found out years later, to trace where that money eventually, when it started to come in, where it came from.

00:44:47.000 - 00:45:10.000

The government was curious as to what happened to it, I guess. And we had, of course, the glamorous cigarettes. I mean, you always got cigarettes. And they had condensed food tablets of some kind.

00:45:10.000 - 00:45:38.000

And you had an armband, you know, with the American flag. And the armband had "Take me to your underground" in various languages, basically Italian, Greek, anything in southern Europe. Because the Greeks had a good underground going that helped American fliers. The Yugoslavs had.

00:45:38.000 - 00:46:00.000

I remember they were, they admonished us not to speak politics to Yugoslavs. They had two groups. They had Tito, who was a communist, and Mikhailovich, who was a monarchist. And they killed each other even during the war, you know.

00:46:00.000 - 00:46:34.000

But they were very good, the American fliers, and they saved a lot of them. And so, and we also had a compass in this escape kit. So where we were, all you had to do was go south, because hopefully you'd end up in northern Italy or in Yugoslavia or Greece or somewhere like that. But when I got down to the ground, I was wondering what the heck to do with this parachute.

00:46:34.000 - 00:46:52.000

I lost my train of thought. Well, you just landed in February, and you hit the ground, you were safe. What you should do with your parachute? What to do with the parachute.

00:46:52.000 - 00:47:11.000

And I really became frightened, because I could hear artillery fire, and it seemed like it was awfully close. So I wrapped it up, and I carried it with me. And there was not enough snow on the ground. There was about this much snow on the ground.

00:47:11.000 - 00:47:37.000

So I carried it. I don't know how long I carried this thing. You'd come to a road, and of course the ground was frozen, and you'd wait to see whether or not you could hear a vehicle of any kind coming. And if you didn't, then you'd run like hell across the road, not knowing what was on the other side, because you couldn't see any further than 15, 20 feet at the very most.

00:47:37.000 - 00:48:06.000

I could hear, at different points in time, dog barking. I knew they were after me, and they probably weren't, but I thought they were. And when I'd come to a stream, I'd go down the stream, and it's lucky it didn't freeze my feet, you know, in retrospect. But I was hoping to get them off my trail, and I finally came to a haystack in the field.

00:48:06.000 - 00:48:42.000

I buried my parachute in that haystack. I kept going then until nightfall, and I came to a hedgerow, and I slept fitfully off and on during the night there. And I'd get scared, and I'd move on. It was exactly 24 hours later, about 2 o'clock in the afternoon the next day, that I was walking, and I came right face to face with a gentleman.

00:48:42.000 - 00:49:14.000

He was dark-skinned. He was wearing a heavy coat, and he had a big mustache. I think he was as frightened as I was, and I didn't know what to do because I'd forgotten my .45 automatic in the airplane. And we just sort of looked at each other, and finally he started going like this. He wanted me to come with him, you know, and he started going this way.

00:49:14.000 - 00:49:45.000

And I'm thinking, "What's he trying to say? He's trying to say that our bomber crashed and everybody got killed, I guess." And I thought, "This guy's a liar. I saw everybody jump out of there. There's none of this." But he did that two or three times, and finally he just kept--so I followed him. I had no choice. We walked for--

00:49:45.000 - 00:49:49.000

>> Was he a civilian or--? >> Yes, he was. >> -- a soldier? >> No, he was a civilian.

00:49:49.000 - 00:50:24.000

>> I see. >> And so I followed him, and we went for a few miles, and we came to a town, and come to find out, I think five or six of the guys landed near this town, spent the night in bed. And the other half of the crew landed in another town a few miles away. They also spent the night in bed. Old Dum-Dum didn't.

00:50:24.000 - 00:51:03.000

But anyhow, what this gentleman was trying to tell me was that our airplane crashed in their cemetery. And it was just a few years ago that Will and I went back to Hungary, and we hired a guide, and we found this little town, and we found the cemetery, and we found the cemetery caretaker, who was the son of the caretaker when our bomber crashed there. But he was a little boy, and he remembered that incident. And he's the gentleman that gave me a little piece of our bomber about this big, which I brought home with me.

00:51:03.000 - 00:51:41.000

And Will and I were glad to see that the biggest piece he had left of that bomber, he said everything was used, and it was about this size. And he had it in the barn, separating the straw from the manure, so I'm glad it was used for a peaceful purpose. How far were you from St. Budapest? Are you in the southern border of Hungary? Well, you know where Lake Balaton is in Hungary? It's towards the east, and it's a playground for Europe.

00:51:41.000 - 00:52:12.000

That part of Europe, people come there and they have summer homes and all that sort of thing. So how far did you have to walk? Well, when we got together, then the fellow that we stayed with, his name was George Marcus, and that's who Will and I were looking for when we went back a few years ago. And we did ultimately find his wife and daughter.

00:52:12.000 - 00:52:50.000

And George, we were there about three days or four, and he had worked in, as he said, Aprono Hill when he was a young man in Goodyear Plant and saved his money, went home and married his sweetheart. And he had a little store there in his house. And by the time we left, he could speak English real well. It all came back to him, what English he knew. He spoke very well. Now, was he the man you met on the road?

00:52:50.000 - 00:53:14.000

No, no. That man, when we went back to this little town, it hadn't changed. They still don't have television there. They still don't have automobiles. They have horse-drawn carts. Today, it's mostly older people.

00:53:14.000 - 00:53:38.000

But as we were approaching this town by the cemetery, which I recognize, our guide said, "I better stop." He said, "There are three or four people coming up the hill." So we stopped and we talked to them, and he started talking to them. And they all started nodding their heads and everything, and they all remembered that incident.

00:53:38.000 - 00:54:04.000

And the cemetery caretaker's son was going up to the cemetery, and he remembered the incident. So the people were all excited. I guess that's the most exciting thing our guide told us ever happened before or since. So that was a very interesting experience. Were there any Germans in town? No Germans around?

00:54:04.000 - 00:54:30.000

Russians. I'm surprised that these people, the Russians must have left them alone pretty much after the war. Yeah, what could they get from those people? They couldn't get anything. The Russians liked to go into areas where there were, and the Germans did too, wherever there were young people.

00:54:30.000 - 00:54:56.000

They would conscript the young people to do work or whatever. But a little town like--they weren't really interested. We saw--what we were trying to do when we ultimately all got together, there were 11 of us. We had an extra man because you carried a photographer every so many--a photographer never flew the same crew twice.

00:54:56.000 - 00:55:35.000

And I don't know whether this was for protection purposes or what, but that was by design. And the photographer always went on every mission to take pictures of where the bombs went and what kind of destruction took place so that every seventh airplane had one photographer. I'm going in so many directions here.

00:55:35.000 - 00:55:50.000

When you all got back together, you were starting to-- Yeah, thank you. You did get back into Italy, is that correct? Yes, what we were trying to do--first we made a decision whether we wanted to go into Yugoslavia,

00:55:50.000 - 00:56:22.000

and we all voted against that. We decided that--we had heard that if you could get to Bucharest, Romania, that they flew one C-47 in there a week, they thought. So we opted to try that, and of course we tried to find Russians all the time, especially officers, because Russian officers, if they had a stationary point, they always ate the best food.

00:56:22.000 - 00:56:52.000

And they invited us because they didn't know our ranks and our pilots would tell everybody that we were also officers. And so we sought Russians all the time in trying to get to Bucharest, Romania. They didn't--they really weren't terribly interested in us because they were going this way and we wanted to go that way. They had already been there, and they weren't--you know.

00:56:52.000 - 00:57:29.000

And they--we saw them come into a town of--well, of Simantornia. An anti-tank battalion came in there while we were there, and they came in--I don't know how many hundreds of soldiers and vehicles they had, but they came right all the way through town and they all stopped at a signal. And when the guy that was--I think he was a colonel--leading this, and he just raised his pistol in the air and shot it,

00:57:29.000 - 00:57:42.000

and everybody got out of their vehicles and they went this way. And they went into every house that was--and they took whatever they wanted. That's--we did that, too. I mean, you know, war is war.

00:57:42.000 - 00:58:02.000

And--but that's the way they operated. And I can remember we were arguing with some of those guys. They had American Jeeps, and some of the anti-tank guns I think were made in a Dodge factory during the war. And we were trying to tell them that these were American.

00:58:02.000 - 00:58:16.000

They said, "No, no, they were--they were Russian, made in Russia. They copied them." But then we got them to raise the hood and we were showing them these engine tags and stuff, you know. And they insisted they copied everything.

00:58:16.000 - 00:58:32.000

[Laughter] But that's the way we started. Hitchhiked our way across Hungary was a slow process. It took us 30 days almost.

00:58:32.000 - 00:58:41.000

In fact, we crossed the Danube one night. I don't remember what bus that was. And they were under fire. And they took us across on a barge.

00:58:41.000 - 00:58:58.000

They had--we couldn't figure out how this thing was moving because there was no noise. And we realized later that the marshaling area was in the middle of the woods. And there were thousands of soldiers in the woods in their vehicles. And it was right on the edge of the Danube River.

00:58:58.000 - 00:59:23.000

And we realized what was propelling this thing across the river was Hungarian men who had big, long poles with a big notch in it. And there was a cable stretched across the river. And so they would use this notch in the cable and they'd walk this thing. That was their--the way they were moving this barge across the river all night long, I guess, back and forth like that.

00:59:23.000 - 00:59:53.000

So that's how we crossed the Danube River. But wherever we could find Russian officers, we'd go look for them and try to find them because we could get something to eat. The average Russian soldier, the only thing their quartermaster corps, I think, provided them with was black bread and pork fat, chunks of pork fat. And we ate that for many days.

00:59:53.000 - 01:00:02.000

And I tell you, it's pretty nice when you're cold. It really does something for you. You can take the cold. I don't know what it does to this thing.

01:00:02.000 - 01:00:33.000

But when you're 20 and you're 20, it doesn't make any difference. But eventually we got--oh, we were in a town called Timisoara in Romania. It's one of the larger towns in Romania. Somehow word got out that the Americans were coming to liberate them from the Russians because everybody was scared to death of the Russians.

01:00:33.000 - 01:01:00.000

And there were, I would guess, maybe 100,000 people came out in the streets while we were in trying to buy some socks because we were wearing the same clothes for a long time. You know, you get a little gamey after a while. And when we came out of this store, there were people as far as you could see, all excited. A reporter came in and he spoke a little English.

01:01:00.000 - 01:01:14.000

And he was all excited. He heard that the Americans were coming. And we said, "Well, we didn't know about any Americans." But that's why the excitement and why all the people were out.

01:01:14.000 - 01:01:27.000

Unfortunately. What was the reaction of these Romanians and Hungarians to you being a Japanese-American? Were they stunned with that fact that you didn't look like every other G.I.? If they did, they didn't say it.

01:01:27.000 - 01:01:44.000

They didn't say it? Of course, you know, they're used to seeing Russians. We saw all -- every time we'd get to a railroad station, the few trains that were running were commandeered, of course, by the Russian Army. And they'd borrow engines and whatever.

01:01:44.000 - 01:01:58.000

And we saw people that looked like they came out of Genghis Khan. Yeah, sure. Yeah. And they didn't even look like Russian soldiers, but they were in the Army.

01:01:58.000 - 01:02:15.000

They were part of the Russian Army. And so they're used to all sorts of ethnic groups and we bothered one way or another. When we were in -- If you were a Romanian, then wouldn't you go over to Yugoslavia?

01:02:15.000 - 01:02:23.000

No, no, no. When I'm down through where? We just went straight across then to Bucharest. You didn't have to go into Yugoslavia at all.

01:02:23.000 - 01:02:48.000

Okay, okay. Bucharest and then where? Then we were put up in a hotel in Bucharest, Romania. We -- not a hotel, a school room, a schoolhouse that was taken over by -- we had an American colonel, I think, and a captain or a major, and a lieutenant, and a sergeant.

01:02:48.000 - 01:03:04.000

They represented the United States. You know who their interpreter was? He was a janitor in the school and he was a con man if ever someone. He lived in the United States, learned to speak a little English, and he had all the angles.

01:03:04.000 - 01:03:17.000

And I -- you know, I'm not too smart, but I was thinking, isn't that something that this -- actually, this guy is who's representing the United States because whatever he tells those guys, that's it. They don't know.