Measures of Japanese Successes

We could always tell when they’d lost a battle somewhere on one of the little islands because they would come around and it didn’t matter what you were doing, you’d either get a kick in the ass or a slap in the face or something like that or made to stand at attention for two hours or something. You could always tell when they’d lost something and it was just the opposite, if they won a little battle somewhere on one of the little islands, then they’d come round and hand everybody cigarettes and candies and near the end when it was getting where they were bombing close just before Hiroshima, they put in pillboxes, they put in gun pits and the orders were, and the Americans were getting close to Okinowa and the idea was if they did take Okinowa and then head for the Japanese mainland, all prisoners were to be shot. I think at that time, if you could get the average one, everybody just didn’t give a damn.