WWII Paratrooper Robert Izumi, 101st Airborne Division (Full Interview)

when the 88 shoots you you can hear it and you go you can hear it boy can you hear that noise you better duck born in coyote pass california september 18 1924. wow now you went to school with someone famous didn't you yes her name was norma jean baker was turned out to be meryl monroe she quit school at about the 10th grade did you know her well i swear she blossomed out did you know her well no i didn't know well she was next to me in the in the homeroom and i think it was english okay were you surprised when she became that famous no i didn't think nothing about it didn't think anything about it um well so if you were born in 1924 you're 17 years old when pearl harbor is attacked yes what are you thinking i was thinking i was roller skating with a fella named chuck fine and i said and we said to chuck i said boy they're going to get something kicked in there and i roller skated home and told my dad about it and he says well we better be careful and watch what you're doing right of course because you're japanese so did that make did it make you immediately fearful i didn't feel that way because i was a kind of a road rogue oriental or i didn't think about that because i was mostly fooling around with caucasian boys but the rest of my brothers and and my sister were all all japanese americans and they they went to japanese school and everything but i didn't do it okay i didn't right so what was your reaction when your family was sent to an internment camp well i was a little guy so i didn't feel bad seeing a like i say seen a machine gun follow me back and forth until we got on the bus and things like that i didn't i didn't think well i thought it was exciting exciting yeah i thought because you know when i think uh on the young fellas nowadays they don't think about what's going to happen tomorrow right what was it like living in the internment camp i still had a lot of fun uh it was just two of us and we dug under the we followed the spotlights that would when it would go or get dark or come back wouldn't know when it going we would start digging and we dig under the barbed wire and went up toward the mountain a little river there and we made a little place probably then someone can jump in there when they don't know it it was pretty good all right so um how long were you there in the camp no not quite a year okay did that impact your decision at all to join the service no i wanted to finish school which i did and then i joined the service i had a brother in the service when the japanese attacked pearl harbor if you know history of it well a president roosevelt said anybody can join the service and then get out in the year and so my brother frank and jack flipped for it and my brother jack lost so he had to go to in the service but he went into uh mis which is military intelligence service for the japanese americans yeah and then the japanese attacked pearl harbor and then we got caught going into the camps so when did you join the army what was that when did you join the army during the army in september and in june 1944. okay they're out of school where did you train trained in camp landing florida okay and at that point you were attached to the 442nd yes okay which is the all-japanese unit yes sir and how long before you were sent to europe uh let's see june july august september oh that was pretty quick yeah well the basic training wasn't had to be real rough and you had to learn real fast right right where did they send you in europe at first went to france and where in france uh just south of uh i can't think of the name of that town anyway we were just south of uh town for uh from uh see beginning of september october or november november well into december i i volunteered for uh september i volunteered to go into the to the paratroopers right right and they they accepted me we'll get to that in just a moment so um when you got to europe so it's the fall of 1944 uh d-day had just happened a couple months earlier the breakout had happened had just happened how much optimism was there that this was going to be over fairly soon well i didn't i didn't feel none of that i just just continued going and and and i didn't i didn't feel no uh no bad feelings okay did you were you in combat with the 442nd yes stay there behind as a um any aircraft okay what was that like your first combat well it's not rough it wasn't rough for me um and maybe ruffled was we were we were the rear echelon and shells would come in but not that bad how did you hear about the paratroopers how did why did you decide to volunteer i transferred i want to transfer into paratrooper is i want to go into the aviation when i first got into it so the only way i get close to aviation is jumping out of airplanes so i volunteered and they accepted me excellent okay so september of 1944 was the operation in holland right i didn't get i didn't get there you weren't there then but they obviously came they came back they did not succeed so what was the morale like when you joined them the morale is all it was always high in the 101st airborne the morale never was no it's always great regardless of the of the casualty that i didn't see but uh from there we were trucked into uh bastogne and so that's the bulge that was the boat it's late 1944 and the germans are basically desperate for a major right and then punch westward we went in there and a fellow named jim brown who was alive he's my mentor and he says remember this name that stone because we're going to make history but we didn't think nothing about it and then and then we were fought there and we were surrounded and we didn't hit make history the 100 verse there you most certainly did what did you know about the mission at that point when you first started it didn't know nothing just nothing no just went into the forest there and started snowing it had about four feet of snow the most worst uh winter that belgium had freezing freezing cold right yes most of the people they think that they died of gunshot wounds or something but most of the troopers are froze to death how did you deal with that well like i said um mr uh well pfc uh p martin showed us how to dig a foxhole and put put uh chop down the tree and put it on there and then not sleep in the bottom because the snow in the water would go in the bottom and i would sleep on top of it see but most of the troops didn't understand that but they slept in the water and they flew us to death wow yeah we just talked to p.e martin a couple of years ago he's in a minute well i talked to him yesterday oh yeah cause he knew he knew uh colonel cole oh yeah sure yeah so i i got on my cell phone and i said period i got a surprise for you and we he talked in children and they talked to together for a long time and peewee thanked me and i said don't thank me because i should thank you for what you taught me which i do say to him every day every time i call him that really did save your life yeah well he should save my life by showing me how to live on above ground right right well it wasn't above ground but i love it above the snow and yeah and the water yeah wow so what was the first engagement with the enemy like at pathstone well you can see shells over my head and you can hear that the uh 88 the 88 you can never never forget it when the 88 shoots you you can hear it and you go you can hear it boy you can hear that noise you better duck yeah how close did the combat get well maybe from uh here to the wall really yes wow what was that like it wasn't scary you had to you had this just fight for your life was it hand to hand at any point no i knew what it was just a few feet apart yeah and christmas time we sang for uh silent night in the germans saying saturday night we could hear him there was no shots until one minute after 12 more and then hell brokers oh just a little bit of a christmas respite either side dude yeah exactly so talk about the hell breaking loose what was that like that was it was pretty rough and then i got into the church in in bastogne and that i can remember i was laying down a cell 88 came through and went to the back and it didn't explode and the nurse that was there i met her again 60 years later but she don't remember the shell so i just uh she must have been someplace else but she remembers the fighting in that church and it's here and she in chino wow yeah so how long this this played out for weeks at pastone correct yes is it uh september december i'm in december uh we went out there january 10th or 12th who walked out of there at what point did you at what point were you confident that you were going to hold there was nothing no confidence no confidence i didn't no wow did that in point did you think you were going to get broken through no no we didn't we stood fast you didn't think about the big picture you're just thinking about what's in front of you right you have to exactly and that stone while fighting was happening a p-47 came came down and the germans shot him down and he crash-landed near our near our post our narrow hole dug in so jim martin and mr anderson from i think he's from arizona and i was back there and as he as he crash landed the pilot came out and peri martin and then and the medic saved him and i helped him and 60 years later this gentleman went to a reunion and he tapped me on the back and i nobody taps me on the back and i saw him back and he hit him i didn't mean to and he was and he it was a full board colonel colonel craig but at that time he was lieutenant craig and he said and he says you don't remember me i said no i said i don't remember you he says i remember you and two other people saving me and i said oh i remember that deal he says i'm the man that the two gentlemen saved and and i'm the one that was driving the vehicles down to bastogne anyway he said you say you just you was part of the man that saved my life and we talked and then we and and we got to be good friends then about a few years later last year he passed this year oh this year he passed away well anyway he passed away and then another gentleman called me and he he says uh are you mr bob assuming i said yes sir he says i'm mr craig i said you colonel craig i said no he said no he said i'm colonel craig's son if it wasn't for you and the three gentleman i wouldn't be talking to you so we so we became good friends in town how does that make you feel it made me feel good it made me feel good and i told jim martin about it and he was said thank you and everything that's amazing a whole legacy a whole family yeah well another one was a little girl who was marching out of uh bastogne she come and hugged me and everything and said thank you and flemish not not they spoke flemish but now they were there got away from it they speak all french now flemish is a i don't know it's a different language so uh this lady come up to me and give me a hug and everything and i pushed her away i shouldn't have pushed her away but i didn't i i was wondering what she wanted saying and she said do you remember me i said no and then she brought out a picture you remember this little girl i said yes he says she said that was me and so every year i went there she would bring me a great big bunch of uh poinsettias and said thank you yeah and now she's in an old ladies home and she got the whole time or something she just remembered me things like that so there's two key lessons here it seems to me number one you never know the impact you have on the legacy of a family afterwards yes sir and secondly never surprise you no don't don't do that oh but those are those are great stories uh it seems to me i know i read that you were the only japanese member of your unit but from what you've told me so far anyway it doesn't seem like there was any problem no no no no racial problem at all that did that surprise you at all no i didn't think nothing about it okay and they didn't think anything of it obviously because we were fighting you're not thinking about oh that that was a japanese god or there was a black guy or something like that true but but the service was segregated at the time so it was it was a fairly unique situation yeah right so they they worked with me right along i didn't no no problems fantastic what was your reaction when you found out that you had held the battle was over and the allies had held the line at bastogne no i well the question is kind of rough sorry what was your reaction when you realized that you had held at bastogne that the battle was over and that you won oh we all marched out we didn't think nothing about it much out then from there we went to the rhine river and the ryan river went we marched up into hagenal the last concentration camp and then from there we went into purchase garden then my officer captain ken said uh and captain dowdy said uh go on down and get me a find me a command post so uh a guy named bob parks and i went down and i got a command of the command post and they came down and took over the house and we didn't have nothing good to eat for about two weeks so uh we went up into the uh up hill there and i saw we're going to get trying to hunt for a deer or something so i saw a cow there and i said i'll shoot the cows but i can't skin it but bob parker's from georgia so he was a farmer he didn't know how to skin it so i and i said he said well i'll skin the cow you shoot it so i shot the cow and we took it down and he skinned it we had steak and 60 years where later captain ken said i had to pay the burger master for the cow burger marsh is the mayor means the mayor so he said before i passed away i wanted i want to know who who shot the cow and bob parks go like this and he says bob is going to kill the cow so i said i said he skinned it he said oh that's okay that's all i just wanted to know and that's true story was the steak good oh it was good yeah guys the guys didn't have no nothing to eat for a long time we didn't have nothing we didn't have no k rations with us or nothing wow you mentioned hagenau after crossing the rhine and going to germany and the concentration camp there what was that experience like for you well i didn't uh we liberated the uh i did we didn't real but we just were going toward purchase garden and we went through haganah and uh we went into the camp we i saw a dead person there we don't know and captain kant told um i was uh right of captain kan and uh forgot named the other fellow zielinski ed zielinski or or another gentleman anyway he told the gentleman to go find a blanket or a black uh or something to cover the gentleman but before he he then so he left and another man came walking out which was kept a jewish fellow he came in he knew he must have known the gentleman that was passed away on the ground and he opened his mouth and he took out his teeth and put in his mouth and walked off i'll never forget that that'd be hard to forget no it's hard to forget because he i guess he knew what the goal was worth at that time yes and from there we went up to british garden hitler's eagle's nest yes we were the first man to go and hit her eagle's nest and there's a picture of me and a fellow named aubry jackson sitting in the chair looking at it out of the uh window and people say oh you got you weren't there but you can see it's me sitting in this in hitler's chair did you rate it did you rate his wine cellar too no colonel sink and some of the other fellows went down there and gave the wine cellar and down the cell there were barrels of silver and they took the silver and made silver cups for all the officers that was alive so after many many years if you got out of service uh this if you find if you ever have that silver cup it's worth over somebody will pay you ten thousand dollars for that cup wow it's made out of hitler's coins and and colonel sink made made the name of all the officers when they jumped on d-day and everything inscribed on the silver cup so i got out of service many years later i found out that uh captain van approves uh niece niece had this silver cup and all of his pictures of when he joined the service so i went to lancaster california knocked on the door and i said and so and so on so and so identify myself i found out that you have some of the captain that amtrak's item she said oh yeah i was going to throw them away so she he had two albums of when he joined the service and he got killed on dj anyway and he had she had that cup and she says you can have this cup i was going to throw it away and i said well i'll sign for it because that cup is worth over five thousand at that time over five thousand dollars somebody would wouldn't would uh give him that money so she said oh i don't know money so i signed a piece of paper i gave it to him and i took it to tokoa and and pewdie martin knew captain can't i'm the captain of the wood uh i mean van ampre so he said let me take this he and i will carry this cup to honor the the captain that was killed on d-day so we walked up to koa mountain and got on top of the mountain where they took training and we said a prayer for him and took it back down and put it into into the museum and it's still there tremendous where were you when the war officially ended in europe i was in uh uh i was in burch's garden you're still there yeah okay and then from there we uh general taylor told the colonel think that we better leave because the snow will be coming so we all picked up and went to john a france where we uh we all got together and and uh colonel six brought me into his office said i can't take you to japan we're gonna go to japan i can't take you to japan because you're a japanese american i said my brother is over there as mis he says what's mis he didn't know i said military intelligence service for the japanese american fighting so he said oh i didn't know that anyway days later the japanese signed the paper and then he called me and said well you're not we're not going anyway so he says where do you want to go i said and i said high pointers high pointers i mean a fellow that was fought and all that from d-day all the way to the end were high pointers and they got to go home early but i was a low pointer so i said he said where do you want to go i said i'd like to go join the 82nd airborne and he said well this is the 508th is going to go to frankfurt germany you know by hamburg germany and start school there and be general eisenhower and general patton and general mcnaughty's honor guard so i said i like to go there so i went there and i was general patton's honor guard and i was there when he was hit in on his uh weapons carrier and then from there they took him they took him to the 97th general hospital from there they took him to uh that's where i passed away yeah and his his uh his uh bureau governor there that's right what was he like wonderful man he would always as i stand god he would stop and say how's everything going and he said it's bad let me know things like that he would he was but people say he was a bad general but i thought he was he was a wonderful man troops loved him right yeah yeah wow so when did you finally get home got home late 47 i guess okay i don't remember okay yeah and then you were also in the korean war correct yes with what unit then i was down there with communications unit and in kunsan korea and a guy named sergeant willoughby and i would go inside where we found out that the korean ladies didn't want their babies and they would take him in certain into the castle i mean in that in a cave but i would we would go in there and get the babies out and take them to the uh we made the shin go on orphanage and then pop he the president came down give me the medal of uh no give me the uh anyway some kind of metal some kind of a humanitarian award but i don't either i don't read that that's fantastic yeah did you see combat in korea yes not combat just behind the lines okay and vietnam vietnam uh i was uh i was a communications specialist on the mekong river and i saw general stewart's jimmy stewart fly out of our base twice and i off-duty i would i would go with the i don't think there were seals there were patrol boats along the mekong river up and down river and it was i saw the dragon ship you know what the dragon ship is it's it's a c-47 with a 20-millimeter guns on side shooting down and things like that it was it was a could you save a pilot there too oh and i oh yeah i saved the pilot that's all right well tell me a little bit more about that that sounds well like a pattern now you saved one the the pilot went down and i knew where he was so at that time he had to go through the vietnamese village chief to get the okay to go in there so why was we there if i can't go get that pilot down so i had to contact my my co went to go and see him he said you can't go there if if the if the uh village chief said no so went back to placement and hit the button and then with the hearing got him out and i got reprimanded and it write it and as i got reverend a few months later it comes and he said give me the bronze star i said what's the bomb star for he said for help and save that pilot i said you you just you told me i couldn't do it and and he said i'd get i'll get you for this so this will be an order i said why are we there technically why are we there see it doesn't say that we're at war but we're there but we can't do that unless the government the vietnamese government says i can do it it's it's a it was a vicious war you

Channel: American Veterans Center

Views: 27,640

Keywords: AVC, American Veterans Center, veteran, veterans, history, army, navy, air force, marines, coast guard, military, navy seal

Id: lqdsxadrPQs

Length: 30min 23sec (1823 seconds)

Published: Thu May 06 2021