Oral History Videos

Young Oak Kim
Interview Length: 2:10

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
We got across, probably very close to 1:00 in the morning.  And so now we’re laying on that little ledge between the barbed wire and the German ditch.  The Germans could reach out and touch us if they so choose.  I picked that time because I figure when they first come up there gonna be very alert.  But around midnight they're gonna be - nothing is happening and what not, they're gonna be least alert.  And then in another hour or two, they’re gonna be ready to leave, and so they're gonna be busy.  And so Irving and I laid there until almost 4:00 in the morning.  We had to lay motionless make no sound and just pray to God and wish that a German doesn’t look more carefully or even just doesn't look, period.

INTERVIEWER: You're fully exposed?  I mean right there near the...

Yeah.  We're right, you know, actually you’re further away right now than we were to the Germans at that point.  We’re laying right here and they’re sitting right there walking back and forth and talking and what not, and all they gotta do is look and they can see us.  But see, if you're not alert and you don’t think that there's any real danger, who would think there'd be someone dumb enough to come across that barbed wire and lay there in front of us, see?  They didn’t look.  And of course about 3:00 or very close to 2:30 or 3:00, now they’re getting busy ready to leave, you know, they’re picking up their weapons and everything and they got their routine.  And so very close to 4:00 or 4:30 or something like that, with the first trace of light come in, they leave.  So, Irving and I followed them, except we stay about 10 yards behind them.