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Show Japs of U. S. Army Are Heroic in Battle Fight Through German Artillery; Lead Amerioah Division to Victory in Italy. American soldiers of Japanese descent de-scent now fighting in the battle lines along the road to Rome came through their first test under Nazi fire with flying fly-ing colors, according to reports to the war department from Fifth army headquarters in Italy. A United States army officer, visiting the 100th infantry infan-try battalion's bivouac area spread out on both sides of the historic, muddy, mud-dy, cratered, Appian Way, I - - but the men stuck it out as though they were used to having dynamite explode in the middle of themselves every day in the week." "There are some things," said the chief of staff of the division, "that nobody can learn any other way than in battle. These men have been in battle and they're good. We like them." found the encampment "typically "typi-cally doughboy" in its layout. A shattered, one-story cement storehouse was the command post. Pup tents disappeared in all directions under grape vines and apple trees. Rich, dark soil of the floor of the valley on which they were living was rain-soaked by three days continuous continu-ous showers and had turned to a sticky, oozing mud. "These soldiers are as far away from the stereotyped picture of the evil-doing sons of Japan as the all-American all-American boy is fromaheadhunter," reported the officer. "It's in their faces. They obviously believe in what they're doing, and look calmly secure because of it. They are in the habit of enjoying life like any good American. They like the world they live in." In the words of the commander of the force of which the American soldiers sol-diers of Japanese descent are a part: "They don't ask for anything. We don't give them anything that isn't given to all the other units in our command. They're fighting, with the rest of us, taking their regular turn." Jap Unit's First Action. The outfit's first action was fought by a company commanded by Capt. Taro Suzuki of Honolulu, a veteran of 16 years in the army, 13 of which were served in the reserve. "It was our own fight," Captain Suzuki said. "The company had to sink or swim by itself. We had walked by blown out bridges that stopped heavy artillery from being brought up behind us and then worked our way down a winding road. The bends cut us off from View of our own supporting infantry. I "Our leading scouts rounded a bend and three German machine guns opened up. There was nothing to do but go to work on them alone because be-cause nobody to the rear could see to fire the heavy stuff. One platoon pla-toon went out to the right, one straight ahead, and a squad went off to the left. Trouble was, every time a man would stick his head up to take a look, machine gun bullets cut right close by. ! "As if we didn't have trouble enough, the Germans broke everything every-thing loose on us machine guns, mortars, rifles and heavy artillery. , "You know what stopped all that Nazi wrath? Our little 60 mm. mortars. We got them on there and they went right in. The machine gunners gun-ners pulled out after the big guns quit and our riflemen started making mak-ing rapid headway on them." This was the first action of the American-Japanese. Their march began at 5:30 in the morning, the fight lasted until nearly noon, and the company still was pushing ahead in the afternoon. A Jap Hero. Hero of the first show was a sergeant ser-geant from Oahu. "We want him to get one of the highest awards," a high-ranking officer of-ficer said. "He led the squad that Captain Suzuki sent out to the left after one of those machine guns. " 'It's the first time,' the sergeant said, 'so I'm going first.' " In the infantry, the first scout is usually a private. When a shell got him, he hung on long enough to tell the man taking over command all he knew about German gun positions. In their first engagement, the American-Japanese were under fire four days and had a chance to answer an-swer the Germans' fire for two of those. They were given the lead of a veteran American division that glorified itself in the mountains of Tunisia. Division officers point to an artillery artil-lery barrage the force went through as proving their worth as soldiers. Maj. James Lovell of Hastings, Neb., and Honolulu was in charge. "It was at night," he said, "and it was raining. The mud had begun to get thick, which proved a lucky break for us. I think some of those shells just plowed on into the softness and never did explode. There were shells going over and shells going short and a good many coming right into the middle of us, I |
