Most of us were promoted a stripe just before we were ordered to Korea, so I was now a Staff Sgt. They loaded the enlisted personnel of the unit, about 80 of us, into trucks and took us to the train station in Atlanta. There they loaded us on a train and assigned us to plush Pullmans Cars with all the amenities, porters, stewards, booze available for a price, opulent silver service at meals on tables covered with the heaviest linen I have ever seen. We thought we had died and gone to heaven. The Stewards even made up our bunks every day. They called the bunks, births, and we thought that was funny. The train staff treated us as though we were a regular normal paying customer which was a shock to us. It was wonderful. Three days later we detrained in Seattle and were back in the trucks again. They hauled us to Ft. Lewis for a couple of days processing then loaded us onto a rather small ship along with about 800 other Army personnel, and we sailed away, all out on the salt sea. (Okay, sorry about that. I’m a big Joan Baez fan).
The trip across the Pacific to Yokohama took twelve rough days. It was a miserable trip because about 90 percent of the troops were sea sick and we waded in vomit for the first week. It took a brave heart to visit the mess or the heads (latrines) and up on deck one had to be on constant lookout for flying globs of puke.
After we arrived in Yokohama we were transported to our quarters in down town Tokyo by truck. The building in which we were housed was once the Offices of the Japanese Imperial Finance Center. This was the building where our unit’s Japan counterpart’s personnel were billeted. It was the building where MacArthur’s honor guard was quartered, as well. A number of us were temporally assigned to the Tokyo unit to help them with the increased work load of servicing the influx of troops arriving in Korea. Some of my unit went on to Korea along with the trailers and equipment to set up operations there.
Japan was just recovering from the war. Most of the war damage had been cleaned up but the country was still in dire straights. Food was rationed and of course there was a rice black market. The Japanese were selling anything they could to the Occupying Forces, including sex. There were literally thousands of prostitutes in Tokyo and Yokohama. Precious family heirlooms were on the market and snapped up by Occupiers with money and good taste. I think the Russians were the worst. Yes, there were Russian Army personnel in Tokyo at the time. Sex of course was an easy sell to both the officer and enlisted corps. Surprised? The Tokyo unit’s offices were in a commandeered building called the Hypothec Bank and we walked from the Finance Building through Hibia Park to get to the work place. There were usually 40 or 50 prostitutes plying their trade in the park. Most of these lovely ladies carried straw mats and took their clients behind a park bush to complete the transaction. I remember hearing about a case of some GI who hung his pants on a tree limb and the MP’s busted him for being out of uniform. The going price was 100 yen which was a little over a quarter in U.S. money. In other words, “two bits” and I’ll leave it up to you to make up your own term for the girls. Japan pretty much initially built its economy selling sex to GI’s. An economic stimulus, so to speak.
There were hundreds of bicycle powered petty cabs in Tokyo that the Japanese called Gin Rickshaw. They were big enough to accommodate two people and had a canvas hood, like a convertible, that could be raised in case of rain. Some of the fancy ones had side curtains that offered privacy if needed, and occasionally it was, but they also kept out blowing rain. If you had cigarettes to sell on the black market or a yen (pun intended) for feminine companionship the Rickshaw drivers were the guys to see. Occasionally for sport GI’s would hire several Rickshaws and have races. Insensitive? You betcha!
There were taxi cabs available and the cab drivers served some of the same function as the Rickshaw guys, but were not so blatant. The taxies were mostly American made cars of the middle 20’s to very early 30’s vintage and almost all ran on charcoal. There was a big double compartment back where the spare tire should have been. A charcoal fire was built in one compartment and raw charcoal in the other. The fire would heat the raw charcoal driving off gas that went to an altered carburetor, and I’ll let you figure it out from there. It was fun to watch the taxies when they had a fender bender. The drivers would get out and after bowing to each other several times, make tea on the rear compartment while they discussed the accident. No insurance for these guys, but they always seemed to resolve their problems with very little difficultly. I never saw a punch thrown. There were almost no private civilian cars.
The Korean War really helped the re- industrialization of Japan. What do they say about it being an ill wind that blows nobody good?
During my short time in Tokyo I saw MacArthur’s big black car drive by several times. It flew his five star flag so one could assumed Back Track was inside. It was fun watching the Japanese when the car went by. They seemed to know his schedule, and the crowds on both sides of the street would try to snap pictures while bowing at the same time. The first time I saw a sports stadium wave, it reminded me of the Japanese as MacArthur drove by.
I was never a big fan of Back Track Mac’s but to give the devil his due, the occupation and the rebuilding of Japan under his control was superb. Can you imagine what the cost would have been if someone like Rumsfeld had been in control and we contracted everything out to American Companies? Not that they would have rip us off or anything. You know they wouldn’t, right? Billions and billions, as Carl Sagan use to say.
I stayed in Tokyo a couple of months, detailed to maintain the Venereal Disease files. Nothing like having a prestigious job! I endured a lot of rather cruel jokes from my associates. Keeping the files was a real pain in the ass because they had to be kept super secret, under lock and key at all times. You might wonder why VD files were secret. The reason was high ranking personnel occasionally managed to pick up a social disease and their names would pop up in the files. They probably got it from a toilet seat, right? It wouldn’t do troop morale any good to know their valiant commander had picked up a dose of – whatever. At least that was the Army’s theory. I guess there was also a possibility of blackmail. There was more action in those damn files than I care to think about and it kept me busy 8 to 10 hours a day. It also caused me to look upon the local maidens with a jaundice eye. It would have been embarrassing to have my own name pop up. It would be like Keith telling you that you were the worst person in the world.
There is a great non fiction book that covers this period of the Japanese occupation; I would like to recommend to those even a little bit interested. It was written by a guy named Malcolm J. Morris who I once met briefly in the Imperial Hotel where he was manager. The title is “The Wise Bamboo” and it’s available at Amazon. You might have to wipe off the warehouse workers sweat from the cover, but it’s a great read.
One day in October the new unit commander, a Major, showed up and said he needed my specialty in Korea right away. The next day I accompanied him to The Land of The Morning Calm as Korea is known as. We landed at an airport just outside of Seoul, designated K9 and nicknamed Dog Patch. It was as if someone had turned the clock back a thousand years. Seoul was mostly in rubble and the civilian population was in turmoil. When I arrived at the unit, my buddies who had came directly to Korea from the ship ask me WTF I was doing, coming to Korea now because the war was over. The September Inchon landing was a big success and we would all be home by Christmas. Back Track had said so.
My new boss was an old Master Sgt. the units NCOIC who I knew slightly at Ft. Mac. It turned out the Army could not have made a better choice. He knew the operation and equipment inside out as well as being a great supervisor, manager and human being. The Authorized Strength files I was assigned to take care of were in terrible condition due to lack of maintenance, so with my bosses help we started to get them in working order. I worked exclusive on the files for about a month then on the 19th of Nov. 1950, everything changed. An Army of a quarter million Chinese crossed the Yalu River, the border between China and Korea and drove the entire U.S. 8th Army, south. Later we found out the CIA knew all about the buildup on the Chinese border but concluded the chance of them crossing was nil. So much for U.S. Intelligence and I don’t think it’s improved all that much since.
It was decided our unit would keep a presence in theater, but the main body plus equipment would go to Japan. They departed Seoul by convoy east to Inchon where they boarded an LST and sailed to Sasebo in Kyushu. Later I learned they had a horrible time on very rough seas and the trip took four times longer than it should have. To make matters worse their rations got all screwed up and they lived solely on Spam for the entire trip. Talk about war being hell!
Just before Christmas of 1950 the commander of the 8th Army was killed in a vehicle accident. Wikipedia says it was a civilian truck that collided with his jeep but the rumor in country was a Korean Army truck did the deed. It was also rumored that the truck driver was executed on the spot by an officer in the Korean Army. I really don’t know what’s true and probably never will. I will say this however; I traveled a lot in Korea and never saw a civilian truck. You might go to Wikipedia and read the blurb on General Walton H. Walker. Wikipedia don’t’ paint a very flattering picture of Back Track Mac in this article.
To be continued.