Chap04

WHEN THE ICE IS ON THE RICE. . .

When the ice is on the rice in southern honshu,

And the saké in the cellar starts to freeze

And you whisper, "Sweet, Ojosan, I adore you,"

Then you're getting just a sukoshi Nipponese.

When you're dancing to the strains of "Tanko Bushi"

And you're speaking "arrigato," 'stead of "please,"

And you answer the telephone with "Mushu-mushi"

I sink maybe you are going Nipponese.

As you sit upon tatami sipping saké

And the cold wind's whipping round your knees,

And you're munching on some "gohan" and "osembi,"

Then you're surely getting takusan Nipponese.

When you start spending yen like it was money

'Stead of flinging it like paper in the breeze,

And you think everything in English is funny...

Then, my lad, you're truly Nipponese!

Chapter Four

Between Wars

On 1 September 1945, we went aboard ship again. This time we were going to Japan — not in a contested invasion but as occupation troops.

As part of the recon section in the tank battalion, I was attached to Regimental Headquarters, 28th Marines. We landed at Sasebo in Kyushu, Japan's southernmost main island. The regimental headquarters was the first boat to land in the port city of over 300,000. That day we saw only three Japanese: the prefecture's military commander, its governor, and Sasebo's mayor. They came down to surrender the city.

We found out later that Japanese citizens had been told that U.S. Marines would kill all men and rape all women. They had been told that before an American man is accepted into the Marines, he has to kill his parents and prove it. Sasebo's citizens headed for the hills and didn't return for over a week.

The first few days we spent adjusting to a culture that was strange to us. Their ways were different, their values different, and there were a few times when the cultures clashed. A case in point: the city's utilities were in sad shape from all the bombing Sasebo had endured. It had disrupted the water supply, and one of the few places with water was the train station. There was only one restroom and men and women shared it. It was very large and in the middle was a three-tier water fountain. I walked in one time and there was a young woman taking a bath in it. We were all on our best behavior, so few incidents occurred that got out of hand.

Local ground transportation in Sasebo (as well as all major cities) was an experience. Buses were powered by gasoline engines that had been converted to burn charcoal. As it burned, the charcoal produced a gas that was forced into the carburetor (I guess), and the bus had to stop every mile so the driver could stoke the engine.

We were there about a month when a detail of us was sent to Tientsing and Tsinguantau (China) to help get the Japanese Army repatriated from the Chinese. When the Japanese surrendered, the Chinese didn't want to let them go home. We went to take over the prisoner-of-war camps from local warlords. The Chinese were not really regular army units, either Nationalist or Communist, so they had no real authority there. We were outnumbered, but the Japanese general volunteered to furnish security forces. So, we armed some of the Japanese soldiers to furnish rear guards until Japan's Army was evacuated.

When we got back to Sasebo, we learned that the 5th MarDiv was going home. However, it didn't mean that we were all going as rotation home was done on a point basis. A certain number of points for each month spent overseas, and another amount of points for each combat engagement.

When the 5th MarDiv was formed, it was made up of many Marines who'd returned to the States while in casualty status. As they were returned to health they were sent to our division to fill it out. The 2nd MarDiv had about 50 percent replacements over a two-year period, so they were about like we were. They transferred their high-point people to the 5th and the 5th sent all their low-point people to the 2nd. The 5th went home, while the 2nd stayed.

Nagasaki

In December I was transferred to Company C, 2nd Tank Battalion at Nagasaki. Mostly we stood guard over a huge supply dump down at the sea wall. There was a two-man gate watch plus two men patrolling through the dump.

Nagasaki was one of two A-bombed cities and most of the bomb's casualties were adults. Many hundreds of children were left homeless and orphaned. It was bitterly cold and usually about 10 children hung around the dump's gate because we kept a big fire going. The kids would sleep in large boxes, empty 55-gallon drums, or anything they could fit into. They kept us supplied with firewood and we kept them supplied with "K" and "C" rations from the dump, as well as a blanket apiece.

The provost marshal would come around once a week and confiscate the blankets, saying it was misuse of government property. He would take them to MP headquarters and turn them over to the sergeant major to put back in the dump. The sergeant major would bring them back to us to return to stock. As soon as he was gone we'd give the blankets back to the kids. The provost marshal and the sergeant major both knew we gave the blankets back to the kids, but a token obeying of rules and regulations was made and the kids still had their blankets.

I sometimes wonder how many kids were saved there and at other posts before the Japanese government finally got going enough to open orphanages and round up all these kids.

We left Nagasaki in January 1946 and returned to Sasebo at the same Japanese navy air base. There was a bunch of Japanese sea planes still there, and the word came down that they all had to be destroyed. They were piled up to be burned, so we raided them and took all the wing pontoons off and cut a hole in the middle big enough to get into like a kayak. We made us some double- ended paddles and paddled all over Sasebo Bay. We'd paddle out to the Navy ships at chow hours for a good meal of Navy chow. All we ate at our mess hall was heated up C-rations, which get old in a hurry. Our "Skipper" took the large pontoon from the fuselage of one plane and made a speedboat from it by putting a Japanese jeep engine in it. His pontoon was 20~25 feet long and one-and-half feet wide.

I made a couple of runs as a train guard to Kumamoto, Oita, and Beppu (cities on Kyushu). Sasebo was the main port for supplies coming into the division and we had to furnish guards to prevent pilferage. It was pretty good duty. Usually there would be two of us and it was better than standing guard duty around Sasebo base.

All the hills around the base had tunnels in them (one had a complete lens- grinding shop for making eyeglasses), plus machine shops and pharmacies. One night while on two-man patrol around the caves area, we were walking by the bay when a shot rang out and a bullet hit the gravel between us. We were told the next day to challenge and if no reply, shoot to kill.

March was my mess-duty month. In the Army, KP is used as a punishment; in the Marines, all privates and Pfcs. were usually assigned to mess duty for a month each year. I was assigned to the officer's mess. We were down to three cooks in the battalion because of rotation home and they were asking for Pvts. and Pfcs. to strike for cook (on-the-job training). A newly commissioned mustang (ex-enlisted) lieutenant didn't like his scrambled eggs the way the cook prepared them. He'd break the eggs in a bowl, whip them and put them in a skillet and stir them while they were cooking. After the second time, the cook was getting mad, so I told him to let me cook him some. He said, "Go ahead, I'm not getting anywhere."

I broke a couple of eggs in the pan and let them start turning white, then I scrambled them. When I took them out to the lieutenant, he said, "That's the way I wanted them in the first place." So I became a cook-striker and cooked all the meat at the officer's mess, plus everything at breakfast. The vegetables were cooked at the enlisted mess but I cooked everything else. This lasted until I rotated home, about 1 May.

Back home

A buddy and I came home at the same time and when we went on liberty in "Dago" we visited the Pirate's Cave, a bar on the strip that was known to be a rough place. He pushed its bat-wing doors open and yelled, "Anybody in here want to fight?" You could have heard a pin drop for about a minute. Then he turned to me, "I guess it's safe for us to go in, then." Everyone got a big laugh out of it and no one would let us buy a drink that night.

I traveled cross country in a train of cattle cars. We didn't know until we got to St. Louis whether we were going through Atlanta or Richmond. When I found out we were going through Atlanta, I wrote my Mom's phone number on a piece of paper and gave it to a man standing at the station and asked him to call her collect and to tell her the time we'd be in the terminal station. He did and she was there — but they wouldn't let her come down to the tracks and wouldn't let me go up into the station. We were there for four hours but I didn't get a chance to see her.

We stopped in Columbia, SC because the railroad workers were going on strike. It was midnight and we were only about eight hours away from Camp Lejeune, where we were to be discharged. The crew said they were not going to move the train until the strike was over (it lasted six weeks), so our officer in charge of troops checked through the train and found one man who'd been an engineer before the war and three or four firemen. So, he told the train crew to get off the train and we'd get ourselves to Camp Lejeune. The crew got together with their union and decided that, "Because you're veterans returning home, we will make an exception to the strike and allow this crew to proceed." If necessary, we'd have taken that train over.

I was discharged on 20 May and caught a Trailways bus to Atlanta and on to Conyers. When I stepped off the bus at Conyers, my sister met me. It was the first time anyone in the family had seen me in uniform. She handed me her keys and told me to drive home. After about half a block she said, "Don't you think you'd better get on the right side of the street?" Where I was used to driving (Japan), they drove on the left.

We had a big dinner when I got home because, of the sons and sons-in-law, I was the last one home from the war. I ate a good bit of chicken and dressing and almost died. My stomach had shrunk so much that I couldn't hold it.

We (sons and sons-in-law) went to Atlanta to have a welcome-home beer. I still wasn't 21, so the bartender wasn't going to serve me — until I told him that I'd climb over the bar and get it myself. I informed him that I had just spent three years in the Pacific defending his ass and I wanted a beer. My brothers and brothers-in-law said, "If he isn't able to do it by himself, I think the five of us can take over this bar." This was met by applause from every other customer in the place. I got my beer.

I went to church and near to where we were sitting, there was

a shutter on a church window. The guy beside me pulled the shutter

open, causing a noise ("BR-R-R") that was all too familiar. I hit the floor

and rolled under the seats. It was embarrassing, but to me it sounded

like a Nambu machine gun.

I tried to be a civilian, but the war had been over for almost a year and

most of the men had already returned and gone to work. There were no

jobs to be had. After three months, I had seen enough, so I went to the

Marine Recruiting Station and "shipped over."

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