Yokohama Navy Exchange was where?

Eric,
Yes, great place to play. especially for boys. It was like being Tom Sawyer in Japan. We would spend the entire day up there. We were fortunate to have such a environment to grow up in...almost like a fairy tale. Strange land, new experiences, and wonderful people.

Here's an interesting piece:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204542404577157290201608...

Our paths must have crossed at some point. I was back at Nasugbu Beach in the 1959-1961 years after a couple of years at the International School. The Army had given up Yokohama to the Navy and all the Army names were removed in favor of Navy names.
The hillside of bamboo contained several secret caves that had become part of our daily play day in the summer. Some of the kids were fearful of snakes in the caves but I never saw any.
One of the caves offered room for three or four of us; a fellow had to slide in on his belly, feet first, before entering a single round room dug from the soft sandstone. Someone had brought candles and a pack of Peace cigarettes. At some point in about 1960, a little kid got hurt in the cave and his parents called the Shore Patrol. I remember a crew of Japanese masons were brought in to wall off the opening with fresh cement. Another Yokohama mystery was gone.

I don't know about the Yokohama caves, but in 1961-3 while hiking all over the hills south of Hayama in what was rural Yokosuka (on the opposite side of Miura peninsula from the port and naval base), I came across caves in the hills that were occupied, presumably by veterans or loners who didn't want to be part of society. It was discomfiting and a little eerie. Local lore was that these caves were either created or enlarged during the war as last-ditch places for holdouts in anticipation of an invasion.

There were a half dozen caves within walking distance of our house in Sannotani in the 1950s. I think the soft sandstone bluffs and hills made for easier digging in the war's last years. Our maid, Masako, said she had worked in a munitions factory that had been moved into a cave when she was a youngster.
There was a large, occupied cave about half a mile down past the fire station hill gate to Area 2 housing. The entry to the cave was enclosed in a wood framework with a single smokestack and an entry door. The family raise several children who always looked tidy in their spotless black school uniforms.

We visited the Taya Caves which is in Yokohama but seemed closer to Ofuna. This cave complex, open to the public, as an an attraction, seemed like a endless mase of rooms, milti-levels, chambers and shafts. I believe it was dug by hand by monks. One room was carved out as the inside of a Japanese bell. You were required to stay in a guided tour as presumeably you could get lost as it was so vast. Unfortunately the tour was all in Japanese as was the flyer, and our language was not that good. I suppose its online. Very cool..
We went to Shimoda, which is very vey nice.
Went for a walk and wound up in caves overlooking the beach. Realized that these were gun emplacements covering the beach in case of invasion. Reality check. Its probably a coffie bistro now,
I believe that in China there are hundreds of thousands of people living in caves. National Geographic ? Some of these homes had been in familys for generations. The interiors in some cases are seemingly quite comfortable and well furnished. Cool in summer and warm in winter.

Hi, Peter-san

This Youtube is Taya. Please enjoy !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIgBeAMkkF0&feature=related

http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/mitch68canada/8416714.html

Thank you Kaoru-san

The entrance is just as I remember it !

What wonderful things you have in your backyard !

Eric,
Yes, I remember the Area 2 caves. I remember some older boys had dug them out and one was named after him...but I can't remember his name. Great get away place. In 1961 I remember one of he caves as being blocked up. I remember on the other side of the road that runs on top of the hill here was a Pond with crayfish..and quicksand! We took our dogs out there came home all muddy. And watch out for the Honey-bucket man.

Our house was across the street (Avenue D, as we called it) from the middle gate to Area 2. I don't know why we lived off base; I think it was my dad's preference.

Dad built a boat in our back yard with the support of a Japanese craftsman who came by twice a week. When we got ready to move Stateside, a truck crane lifted the boat over our fence and it was sold.

The use of the middle gate was discontinued at about the time of the Navy takeover. Of course, that didn't limit my access to Area 2 as it took only seconds to climb up and over. Ditto the fence around Area 1 and its big Olympic swimming pool where I took Red Cross swimming lessions every summer--the same lessons, over and over.

You may note the occasional contribution from Kaoru san who lives near where we lived. Kaoru's father was the beat policeman in our Sannotani neighborhood and a friend of our family. He became my adopted uncle and protector, bringing me home from various scrapes and near disasters in his Japanese Jeep. (See the earlier episode where I crashed my bike into the fire station's grease pit.)

After we left Japan, he was recognised for solving the case of a terrorist who set off an explosive on a train.

When JR Yokosuka Line passed Ofuna station at 3:00 p.m. on June 16, 1968, the time bomb of the rack of vehicles exploded.

By this, one person died and 14 passengers had serious injury.

The headquarters of the police began criminal investigation by making this into an indiscriminate terrorism affair.
My father was a detective of the Isezaki police station those days.
The investigation headquarters of this incident summoned my father for the criminal investigation group. The criminal was able to be arrested several months afterward.
The death penalty was executed in December 1975. My father was not able to go home several months.

This affair was the first indiscriminate terrorism with bomb.

Kaoru-san
Thank you for the interesting information. I was in Japan at that time but did not hear about this, which is curious. Perhaps it was just in the Japanese news, and they didn't tell us or we were so preoccupied with what we were doing that it didn't cross our "radar".

Our winter in New Hampshire has been very mild, and very little snow. Unlike other parts of Japan which are battleing heavy snow. I feel badly for the people of northern coast.

In response to the solutrean hypothesis and pre-european presence in the americas (l'anse aux meadows notwithstanding), there is no hard evidence of any pre-european presence predating that of American Indians. solutrean points were not typically fluted. Clovis points were. It was concluded that Kennewick man was of polynesian or southeast asian origin as his skull was dolichocephalic not "caucasoid". There's a difference. American Indians also predate "mongoloids" which is a skull parameter and not an ethnic marker.

If there is a site manager or forum monitor... I ask that you delete Twilliger's post. It has nothing to do with the subject of this forum.

Thank you!

Hi Lori
Take it easy. Clearly he missed his real landing field. We don't want censorship do we ? I for one never get off into the weeds.
Well not much...do I ? And J-P Guide gets all of this yummy user generated content !!

Ok my little story for today.
We were taking a weekend in Ito, or maybe it was Atami, a wonderful seaside resourt on the Penunsiia. There was this wonderfully seedy hotel. After dinner we were wandering around the hotel and happened upon an old american pinball machine that looked like it had been there forever, So, we put in our 10 yen peice and I played a game. I must have done pretty well as when I was done a light came on and said that I had one a free game and to press the "re-set" button. I found it on the back of the machine and pressed it. Boom..on the front of the machine told me I had like 2000 games ! Jackpot ! Clearly what had happened is that the Japanese had played the pinball game for years and never realized that they were racking up all of these free games..as it was in english.
So we played until we were bored and then turned it over to some Japanese guys our age, and we turned in. Next day they were still playing it, using up all of those years of free games earned...priceless !!
Our little gift to cultural harmony.

I was intrigued by the "Kennewick Man" and the studies by Powell and Rose, which concluded that Kennewick is closest to South Pacific (Moriori, Easter Island) and the Ainu of Japan, and after much research on my part, my hypothesis is that the transmigration of the Neanderthal has been grossly underestimated or ignored in the mix. Neanderthaloids seem to be a ring species with moderns, with admixture being far greater in West Asia and in eastern Europe than in Western Europe. Amud from Palestine would certainly seem to be intermediate between Neanderthals and moderns, but Asian Neanderthaloids are not classic Neanderthals. In western Europe the Chatelperonian Saint Cesaire 1 has a general skull form and limb proportions which are of a more modern tendency than in the classic Neanderthals, and therefore probably shows hybridisation. In early UP moderns from Europe there is actually some evidence of Neanderthal descent too, as in the mandibular foramen. An horizontal-oval foramen has a frequency of 18% in Middle Paleolithic and early Upper Paleolithic moderns, but this decreases during the later Upper Paleolithic and in modern Europeans since the Mesolithic has been far rarer as in non-Europeans (modern and archaic).
These are the conclusions I reached about the survival of the Capoid phenotype even though Capoids are genetically general subsaharans. Its easy to see how this might have applied in pre-Chinese Taiwan where only the Atayal were found to be Mongoloid, and the other populations neighboring them were closer to Polynesia. Some populations could have absorbed Austronesian lineages but kept a Jomon-Pacific phenotype, and then become the ancestors of Polynesians. Nobody doubts either of these, the issue is whether they have an Ainuid affinity as well, which is what Brace et al claimed. The variability within Polynesians, suggests they had a varied origin, including Neanderthaloid.

Wally-san

I knew you were bright but this analysis is truly brilliant.

Just a question....

What are you drinking ???
and..
Can I get some ???

Writer Charles Mann speculates on the origins of Pacific Islanders, natives of Australia and New Zealand and American Indians in his books "1491" and "1493."

National Geographic has even picked up on Mann's theories, based on the development of Amazon jungle into agricultural land, which has uncovered evidence of vast communities prior to European arrival. Mann writes there were multiple Asian invasions of the Americas, not just via the Bering landbridge.

I'd recommend both of these books to anyone who has interest beyond the usual genealogy.

I would just tack on to Wally's last sentence, "and Denisovian." Fascinating stuff, but deserves its own thread.

Mann's book is a summary of ideas that have been around for over 20 years. Unfortunately, it's disorganized and in need of major editing - but interesting all the same.