Lawrence Yatsu served as a replacement with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Company C, 100th Infantry Battalion. He joined the unit near Nice in Southern France. They then went to Italy and fought on the Gothic Line. Yatsu's parents were from Japan. His father came to the United States on a student visa. He liked it and decided to stay. Around the time of the Oriental Exclusion Act, Yatsu's father returned to Japan, found a wife, and returned to the United States. Yatsu was born shortly after that in Pasadena, California. Yatsu grew up in Los Angeles but his family moved to Upland when the Great Depression started. Even as a preschooler he helped out in the family store. During the Depression his father worked as a gardener and his mom worked as a cook. Yatsu does not remember having any problems as a kid.

Lawrence Yatsu was in the eleventh grade when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. It was one of the worst incidents in his life. After the attack all of the Japanese on the West Coast were evacuated inland to relocation camps. In the camps they lived in army-style barracks. There was barbed wire around the camp and MPs [Annotator's Note: military police] guarding it. Still, Yatsu would sneak out and go to the Colorado River. Yatsu was playing in his yard when a neighbor kid came over and told him that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor. He and his family were shocked. At the time of the attack Yatsu's parents had family back in Japan. During the war a lot of the Nisei [Annotator's Note: first generation Japanese-Americans] worked as translators in the Military Intelligence Service, or MIS. Others, like Yatsu, who could not speak Japanese were put in the infantry. The Nisei were initially sent to Camp Shelby. Yatsu went to Camp Blanding, Florida for basic training. Yatsu's family was rounded up and sent to the relocation camps weeks or months after the Pearl Harbor attack. Some families were rounded up within days of the attack.

Lawrence Yatsu was in a relocation camp. When he left the camp to go to college he was drafted. By that time his parents had gone from the camp to Cleveland, Ohio. After he was drafted he was sent to Indiana then to Camp Blanding, Florida for basic training. He was sent to Camp Blanding with a group of all Japanese-Americans. When their training was complete they went to Fort Meade, Maryland from where they went overseas. They joined the group [Annotator's Note: Company C, 100th Infantry Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team] in France. At Camp Blanding they took typical infantry training. Yatsu was in a bad mood when it was his turn to go to the rifle range. When they were told to fire he shot off all eight rounds. The range officer started chewing him out until he saw that Yatsu had hit the bull's eye with all eight rounds. Yatsu used to hunt a lot with his friends so that was how he knew how to shoot. He was one of the best shots in the company. Yatsu did not have any trouble with the fact that all of the officers were white. He especially liked one of them. Yatsu also never had any experience with people hating him because he is Japanese-American.

Lawrence Yatsu went to Fort Meade, Maryland when he left Camp Blanding. From there they went overseas on a troopship. When they got to France they were sent to Nice on a bus then continued on up to the Franco-Italian border where they went into the line. They had arrived in Nice in the fall or winter [Annotator's Note: fall or winter of 1944]. The unit [Annotator's Note: the 442nd Regimental Combat Team] had taken a terrible beating and Yatsu's group was the replacements to build the unit back up. They then went over to Italy and to the Gothic Line where Yatsu had his introduction to war. Yatsu was woken up one night to take his place on the line. The guy who woke him up was shaking. He thought he had let a German get around behind him but it was only a cat.

Lawrence Yatsu went to Naples then continued on to Milan. Yatsu does not recall much of his first night in combat. The night he got hit there was a lot of noise. He stayed as low as he could while he was crawling up a hill. He thought someone ahead of him had dropped their pick but when he reached out and grabbed it he realized it was a potato masher [Annotator's Note: nickname given to German Model 24 hand grenade]. He threw it away but it detonated and he was wounded. The shrapnel hit him along his left side. His wounds still bother him. He considers his scars to be his souvenir. Yatsu was wounded on 15 April 1945 around midnight. After he was hit a friend came over and put a bandage on him. Then he crawled down the mountain. He ran into two guys who made a stretcher out of rifles and field jackets. They carried him to a location where there were medics. The medics put him on a real stretcher and took him to a hospital near Milan.

Lawrence Yatsu got a medical discharge. He had been in the hospital for over six months when he got his CDD, or Certificate of Disability Discharge. After he was discharged he wanted to go to college but his GI Bill benefits would only cover two and a half or three years of school. His VA [Annotator's Note: Veterans Administration] counselor suggested that he put in for rehabilitation of disabled veterans. He went to East Lansing, Michigan where he took a week's worth of tests. When the results came back, Yatsu was told that his scores were high enough to go to med school. He wanted to study agriculture and become a farmer so he could get away from people. The program gave him tuition for four years of college. Yatsu got a BS [Annotator's Note: Bachelor of Science undergraduate degree] from Michigan State then a master's from the University of California-Davis. After college, he went back home to Ohio. He met the woman he eventually married and completed his education at Cornell.

[Annotator's Note: Lawrence Yatsu served in the Army as a BAR man in Company C, 100th Infantry Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team.] Mark Clark [Annotator's Note: US Fifth Army commander General Mark W. Clark] tried to break the Gothic Line for six months using three divisions. The men of the 442nd thought they could break the line in a couple weeks but no one believed them. They were then asked to act as a diversionary force. They attacked and it only took 34 minutes to break through the line. Italian partisans showed them a secret way to get up the mountain. On 5 April [Annotator's Note: 5 April 1945] Yatsu's unit attacked and caught hell. The partisans and the troops with them then attacked the Germans from behind which forced them to break ranks. While Yatsu was in the hospital he met several guys from the 92nd Infantry Division who were from Chicago. He does not recall seeing them while in combat. Yatsu's unit would never say no. They would take missions no matter how stupid they were. Yatsu was a BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle] man. He was also a BAP, or Buck Ass Private. He thinks a Tommy Gun [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber Thompson submachine gun] would have been better since they are smaller.

Lawrence Yatsu has attended some reunions over the years. He had joined his unit [Annotator's Note: Company C, 100th Infantry Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team] as a replacement so he only knew the guys immediately around him. He did get to know a lot of guys during basic training. Many of the guys Yatsu served with had come out of the concentrations camps [Annotator's Note: war relocation centers or internment camps]. Someone showed Yatsu something they had written explaining shikata ga nai, or c'est la vie [Annotator's Note: shikata ga nai is a Japanese phrase which was common in the war relocation centers which means "it cannot be helped"]. Truman [Annotator's Note: President Harry S. Truman] referred to the relocation centers as concentration camps because they were surrounded by barbed wire and had armed MPs [Annotator's Note: military police]. Yatsu would sneak out of the camp he was in and would explore the area around it. He would find fossils and other interesting items. Yatsu was held in an internment camp near Parker, Arizona [Annotator's Note: most likely the Poston War Relocation Center]. Family friends would drive to the camps to visit Yatsu's family and others in the camp. The guys guarding the relocation center were very nice. Most of the internees were not unruly so there was never any trouble.

Lawrence Yatsu believes that World War 2 should be studied because it is history. He feels it is unfair that Germans and Italians were not put in camps. One day after Yatsu left the camp to go to college he asked a policeman where a public bathroom was located. He was shown and was about to walk into the side marked Black. The policeman stopped him and told him to go to the one designated for Whites. Yatsu realized that African-Americans were being treated worse than the Japanese-Americans. It was an eye opener. Museums like The National WWII Museum are a good thing. [Annotator's Note: Yatsu's wife talks about a piece Yatsu wrote for the Times Picayune, a local New Orleans newspaper, after 11 September 2001 the terror attacks about internment]. The interview is being recorded for the Museum for use in the proposed research facility and in exhibits. Yatsu sees himself and others like him as coming from a special time in history. The Nisei [Annotator's Note: first generation Japanese-Americans] were influenced by the Isei [Annotator's Note: Japanese-Americans who were born in Japan but moved to the United States and became citizens]. As a result of Japan's culture, the Isei were almost like people living in medieval times. The most important thing was to not humiliate their family. Yatsu read something recently that stated that his unit was the only one that had no deserters. One of Yatsu's friends told him many times to never give up on America. He could see that the situation they were in was temporary.