The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
What branch are we talking about?
Army infantry. That's the dogface boys-the ones that went right up to the
frontline and kicked them on the shin.
So you were mainly trained in shooting-that was your expertise?
No, you were trained in everything. {Tape stopped then restarted} We were
ambushed at night, and I was on the machine gun. Where we would say
"Charge!" they used the word, "Banzai!" and it was usually done at night. The
whole bunch would charge the machine gun, and their theory was that if everyone
of them got killed, if one man got to the machine gun, they thought they were
successful. I was setting the machine gun up, and this little old road that went
around kind of a short mountain, and I set mine up facing the road, and tried to
head the way the enemy was gonna come. You always used a booby trap at night
to help you know that something's coming. A booby trap's made out of hand
grenades. They come in a little tube about so big-about like what biscuits
comes in-with one hand grenade in it. You'd take the hand grenade out, and it's
got a pin and a handle. You had to pull the pin, and you'd throw it, and it would
go off in ten seconds. The way you set up for a booby trap, you pulled the pin out
and pushed it back in there. As long as it's in there, the handle won't come up.
You tied this box on one side of the road to a bush or a 'stob' and tie a sling on
the hand grenade going across the road and tie it to something over there, so
when he'd come over, he'd trip and jerk it out of that box, and it would blow up
in ten seconds. We'd always set that, so this night it was set, and when it would
go off it popped like a cap pistol. Well that thing went off, and man I started, and
they came out there running so fast until I just laid them down like shooting
dominoes, and they stopped. The last man fell about three foot from my foxhole,
and that's his bayonet right there {showing gun to Interviewer}.
So you were actually in a foxhole. Is that like a small ditch?
Well, you'd dig your foxhole at night. Everybody digs a foxhole. I'd set my
machine gun up out of the foxhole right even with the ground, and all you've got
sticking up is head or your eyes. When you're behind a machine gun, you feel
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