Oral History Videos

Ron Oba
Interview Length: 2:12

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
That's how close we were serving hot food in the front lines. There was another time right after Hill 140, I had to take some food up, again rations, not hot cooked food, now.  At the front line you couldn't take too many hot foods too often, so I was taking food.  And then I had a detail of about five or seven men.  One guy had a mermite can of rice.  Another guy had bread.  And another guy had some kind of meat.  And two of the boys were carrying five gallon cans of water.  And as we came up the hill, the Sherman tank was shooting loud noises, "bang, bang, bang" across the hill.  And then the German Tiger tank was shooting 88mm guns at the Sherman tank.  So they were having a tank battle.  And as we came up, there was a loud, there was a Japanese Lieutenant, I can never forget his name, I mean, remember his name.  And I said, “where is F Company?”  He said on the next hill.  So, and then the tank battle began again.  So I thought I'd better get out, away from this ridge.  And I saw a faint trail going down the valley.  So I told our boys, come on, follow me.  So, while they were having this battle, I led the boys down the hill, down through this vineyard, a small little faint pathway.  Went down, went up.  We went to Fox Company.  We unloaded all our rations and what not.  And then we came back, coming down the hill, coming up the hill through the vineyard.  And as we started to come up through the rise, the tank corp guys were clapping hands, and the lieutenant was clapping his hands.  I said, “hey, what's going on?”  He said, “you know, an H Company guy went through that minefield and he got blown. We couldn't find his body.  And you guys went both ways, that way and came back.”  I said, “by God, why didn't you tell me there was a minefield.”  But they were too busy fighting the enemy, see.