[Annotator's Note: The interview begins with Dominic Fiore already in conversation with the interviewer.] Fiore's division [Annotator's Note: 39th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division], with the British on their left flank, was moving onto the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s], suddenly having to pull back eight miles. The 99th Division [Annotator's Note: the 99th Infantry Division] ran. 150 of them were captured. There was eight feet of snow. Fiore still has problems with his feet from them being frozen during the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. A German SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization] panzer division, heading for Antwerp [Annotator's Note: Antwerp, Belgium] did not want to take prisoners. They machine gunned the men and shot anyone that moved with a pistol [Annotator's Note: Malmedy Massacre, German war crime against American prisoners of war, 17 December 1944 near Malmedy, Belgium]. A single man survived. General Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] ordered that no prisoners be taken for two weeks. During that time the Germans lost over 100,000 soldiers. Those who surrendered, Fiore shot down like dogs. He still sees their faces [Annotator's Note: Fiore gets emotional]. Fiore was awarded the French Legion of Honour [Annotator's Note: highest French order of merit; est. 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte]. There was to be a bronze plaque placed on the Remagen Bridge [Annotator's Note: also known as the Ludendorff Bridge in Remagen, Germany] honoring the 99th and 78th Infantry Divisions, and the 9th Armored Division. They still have reunions.

[Annotator's Note: The interview begins with Dominic Fiore asking the interviewer not to repeat a story of his killing Germans instead of taking them prisoners. He relates this in Segment 01 – "Battle of the Bulge and Malmedy" of this interview series.] Fiore was born in February 1925 in Valley Forge [Annotator's Note: Valley Forge, Pennsylvania]. He was drafted in 1943 when he was 18 years old. He was sent to Fort Eustis Annotator's Note: now Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Newport News, Virginia] for basic training and then to Fort Meade [Annotator's Note: Fort George G. Meade in Anne Arundel County, Maryland]. He completed an infiltration course, with live fire over their heads while crawling on their bellies. Fiore, along with 20,000 troops, was shipped out to Europe on the Queen Elizabeth [Annotator's Note: RMS Queen Elizabeth], arriving in Scotland two weeks before Christmas 1943 [Annotator's Note: December 1943]. He was welcomed by a Salvation Army worker [Annotator's Note: The Salvation Army, a Christian church and international charitable organization founded in 1885] who gave him a turtleneck sweater, a sandwich, and a cup of coffee, which he has not forgotten to this day. He was 19 years old when he went into Normandy in June [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. At Fort Eustis, he went to cook school in the morning and machine gun school in the evenings [Annotator's Note: Fiore laughs]. He trained on the .50 caliber [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun]. When he would get a weekend pass [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], he would go into Norfolk [Annotator's Note: Norfolk, Virginia] or go home. His friends convinced him to get a tattoo on his arm.

Dominic Fiore [Annotator's Note: with the 39th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division] arrived overseas, stationed at a British camp called Saint Mary's Hill [Annotator's Note: Saint Mary Hill in Wales, England], living in tents and sleeping on cots. He ate a lot of mutton [Annotator's Note: lamb or sheep meat] and corned beef while there. They began maneuvers, and Fiore was attached to the 9th Division [Annotator's Note: 9th Infantry Division], which had already served in North Africa, Tunisia, Sicily [Annotator's Note: Sicily, Italy], and England, where he joined them. He later went into Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] with the division which ended up with eight battle stars [Annotator's Note: Service Star; device worn to denote subsequent awards on medals and ribbons; also called campaign stars or battle stars]. Many men were lost during a practice invasion, which the men believed to be real at the time. He witnessed a torpedo boat being sunk by a German submarine. The practice invasion took place at Southampton [Annotator's Note: Southampton, England]. There were a few false alarms before the true invasion of Normandy. Fiore knew when the real one was coming when they were served ice cream at "the last supper." During the invasion, the ship next to his was hit and sank. He landed on Utah Beach [Annotator's Note: Utah Beach, Normandy, France] at night on 6 or 10 June [Annotator's Note: 10 June 1944]. Fiore had to wade onto the beach in the water while being fired at, he was sinking until someone pulled him into the shore. The water was red and the bodies unimaginable, as they rolled with the waves. He had no feeling at all, like someone had taken everything away from him. He was not scared or excited, he was numb. Once on the beach, Fiore got and set up his gun on a tripod. There were Germans in the hedgerows [Annotator's Note: man-made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation], but he was unable to see them from his vantage point. The Germans machine gunned the G.I.s [Annotator's Note: government issue; also a slang term for an American soldier] in the back. He later got onto a half-track [Annotator's Note: a vehicle with front wheels and rear tracks], while taking sniper fire.

Dominic Fiore [Annotator's Note: with the 39th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division] was aiming his M1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand] at a sniper who had been shooting at him, but then surrendered [Annotator's Note: during D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. Fiore dropped the gun, and it went off, scaring him, and hitting the German sniper who made a terrible face while falling over. Fiore saw that face for a long time. Whenever they would start taking fire, including from Screaming Mimis [Annotator's Note: nebelwerfer; German multiple rocket launcher], they would jump out of the half-track [Annotator's Note: a vehicle with front wheels and rear tracks] and into a foxhole for cover. One time, there was a dead German in the one he chose. He was bothered by seeing dead bodies for a long time, but eventually got used to it. [Annotator's Note: Interview interrupted by telephone ringing, cuts to black for several seconds.] While in the field, they would dig slit trenches and use them as bathrooms, burying the waste and marking it as such, with a date. One day some old women came by, thinking there was a soldier buried there, laying flowers and praying around the mound. Fiore saw many prisoners [Annotator's Note: German prisoners of war] but did not speak to them. At Saint Lo (Saint-Lô) [Annotator's Note: Battle of Saint-Lô, 7 to 19 July 1944 in Saint-Lo (Saint-Lô), France], several Germans surrendered, and they had to guard them. Fiore would play with enemy soldiers, firing close enough to scare them and make them run without hitting them, then shooting back in the other direction so that they were running back and forth avoiding his bullets. After enough time in war, he became like an animal. He would never have done anything like that before. He was battle-hardened.

Once in Germany, Dominic Fiore [Annotator's Note: with the 39th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division] once hit a P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] with his .50 caliber [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun]. Once the planes were in the air, there was no communication with the ground. P-51s began strafing his unit. The Germans had sometimes captured P-51s, so he did not know if they were American or German. The men on the ground began firing flares, which were different colors every day, to alert the pilot. The plane did not pay attention to the flares and continued to strafe so Fiore fired at it and shot it down. Captain Henderson [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] told Fiore he did the right thing, although it turned out to be an American plane. He also shot down an Me-109 [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter aircraft] the same way. After a while, he became very cold-hearted, and would laugh at watching men die. Fiore, as a religious man, wonders if he will have to pay for what he did one day.