Two Brothers Reunite

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"When we got [to Bruyères, France], a friend of my brother’s came up to me and said, ‘Hey, your brother [Michael] died five days ago.’ I says, 'Wow, I didn’t know. I was waiting for my sister to write to me about it.’ But she never did. After Bruyères , I was in…this friend of mine and I went AWOL to Nice, France. We weren’t going to go AWOL, but our company’s offices closed so early in the morning so we hopped on a truck that was going to Nice, France. We went and washed our hands in the Mediterranean just to say we washed our hands in the Mediterranean. And then, we were walking around and we saw a volleyball game going on, all girls in bikinis. I said, whoa, they hadn’t had bikinis in the United States yet, you know. So we stayed. We were going to stay a few minutes but we stayed there about an hour. And then, we started walking around and finally the store is open and I said, 'Hey, go get your perfume,' because we had to climb up two mountains yet [and] hitchhike back to our…close to where we were stationed. We had to climb up two mountains so I told him, 'Hurry up and get the perfume.' So he went in the perfume shop, and then I was waiting outside and four guys start coming towards me from the 442nd. I said that one guy sure looks familiar and it was my brother. I thought he was dead. I told him, 'Hey, I thought you were dead.' After that I knew he was alive until we went to Italy."

Editor's note: Jimmy Doi had two brothers, including Michael, serving in the 442nd Infantry Regiment of the Army, a regiment made up of Japanese American soldiers.