The Purple Heart (42 page)

Dearest
Minami,

I’m
here in Italy now, driving the Nazis up north. It’s a tough campaign, but we Japanese
Americans are showing everyone that we are great soldiers. We’ve been pretty
successful, and if we continue to do this well, we’ll win the war yet and I’ll
be home soon.

I’m
writing to you right now by a small fire here in the dark. It’s not cold, it’s
actually quite warm and we’re far away from any Nazi positions. We’re
liberating these small Italian towns along the western coast.

But
I need to write to you because I have something to tell you. It’s bad news.
Kenji is dead.

I
should have checked, but we entered this building. I thought all the Nazi
soldiers were dead. But one of them was still alive. He shot Kenji. I couldn’t
save him. I held him so tightly in my arms, hoping that he would come back to
life, but he never did. I don’t know why, but I blame myself. Kenji was like
the little brother I never had, and I should have been able to protect him.

That’s
not the worst of it. I tried to send word to his older brother but learned that
he too had also been killed. The Yasudas will be so hurt by this news. But tell
them that their sons fought bravely. Tell them that they were good American
soldiers. I can’t speak for Kenji’s brother, though I’m sure he would have
wanted to say the same. Please tell Kenji’s parents for me that their son
wanted me to tell them that he loves them.

Also, Kenji wanted me to pass on another
message. Tell Miho that she was the last thought on Kenji’s mind and that he
said she was the cutest girl he had ever known. I think Miho would like to know
that. Tell Miho, also, that Kenji’s last thought was a good one before he
closed his eyes forever.

I
will write soon but I needed you to tell you this for Kenji.

I
love you.

Lovingly
yours,

Hiroshi

“I just saw three of them
moving eastward at the intersection,” said Hiroshi. A couple of days before
they set out to take the town of Casteneto, the company’s commander had
promoted Hiroshi to the rank of sergeant for his heroic deed back in the town
of Sasseta. Hiroshi was now in command of his own squad of soldiers. It
surprised many of the troops, but they had welcomed it because they could share
in the pride that one of their own was being recognized for his bravery.

It was something that
Hiroshi didn’t expect nor want. But he took the promotion out of duty to his
men. Hiroshi was in charge of the squad that also included Peter and Akira.

Intelligence suggested that
this town was more heavily defended than the last one. The Nazis had regrouped
as the U.S. Army moved north. There was also the possibility that Nazi
reinforcements had also arrived to build up the position within the town.

Hiroshi had led his squad
up to a grouping of trees that stood along a curvy road leading into the quiet
town. Peter crouched down behind Hiroshi, who surveyed the street with his
binoculars. Akira took up position behind a tree to the right of Hiroshi, along
with the other men, using the trees and foliage as cover.

Hiroshi, along with the
other squad leaders, was tasked with securing the outer perimeter and the
immediate block of buildings surrounding the town. The town revealed little
about what lay within its perimeter and a shroud of silence guarded it. Air
support had already bombed the visible targets such as tanks and sandbag
bunkers. Barricades that were erected to slow the intrusion of any U.S.-led
attack were also bombed and created a messy obstacle of bombed-out debris.

In order to fully secure
the town, it was necessary for infantry to flush out the Nazis, one building at
a time. The enemy numbers were still unknown.

Hiroshi wasn’t able to
determine anything particularly useful as he spied the town from its outskirts.
He wasn’t sure, but he thought he could make out the end of a tank barrel
jutting out from the corner of the building on the northeast corner of the
intersection. Hiroshi looked to his left to the other sergeant, who had taken
up his own position behind an outcropping of trees with his own men.

The other sergeant put down
his binoculars, looked at Hiroshi and signaled his own assessment. He confirmed
the men running eastward and confirmed for Hiroshi the presence of a tank.
However, whether or not the tank was intact was unknown.

Hiroshi and the other
sergeant decided to proceed with their assigned task. Hiroshi’s squad took the
street entrance on the right, and the other sergeant took the one on the left.
In quiet unison, a contingent of determined soldiers emerged from the trees.
They were slightly hunched over, carrying their rifles low in front of them as
they approached the town. When they were halfway to their destination, Hiroshi
signaled his men to make a quiet run to the buildings’ walls.

Hiroshi threw his right
side into the wall, with Peter close behind. The other men followed. Hiroshi
signaled to two men on the end, who nodded and turned about face to cover their
six. He signaled to two other men to watch the windows above as they angled
their rifles upward. Hiroshi signaled to Akira to prepare himself. Akira nodded
as four other men behind him readied themselves.

Hiroshi peered around the
corner and looked down the abandoned street. There were at least four closed
doors on his side of the street, and he counted five closed doors on the other.
Hiroshi angled his rifle around the corner and Peter came around below him in a
crouched position to provide cover fire. With Akira in the lead and the other
four soldiers in two by two formation, they quickly scurried around the corner,
kicked in the first door and raced into the building. Hiroshi held his
position. His breathing was slow and deliberate as he watched the end of the
street and the dark windows from across the street for any sign of movement. It
was too quiet, he thought. He could feel the Nazi soldiers. Hiroshi heard some
faint footsteps coming from inside the building. Akira was good at this,
breaching a building and flushing out any troops.

Akira’s head soon appeared
from the doorframe, and he signaled to Hiroshi that the first building was
clear. Hiroshi signaled to the rest of the men behind him, and they raced
around the corner into the building. They found themselves in a living room
with two windows with their shutters closed. The soldiers quickly opened the
windows and two soldiers positioned their rifles along them. Hiroshi approached
the door and turned around with his rifle aimed at the rooftops across the
street, where suddenly three Nazi soldiers rose up and aimed their guns at him.

“Rooftop!” yelled Hiroshi
as he twisted his body and dove through the door. The Japanese American
soldiers by the window immediately angled their rifles upward when the shutters
across the street suddenly opened, revealing the tops of sandbags and two
machine guns.

“Machine guns across the
street!” yelled a soldier at the windows as they threw themselves onto the
floor. A barrage of bullets flew through the windows, shredding everything in
their path. Hiroshi turned onto his back and kicked the door shut just as
several bullets pierced the wooden door and lodged into the staircase directly
behind him. Hiroshi rolled to his left as more bullets ripped the top part of
the wooden door into shards. Hiroshi threw himself into a corner and quickly
looked around. All his men were crouched low. Luckily, the building was made of
stone, which provided some protection from the hail of bullets.

Hiroshi looked at two men
against the far wall and yelled, “Bazooka! Lower windows!” The two men
understood and removed the bazookas from their backs. He looked over at Akira
as plaster danced off his helmet. “Grenades! Delayed throw at the windows!”
Akira nodded and pulled off two grenades. “Peter, cover fire for Akira!” Peter
nodded as he moved behind Akira, who was already behind the door. Hiroshi
looked at the four men crouched below the windows, who looked at him for
instructions. Splinters of wood from the windowsill fell on top of their
helmets and he blurted out, “Cover fire, now!” As if on cue, Akira pulled the
pins from his two grenades and counted.

The four soldiers nodded
and got up from their crouched positions. They vigorously fired into the
windows across the street. The Nazi machine gunners saw their chance and fired
back into the windows just as the door across the street opened. Peter appeared
from the door and fired right at them as Akira appeared from behind and lobbed
two grenades toward the two windows. Peter slammed the door shut as another round
of rifle bullets pierced through it.

The grenades exploded
directly in front of the two windows across the street, creating two red balls
of fire that sent up shrapnel and smoke. With the fiery distraction, the two
men with the bazookas quickly took up positions in front of each window and
shot their bazookas through the windows across the street. The explosion rocked
the entire lower level of the building as smoke billowed out of the two lower
windows.

The Nazi soldiers on the
roofline, however, did not relent. They fired into the windows. One bullet
found its mark and pierced the left shoulder of one of the Japanese American
soldiers, sending him reeling in pain to the floor. Hiroshi quickly pulled him
aside as he grimaced in pain. “Cover fire now!” Hiroshi yelled out as he
motioned to another soldier to tend to the injured soldier, while another took
up position by the window. “Bazooka, upper window, aim for the ceiling!” yelled
Hiroshi. The other soldiers laid down cover fire at the rooftop, sending the
Nazi troops crouching. The soldier aimed into the upper window and fired his
bazooka. The ball of fire erupted as fire, smoke, and debris exited the upper
windows just as the roof caved in.

“Secure the building now!”
yelled Hiroshi.

Akira and Peter, along with
four other soldiers, ran into the street, kicked down the door and stormed the
building. Hiroshi and the remaining men covered them from the windows and
doorway as their eyes darted along the rooftop and the adjacent buildings for
any other signs of movement. Hiroshi heard isolated shots and assumed that his
men were putting bullets through the heads of any Nazi soldiers that they
found.

Hiroshi heard a whistle and
looked up at one of the windows on the second floor. The opening in the ceiling
made by the bazooka illuminated the dark room. Dust sailed out of the window,
but Hiroshi could see Akira’s face as he signaled that the building was clear.
The distant sound of bullets and grenade explosions rang through the air.
Hiroshi assumed other squads were encountering similar Nazi resistance
elsewhere.

Hiroshi signaled for Akira
to meet him on the ground floor. The wounded soldier was quickly bandaged up
and insisted that he could still fire his rifle. Hiroshi wasn’t going to deny
him the opportunity. Hiroshi and the remaining men filed out of the building
and took up defensive positions by the doorway. They listened for any
suspicious sounds that may give away the presence of any Nazi soldiers, but
there was none.

Hiroshi took point, as did
Akira across the street. They exchanged a few hand signals and agreed on their
plan of action. Hiroshi and a second soldier took up a position on either side
of the second door. A third soldier, using the butt of his rifle, knocked in
the window shutter of the building as another soldier tossed in a grenade that
detonated, sending out a puff of smoke. The door gave way to Hiroshi’s powerful
kick and three soldiers immediately went in to secure the second house. Hiroshi
entered as two other soldiers watched the doorway. The first floor of the
second building was empty, as was the kitchen in the back. The three soldiers
who entered first made a quick sweep of the second floor and found no one. It
seemed that the house had been abandoned some time earlier. Hiroshi, along with
the other soldiers, quickly filed out and prepared to take the third building.

Peter and Akira were in a
similar situation across the street. For the third building, Hiroshi and his
men repeated the same steps. As the grenade blast dissipated, they were in
another living room, with debris scattered everywhere. Hiroshi was about to
direct his men upstairs when a creak in the floorboards came from the ceiling
above.

Hiroshi signaled to his
soldiers to be quiet. He looked up and saw the holes in the ceiling. Light
tunneled through the holes catching the dust in the rays of light. Suddenly
something in the room above cast a shadow, momentarily blocking the light.

Hiroshi reacted quickly.
“Take cover!” he yelled.

Bullets suddenly rained
down from the ceiling as an unknown number of soldiers above fired through the
floor into the living room below. Hiroshi and his men made their way over to
the far wall, just out of reach of the bullets when they heard the ominous
sound of clunking metal bouncing on wood. Grenades were tumbling down the
staircase. Hiroshi, followed by the other soldiers, lunged forward through the
doorway. The explosion sent a blast that followed them, singeing their backs.
The last soldier caught some shrapnel in his calves and yelled out in pain.

Hiroshi quickly took up a
position beside the door. The soldiers fanned out and dragged the injured
soldier out of the way. Hiroshi could still hear shots being fired from inside.

Akira had entered the
building across the street. Shots could be heard from the second floor. Akira
made it up the steps more quickly and was engaged in a shootout with Nazi
troops. Two of Akira’s soldiers were manning the door across the street but had
turned to Hiroshi’s position after hearing the grenades explode.

Thinking quickly, Hiroshi
signaled to one of them to shoot his bazooka into the window of the building above
him. He acknowledged, removed his bazooka, and took aim just as one of the
shutters to the second-floor window opened. The bazooka fired and went right
into the window. The explosion sent out a fiery blast and blew apart the closed
shutter of the other window as well.

Hiroshi quickly rushed back
into the building, along with three other soldiers, and listened for any sounds
as he crouched along the bottom of the stairway. Dust and ash covered his face
as he regripped his rifle. No additional sounds came from above, but he heard
an explosion coming from across the street. He signaled to his men with his
eyes, then rushed up the stairs and took up a defensive position at the top of
the stairs. Two other soldiers took up position at the base of the stairs and
one soldier positioned himself atop the banister next to Hiroshi. The dust was
still settling, and he was able to make out at least one Nazi underneath a pile
of ceiling plaster.

Hiroshi quietly counted
two, possibly three rooms. He rushed to the front room, where the Nazi soldier
was, followed by one of his soldiers. The third soldier rushed into the
adjacent room while the last soldier covered them. Three Nazi soldiers were
lying on the ground, two face up, one face down, and they were covered in whitish-grayish
ash. The smell of gunpowder and explosive residue singed the air. They lay
motionless with their rifles beside them. Hiroshi quickly kicked the three
rifles aside when suddenly he heard a shot from the room next to him. The
soldier who was in the room with Hiroshi quickly exited the room to investigate
as did the soldier by the banister. Hiroshi began to follow his men.