Interview with Jim Y. Tazoi Residence: Garland, Utah Service / Duty: Army 442nd Regimental Combat Team Medals: Distinguished Service Cross Cross of Valor from the Italian Government Purple Heart with Oak leaf Clusters

THIS INTERVIEW IS NOT EDITED FOR CONTENT, LANGUAGE OR HISTORICAL ACCURACY

Rick: We're really honored to be in the home of Mr. Jim Tazoi who is a lifelong resident of Utah and I understand your father came to Utah in 1904 and we'd just like to have you go over some of your early life leading up to December 7th. Tell us about your early years.

Jim: I was born in Garland 85 years ago and this is where I've been all my life except for the little while I was in the service. I went to grade school here in Garland and graduated from high school and I was a student at Utah State Agricultural College about the time that they were asking for volunteers to go in the army and so after a couple of years I quit school and I volunteered for the army because, at that time this was before the war started and the draft had already started about October of 1940 I believe and so I volunteered. At that time they told us if we'd volunteer for one year we will have fulfilled our military obligation but this National Guard outfit that left from Garland we were, before the one year was up the war started and so most of the guys it was, they were in the service about five years before they were finally discharged after the end of the war.

So you joined the National Guard in 1941, early in '41?

Yeah, early in '41 March of '41 and the war started in December that year in '41.

Now you were living at home here in Garland and working on the farm, and tell me your thoughts when you realized that the Japanese Government attacked Pearl Harbor.

Well, I remember we were already camped at St. Louis Obispo and that was a Sunday when I heard the news, Pearl Harbor and I didn't know anything about it but I knew when they told me that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor that the war started, but as far as knowing anything else about Pearl Harbor I didn't know what it was.

You were already in the National Guard camp in California, did you have any repercussions at that time, did anybody come up and discriminate against you or do anything because you were Japanese ancestry?

No, not at that time, but we'd had some things that happened after but they were all…the guys that I was with were all friends and neighbors from around this valley and we was all treated just like anybody else. But after I was in, after we were in Escondido for awhile and when they started evacuating other people in that San Diego area, there were four of us we called them Nisei's we're 2nd Generation Japanese and we're all American citizens. But when they started evacuating the people from the San Diego area and they also called us to get out of the west coast area.

Even though you were in the National Guard?

That's right.

So take us right from Pearl Harbor and what happened after that in your life?

Okay. Well we were in St. Louis Obispo when the bombing occurred, when the war started, that was a Sunday and after we had been in there we had to get ready to move out and so we moved out of St. Louis Obispo and we were stationed in Escondido, that's near San Diego. And we were living in tents down there in the city of Escondido and then after we'd been there maybe three or four months the evacuation of all the Japanese had already started so when they evacuated the Japanese people from around that San Diego area they also evacuated the four of us that were in this one National Guard unit (we called it the Battery) they evacuated us to an Infantry company. And I remember they told us, "You four guys are going to have to leave." Well we didn't know where we were going to go so they took us up to Del Mar, that's a racetrack and we stayed there that night at the horse stalls.

So they Utah National Guard unit stayed there, but you four had to leave? And you stayed in one of the stalls at Del Mar?

A lot of the other people that were evacuated stayed in San Anita and those kinds of places in horse stalls. And then from there we went to LA, they put us on trains and we still didn't know where we were headed, some guys were saying, "Well maybe they're going to send us to Japan or someplace like that." But we ended up in San Antonio, Texas Ft. St. Houston. They had quite a few Nisei's like myself there because there were quite a few of us guys already in service and so they kind of put us all together down there. And then after I'd been down there for maybe two or three months I didn't feel like I was…we weren't very important and it wasn't necessary so I asked them if I could come home and help on the farm and they said, "Yes you can go home." So I came home and I was home about 13 or 14 months and that's when they started up the 442, the 100th was already in service, the 100th Battalion that's the group from Hawaii.

The Nisei that were living there formed this 100th Battalion is that what they called it?

I don't know how many is in a Battalion maybe over 1,000 I think and those guys they didn't know what to do with those guys. Some guy says, "Oh, lets kick them out of the service." Somebody else says, "Let's make a labor Battalion out of them." And some upper generals says, "Well we're short of men and we're in war and we need soldiers, lets try them out and give them Infantry training and see what they can do." And so they sent those Hawaiian guys over to the United States and they were sent up to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin and they were going through Infantry training there and every kind of training they would give them they would pass with flying colors. They said, "You guys are gonna be okay." So when they were about half way through their training in Camp McCoy, Wisconsin they sent them on down to Camp Shelby in Mississippi to finish their training. And when they found out what kind of soldiers they were then they decided to form a Regimen and that's the 442 Regimen. See this Hawaiian bunch is just one Battalion and there's three Battalions in a Regiment so they came up with two Battalions and formed the 442.

When did you join up with that group, when they were in Wisconsin?

Nope, I went when they got to Camp Shelby. That's when I joined them and like I was saying I didn't want to go back in the service but when they let me come home from San Antonio they said "well you have to because you were never discharged, you were just put in inactive reserve" and so that's when I ended up in Camp Shelby.

As I understand it your mom gave you instructions to just go serve your country?

Yes, well I guess a lot of the mom's and dad's told them the same thing - "don't do anything…"

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It really touched me the time when your mom said, "go out and do your duty".

Yeah well going into the Army you die if you need to but don't bring disgrace to your country or to your family by doing anything that you're not supposed to do. And I think a lot of the fellows were told the same thing. I think so.

And so you went to Camp Shelby and there was I imagine a lot of sons of people that were in the internment camps.

Oh yes, you see the original group mostly were from Hawaii but there were a lot of these fellows from the mainland of the United States that were kicked off the west coast (the Japanese were) and put in these internment camps and those people, when they asked for volunteers for the 442 they volunteered out of the internment camps.

Their parents were incarcerated and yet they volunteered to serve the Government?

To go into the infantry.

Well now take us from Camp Shelby then and about when you went overseas and what happened after you left Camp Shelby.

Well I think we finished our training about April, the following April that would be April of '44 and then it took us about a month to get ready to ship overseas so we left Shelby with the two battalions and we went to Camp Patrick Henry in Virginia and they loaded us on ships. There was a big convoy with hundreds of ships and it took us a month to get to Italy but you know in those big convoys you can only go as fast as the slowest ship. They had all sizes and I remember the little ship that we were on, there were two company's, I was in K-Company and there was K-Company and L-Company but maybe these ships like the Queen Mary that hold 20,000 troops they might have been in that same convoy I don't know. But we finally got to Italy.

Yours was a small ship?

Oh real small.

Obviously they didn't take the whole regiment on that ship. Just two companies?

Oh no, no. Just our two companies but the whole regiment was on ships somewhere in that whole convoy. It took us just exactly one month to get over to Naples and that's where we started our duties.

Well now the 442nd Regiment is the most decorated regiment of any outfit of World War II, in fact it has received more decorations than any other unit in any of the wars of America. Tell me about the attitude of those members of the 442nd and why they fought so valiantly.

I don't know why. You know, when you're doing something like that you need to take a backward step sometimes and maybe that's one of the things that kept them going but I don't know.

Do you suppose they were trying to show their loyalty to America? Did they have resentment that their parents were incarcerated?

Oh I don't think so I think it was just bred into us, you know, to keep going and do our duty. I think so.

Because to me to fight with such bravery, I know it astonished the regular army officers so go ahead and give us some details about where you went. You landed in Naples and then where did you go from there.

Yes, uh huh. Well the 100th Battalion was already over there (that's one of the battalions of the 442) and they had been fighting in Monte Cassino, they had a monastery there where the Germans were way on top of a hill and they finally drove the Germans out of there and then they had this place Cassino and that was a hard fought battle. But by that time the 100th had established some kind of a reputation, they called them the "Purple Heart Battalion" by the time we got over there. Ordinarily three battalions makes a regiment, the 100th would have been the first battalion then the 442 was the other two battalions but since the 100th was doing so good they let them keep their identification as the 100th Battalion and we went over there with the 2nd and 3rd Battalion and that formed the regiment. We finally caught up with the 100th just before the fall of Rome. We spent one or two nights in Anzio and then Rome wasn't too far away and I believe the fall of Rome was probably about the 6th of June and we thought we were going to be sent into Rome first but they held us off and let somebody else go in first. I think there's a little politics even in that.

So the 442nd fought their way into Rome and then the Generals felt that they didn't want a Japanese Regiment going in before anybody else so they held you off, is that what you're trying to say?

Maybe. That's why I say maybe there's a little politics in that. And then finally, after we joined them why we all stayed together and fought up towards the north of Italy and we went through different places, I can't tell you the names of them but after we got up past Pisa (that's where the leaning tower was at Pisa) and we went beyond that and beyond the Arno River. And then we got word that we're going to be shipped somewhere else so they took us off the line and then they put us on boats somewhere in Italy, I don't remember the name right now but after being on the ship for awhile we were wondering where we were going to go. Some of the guys were saying "oh they're going to send us into the South Pacific". We didn't know but after we got on the boats why they passed out these pamphlets that said the different things that happen in France so that's when we knew we were going to France. So we landed in Marseille and we stayed in Marseille two or three days and after that the war in France… I think the Normandy D-Day Invasion was the 6th of June also and I'm talking about now it's September after D-Day and so the war was…Patton was going through France you know real fast so the war at that time when we got over there was way up in northern France already getting close to Germany and so that's when we got into it up at the northern end. The Lost Battalion, the rescue of the Lost Battalion came…

Was that in northern France?

Yes.

Tell us about the Lost Battalion battle.

Well before the Lost Battalion we were in France and we'd helped liberate some of the places - Brût, de Fontaine and Bruyères and those kinds of places but after we'd been in line for two or three weeks they said "okay we're going to get two or three days rest" and so they pulled us off the line and by 2:00 the next morning they said "okay get ready we're going back up on line". And everybody's grumbling and said "my gosh you said we were going to be in the rest area for two or three days, but here you've kicked us out already telling us to go back on line" and that's when we were sent back in there to help rescue a lost battalion. The Lost Battalion, there was about 225 guys in there and there were several outfits, other outfits…see the Lost Battalion has been trapped about six or seven days and they called it "The Lost Battalion" but everybody knew where they were. The Germans let them come through without much resistance and after they got so far back in behind the German lines then they cut them off so they couldn't come back out.

They were more likely the Surrounded Battalion.

Yeah. And then like I say they had two or three other outfits that tried to get them out and couldn't and so they sent the 442 in to get them out.

So they called on you guys with only two or three days rest and you were expecting…

No it wasn't two or three days it was just a few hours rest.

Just a few hours rest off the line and they said, "You've got to go get these guys"?

Yeah and I remember that night that we were called in and it was about as dark a night as I've ever seen. Of course, we're going into a forest but oh it was so dark and that had to be about the 27th or 28th of October in '44. And in the Lost Battalion it was only about a three or four day battle but that was really a….

That was by far the most severe battle that you experienced?

Yes it was. It was one of the two most viciously fought battles of World War II. There's another list of eight other battles and I think they go back, I don't know how far maybe to the Civil War or…I know some of them are World War I and we were in World War II and that was one of the two.

I know that you got wounded more than once, was it in that battle of the Lost Battalion that you were injured?

Yes it was.

Tell us in detail about your experience in that battle.

Okay. I got wounded on the 29th of October and I think that was the middle day of the rescue of the Lost Battalion and I remember we were up there about…well it was still a little bit dark in the morning when we woke up and shortly after that we were all pinned down (when I say 'pinned down' - we were all laying on the ground because if you were standing up we'd make a bigger target) so we were pinned down and the General was up there that day - General Dahlquist and his aid was Sinclair Lewis' son and he got killed that same day that I got wounded. But that morning I still remember one thing, we had a Caucasian officer, he was our Commanding Officer and there was some guy who said, "Okaasan, okaasan" and I remember the Captain asked me "what is that guy saying" and I says "he's calling for his mother". And right after that they had to take the officer out because I guess he lost his (I don't know what they called it) but yeah that got to him. But then shortly after that, this is the 29th of October they were shooting at us and ordinarily we don't ever fire until we see something to fire at, you see we don't just fire because it gives away our position. But that day we were just kind of firing from our hip and we were so close to the enemy we were just kind of firing from our hip because we were hoping that would help keep them from firing back. But I guess they were doing the same thing, I don't know.

Did they have machine guns?

Oh yeah they had machine guns, they had these Burp guns and oh they were really fast firing weapons. But just before I got wounded I remember there was four of us standing in a little group there wondering what to do, that's before they started firing at us and while we were standing there they started firing at us and we all hit the ground and one guy got shot. He got shot in the shoulder so I'm sure some of the bullets went between where we were standing and then shortly after that it was getting real…a lot of firing and everything so I run up to a place where the rain had washed a gully. The gully was maybe three or four feet wide and about three or four feet deep and I ran up to that place. I was a Company Radioman and I come up to there and stopped. Ordinarily…I don't know why I didn't jump in that trench but I was there maybe four or five seconds trying to look around to see, you know, if I could see some enemies…

*** Tape Interrupt ***

Okay Jim you were telling us about this Lost Battalion and being peppered with machine gun fire and coming up to this ditch.

Yeah and I came up to this place where I was telling you that the rain had washed a little gully through there, maybe two or three feet deep and two or three feet wide and I came up to there and stopped and was down on my knees because I didn't want to be standing and make a target. So after I'd been there maybe four or five seconds or maybe even longer than that, I'm kind of looking around to see if I could see any movement up there, you know, among the enemy. I just happened to look down and there in that trench was a German soldier, he looked right at me and I think (I don't know whether he had a gun or not) maybe ten seconds before that he could have been firing at us but he was hoping that I wouldn't notice him but when I looked down and I saw him, I raised my gun and he let out a squeal that I still remember. I had presence of mind enough that I didn't want to shoot him in the face so I put about four or five rounds into his chest hoping that I could kill him right away - immediately. Then I left right after that to a different position but I remember I saw (just when I was moving to a different position) I saw a couple of other guys and I took a shot at one of them and I don't know whether I hit him or not but he disappeared somewhere and then I came up to a place just a little ways farther away, maybe 40 or 50 feet away there was a place where I guess an artillery shell had knocked a big pine tree down. So I was behind that on our side of the pine tree and I was just getting ready to crawl over the pine tree when I got shot. Now I got shot and the bullet went in just above…through my left chest just above my heart and came out near my spine. But then I knew I was shot somewhere, it didn't hurt as far as physical pain but a little while later I knew I was shot because I was spitting up blood and my breathing was getting harder and you know when you get shot like that you know you're shot. Right after that I must have bee lying there on the ground then they started throwing hand grenades and those grenades where what we called those "German Potato Mashers" and it's mostly a concussion grenade and out in the open…let me back up again. One of those landed right on top of me. I was laying on my back at that time and it exploded just as it hit and I think those Potato Mashers - like I say they're concussion grenades and if it would have been maybe even five or ten feet away from me it probably wouldn't have done anything but make a big noise is all. Now if it's like our little grenade…see our grenade is made out of cast-iron and when that explodes oh man it throws pieces of razor sharp pieces all over but this grenade that exploded on me (I've still got a couple of pieces of shrapnel lodged in my hip and one piece of shrapnel about the size of a quarter and another about the size of a dime) and that makes a different kind of a wound. See it doesn't go straight into you it just kind of…I don't know how to even explain it but they're in there and the doctor told me, he said "well I think we're going to leave them in there and if it bothers you we'll have to take them out, but it will probably do more damage by going in after those couple of pieces of shrapnel than just to leave them in there". It's been 60 years now and I think I still carry those two pieces of shrapnel.

So you were lying on your back from this other wound that went in from your chest and out your back and a German hand grenade lit on you and went off on your lower right side?

Yeah.

Could you move then or what happened after that?

Yes. Well I didn't move very much because I don't know how much…I was lapsing in and out of consciousness after that and a short time after I got wounded (I don't know how long after) but I remember the medics coming up there, one medic. I asked him, I said "Where did I get shot?" and I remember him telling me "you got shot in the back". Well he kept the radio on my back, it was one of those 40 pound radios and I guess he saw the blood on the radio so that's all he saw was that and so he said "you got shot in the back" and I said "oh, okay". But in the meantime I was still conscious for awhile because after that for I was listening to the prettiest music I ever heard and I had presence of mind enough, I kept telling myself "hey try to stay awake because you might be close to going off the other side". But then anyway I passed out again so I don't know who took me out of there or anything then I went to the first aid place where some of the medics around there were waiting for the casualties to come in and I remember being conscious there and then shortly after that I guess I lost consciousness again so they took me to the hospital. This hospital was just a tent; it had dirt floors, not even any windows or nothing. It had a big pot bellied stove in the middle and I think there was maybe 25 or 30 of us patients in there and we were each laying on one of these cots (canvas cots) and that was our bed and that's when after they operated on me that night that's when the doctor came around to talk to us and he told me at that time, he said "oh you're lucky to be alive"
I said "oh is that right? I guess I am"
He said, "The concussion of that bullet when it went through your chest moved your heart"
I said, "Oh, yeah I guess I am lucky" because he said, "around your heart there's a lot of arteries and veins and it had missed all of those".
But anyway the bullet went through my body and then it didn't go through the radio, you know it was about a 40 pound radio and it has a big battery in there and I guess the bullet lodged in the battery and stayed there and a little later on some of my other company buddies came up to where the radio was (of course I was already gone by then) and they knew it was my radio so they knew that I had gotten wounded and so they dug the bullet out of the radio. This one guy had it, his name was Harry Hoshko, he's from Fresno and he says, "let me take that bullet". He says "when this war is over I'm going to go through Utah and I'll go visit him and take the bullet back to him".
There was another guy with him and he said "well I'm from Seattle and my folks evacuated to Salt Lake City so I'm going to go there and visit my folks, so let me take that bullet to him".
So Harry gave him the bullet and this guy that ended up with the bullet he got killed the next day, otherwise I could've had a good souvenir. I would've got the bullet.

How did they break the German lines then? After that they just kept fighting until they broke the German lines to rescue that battalion?

Yeah I guess so. Well the normal strength of an infantry company is maybe 170 to 180 guys and I think we came out of that probably the next day with about 18 guys and I- Company they took a heck of a beating too in that same battle and they came out with even less than that - 11 or 12 guys.

And then you ended up rescuing 225 guys?

225 guys yes. And I think all of those came out alive. Another thing I want to tell you is the General passed our Commanding Colonels two or three days after the Lost Battalion and he says "gather round your men on the grounds over here somewhere and I want to thank those guys". So all the company's got together and the General says "Colonel I said I wanted all your men there" and he said "General, that's all there is left".

That was it then? Was that the end of your combat?

Oh yes, I was in the hospital for eight months.

Eight months to recover?

Yeah.

There's a term that was made famous by the 442nd called "Reverse AWOL" can you explain what that is?

Yeah. Well that means that some of these guys that got wounded that wasn't too serious, they were anxious to go back up on line so they took off and went back without permission or anything like that. That's reverse AWOL.

You leave the field hospitals and go back to fight?

Yeah, you left the hospital to go back to join your outfit.

Jim you received a Distinguished Service Cross, and you received a Cross of Valor from the Italian Government besides your Purple Heart with Oak leaf Clusters was that for that service that you rendered in saving the Lost Battalion?

Yes. There were three of us that got the Distinguished Service Cross in that Lost Battalion and one of them his medal was eventually elevated to the Medal of Honor. See there were 52 of us that got the Distinguished Service Cross and I'd like to tell you a little story about that if time permits. See at that time they weren't giving any Medal of Honors to any of the Nisei guys and we had a fellow from Salt Lake, he was a member of the 442 his name was Mike Masaoka and he was a University of Utah graduate and before the war he worked for our Senator at that time was Senator Thomas and you know those politicians they were coming over into those battle areas on fact finding missions. So he got a hold of us and says, "we've had 52 guys recommended for the Medal of Honor and not one of them are getting it. Can you find out what's wrong?" So the Senator says, "yeah I'll find out". So he went back to Washington and they said…you know the higher the medal the more stuff you have to take to get to that and the Distinguished Service Cross was the next highest next to the Congressional Medal of Honor and we found out that Congress would not look at it because of the son's of the enemy and so naturally if the Congress wont pass it the President couldn't get a chance to sign it. But we finally got one just before the end of the war. The end of the war happened in May, our 442 was sent back to Italy and one of them got it then. But since then they've opened up the investigation and there's 22 of 52 that were elevated to the Medal of Honor.

Well tell me about coming home. Did you stay in the hospital in Europe for six or eight months or did they send you right back to the United States?

No. As you get a little bit better they keep sending you a little bit farther back and so I was maybe in about four or five different hospitals in France and then finally I ended up in Paris and they said "okay you're going to be sent to a different hospital" and so I ended up in England - Chester England and so I stayed there about a month and then they said "okay we're going to send you back home to the states". Like I said going over it took us a month to get over there on a boat and I came back on a hospital ship from England in six days. Of course that's a lot shorter distance than going to Italy and so I came back to the same place at Camp Patrick Henry, that's where we left from and when we got back they said "well you people are given a choice of which hospital you want to go to" and they had this Bushnell in Brigham City and so I said "I'd like to go to Bushnell because that's near my home so I would like to go there"
And they said, "No you can't go there because that's mostly an amputee center there. You can either go to Fit Simmons in Denver Colorado or go to Percy Jones in Michigan". I said "well if that's the case I'd like to Fit Simmons in Denver because that's the next state over."
And when I found out that I was going to get to Denver I called my folks and so my dad and mother decided to come to see me in Denver but they were not able to talk very much English, very little English, you know they don't learn a whole lot sitting out there in the beat fields. So I had five younger sisters and a younger brother at home and so my sister made out a whole bunch of cards about the size of regular playing cards and on the one side there would be written in English "Where is your restroom" and the backside would show in Japanese what they were asking for and they had every kind of a conceivable situation written down. That's how they got to Denver and back and in those days you know the principle method of travel was either by bus or by train and so they thought well these busses probably stop at every little town so we'll ride the train and that's how they got to Denver and back.

Thank you so much for telling us about the 442nd Regiment. We appreciate it.

When you were ready to leave, tell us about what your mom told you again.

Well I remember her telling me "die if you need to because you're going to war but do not bring shame to your country or to your family".

And so that was kind of her passing words.

Yeah - go for broke!

But don't bring dishonor.

Don't bring any shame or disgrace to your country or to your family.

Tell us what the 442nd did that made them the most decorated unit?

Well we were the most decorated unit for our size and for the length of service we were in. There was about nearly 10,000 Purple Hearts in the 442nd of course some of them got maybe three or four. It all depends on how serious their wounds were, they didn't all end up dying but there were 9,000-something Purple Hearts. I think we got seven Presidential Citations and then when the war finally ended the rest of the 442 came back and ended up and on Constitution Avenue in Washington DC they had a parade for the 442. Oh I wanted to tell you a couple of other things that I'm really proud of. I had the honor of laying a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington and of course there's something going on most every day there but I felt that was quite an honor. Then about a month ago at the University of Utah we were decorated in person by Governor Olean Walker and I was part of the ten that day.

Well that's great. I suspect that other mothers told their Nisei sons to continue the family honor the way yours did, is that why you think the 442 exercised such bravery?

Well it might have been that way.

The reason this is curious to us is they fought so valiantly and so hard and we're really trying to figure out a reason why and so that question is a very good question. Were they all trying to preserve their honor or did they want to demonstrate their loyalty?

Well I'm sure that's part of it you know because we were branded as enemies anyway.

I'm going to ask you this question again and you just tell it to me so we get it on tape. Jim why is it in your mind that the 442nd fought so valiantly and were so decorated and were willing to give of themselves more than most soldiers?

That's a hard question.

Is there anything that stands out why they did that?

Well we were fighting for our country and I guess they wanted to prove their loyalty.

You know that's the main question why it's so interesting to us. I just assume but I wasn't there, that they were trying to prove their loyalty and they didn't want to dishonor their family and themselves and so they had a little more motivation than others.

Very probably. I don't know.

Many of the soldiers of the 442nd parents were incarcerated in internment camps and yet they fought ever so valiantly. What motivated them to do that when their parents were incarcerated?

Gosh I don't know. About all I can say to that is I'm glad there were cooler heads that were dictating what we should do.

Well I understand that but that's also interesting to most Americans that those young men would be willing to serve and yet serve with such dignity, such bravery even though their parents were incarcerated.

Right and they were asked to go into the infantry.

Did you talk to any of them when you were there and did they tell you their feelings about it?

I think most of the guys kind of had the same feeling.

Jim, thanks a lot.