Oral History Videos

Daniel Inouye
Interview Length: 2:13

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
So I said let's keep on going because that was the mission up there.  And as we progressed we came upon several machine guns.  As I think there were three of them.  Luckily the first one I was able to knock out with couple of grenades.  And then suddenly, a German stood up, that I remember.  And he pointed a rifle at me, and I could see in the muzzle, a grenade.  One of those grenade launchers.  And I thought, "Oh boy, he's going to fire at me and my whole body will explode."

He fired and he, thank God, was a lousy shot.  He hit my elbow.  At that time, I had a grenade in my right hand, and I was about to throw that and that's when I saw him and he shot my elbow.  And this part I remember.  I looked around for the grenade.  Because the pin had already been pulled.  And men were in the back of me.  I didn't want them to get shot at.  So I'm looking around and all of a sudden I look at my arm and it's dangling.  And the grenade is firmly in the grip, the muscles get frozen.  So I peeled it off and I threw it.  My aim was good, fortunately.

And then this is the part that I am not too sure of, but the men remember this part.  I picked up the gun with my left hand, my sub-machine gun.  And I started moving forward to attack the last machine gun.  It must have been a bloody sight.  With my arm dangling and blood squirting and I'm firing this gun.  When you think back, it's crazy and sometimes you chuckle about it.