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Re: Yokohama Navy Exchange was where? 2016/12/25 21:01
This thread is interesting challenge the Guinness.
by ... (guest) rate this post as useful

new president's inaugural 2017/1/22 00:17
The sound of the military bands is still ringing from yesterday's event. They harken back to our comings and going from the pier in Yokohama in the 1950s-1961.
There seemed to always be a band playing as we arrived or sailed on MSTS. Stars and Stripes Forever is forever...
by Eric (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Yokohama Navy Exchange was where? 2017/2/17 12:10
I was in Japan 4 times.

First at the Army hospital in Osaka I recovered there after being wounded with the Marines on the Naktong in Korea. Aug to Nov.

The second time was for recovery at the Naval hospital in Yokosuka.
after being wounded at Wonju. 1951.

Third time was at the MCAS Iwakuni where I spent 3 year as civilian fire chief. 1968 to 1971.

The 4th time was for 3 years as fire chief at Yokosuka. 1975 to 1978.
by Richard A. Olson (guest) rate this post as useful

My first time in Japan 2017/2/18 01:39
I had been wounded in Korea and ended up at the Army hospital in Osaka.

There was only one other Marine in the annex where I was. He said something to me that seemed to make sense. He said," when our wounds heal and we are fit for duty the Marine Corps will probably send us back to Korea where we could be killed. So we'd best take advantage of Japan while we are here. Do you wan't to go over the hill with me?"

I said sure and we went into Osaka. The Army had a PX there that was 3 stories high. On top was a beer garden on the roof. Japanese girls would come there. We didn't come back for 3 days.

We were arrested at the main gate and brought before an Army Colonel who commanded the base. Instead of court martialing us he took away our uniforms.

Heck that didn't stop us. I went to town as an Army PFC in a uniform I had borrowed from a doggie. I also went to town as an Army Sergeant.

The Colonel finally had a brilliant idea. He transferred us to the Naval hospital 200 miles north at Yokosuka. I spent 5 days there and was declared fit for duty and was sent back to Osaka to Camp Otsu which was the Marine casual company.

My time there before I went back to Korea is another story that I will tell later.
by Dick Olson (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Yokohama Navy Exchange was where? 2017/2/18 07:31
and John Wisecup was there.
John Wisecup was my relative. He was a USMC World War II prisoner of the Japanese(death railroad). He lived in Yokohama for many years. Late in life he worked security at the New Sanyo Hotel.
Anyone remember John?
by jamesmetairie rate this post as useful

My time in Otsu before going back to Korea 2017/2/18 09:35
From Yokosuka they sent me right back to Osaka. The Marine casual company was at Otsu. The Marine Corps had two rules. One -you had to be 18 to go into combat. During Korea every Reserve unit was activated and there were a lot of 17 year olds in the reserves. Otsu had 4 two story barracks filled with 17 year olds. On their 18th birthday they were placed on a replacement draft and sent to Korea. We called them "the diaper platoon."

The second rule was that anyone who had been wounded in Korea and was being sent back - got 7 days open gate liberty. That was great except that I was broke. I went to the sgt majors office to get paid, but they were too lazy to make up a special pay the way the liason sgt at the hospital had. Instead they said my record books would be coming in from Korea and to come back tommorow. I did that for several weeks.

One day our platoon fell out for PT. They were all doing side straddle hops, etc. But I just stood there. Finally the staff sgt in charge came over and asked me, "what's the matter corporal, are your wounds bothering you?."

I said ,"no, I just can't see working if I'm not going to get paid." He ran me up to the C. O. who asked me the same question and I gave him the same answer.

He shouted, "I'll not stand for such insubordination in my command. DECK COURT MARTIAL."

So I was prisoner at large awaiting court martial.

The Captain of Easy Company had been wounded the day before me. He was returning to Korea. He got lucky. They appointed him my counsel.

He came to see me and had me explain what had happened. I did and he said, 'Your not trying to get out of going back to Korea are you.?"

I told him no and he said he would talk to the Colonel.

He came back the next day and said the Colonel would drop the charges and he could get me a special pay.

I spent the next seven days at the Lake Biwa hotel. A room there was only 10 cents a night. I had a Kobe beefsteak with two waiters serving me hand and foot for a dime. After 7 days I returned to Otsu and was placed on a replacement draft. We were sent down to Kobe and boarded a Naval ship there. The swab jockeys were all very mad. They were supposed to be going back to the states and here were these Marines to be taken to Korea. We were on that ship about two hours and over the PA all Marines were directed to fall in topside with your gear. We were marched off that ship. Seems they had made a mistake at Otsu. That ship was going to the states. If we had been on it for another few hours we would have been on our way home.

Instead we went back to Otsu and the next day we went down to the docks in Osaka and boarded an MSTS Army ship that took us back to Korea.

It was the General something. Being a Marine the name hardly impressed me. Anyone knows that a PFC in the Marine Corps is a higher rank than a General in the Army.
by Dick Olson (guest) rate this post as useful

My second time in Japan 2017/2/19 09:29
The second time I was in Japan was at the hospital in Yokosuka where I spent several months while recovering from being wounded a second time at Wonju.

My being wounded was kind of funny in a way.

We had a battalion of British Marines with us. They had had the point and our battalion was passing through them to take over the point. The Brits were eating c- rations as we passed through them. As I passed a sgt he had just opened a can of lite rations and pulled out a disc of cocoa. He looked up at me and in heavy limey he said, " cocoa. Eiven the blincon king has no cocoa."

Ten minutes later I was still smiling when a sniper shot me in the hand. I was carrying my rifle at port arms and the bullet hit me in the hand. If it had been inches to the left or right it would have hit me in the chest and probably killed me.

I ended up spending several months at Yokosuka in ward D. My doctor was Cmdr McDonald. He said he had the latest thing. He put my hand in a cast. After 5 weeks or so he removed it and I went twice a day and held my hand in his latest thing, a whirlpool bath. Then I would go to his office and he would bend every joint in my left hand. Did that ever hurt. But I regained full use of my hand.

I returned to the hospital nearest my home - Great Lakes. When I got discharged there I had only 3 weeks left on my enlistment. I intended to reenlist and make a career of the Marines. in stepped Harry Truman and extended every ones enlistment by one year. So instead of 3 weeks I had a year and 3 weeks to go.

The Marine Corps said I could go anywhere that had an opening so I went back to the guard company at Hawtorne, Nevada. I went with a girl there and ended up getting married. She didn't want me to stay in the Marines, so I went to work there at the Naval Ammunition Depot as a fireman. A far more dangerous job than 95 %of the military.

For the next 30 years I worked for every branch of the service and 3 years with NASA.
by Dick Olson (guest) rate this post as useful

My 3rd time in Japan 2017/2/21 10:44
My 3rd time was 3 wonderful years as fire chief at the Marine Corps Air Station in Iwakuni. Iwakuni is about 15 miles from Hiroshima.

My boss there was the Operations Officer Col Mac McCaleb who had been in Korea as a Capt 18 years before.

I lived in BOQ 4 and had many Marine pilots as friends.

Had 2 structural station with Japanese firemen and 90 marines on the crash crew.

One of my best friends there was Iwao Matsuoaka who was a Doctor I met in a bar there.

I made friends with Bob Soliday who was the skipper of squadron ichi ichi go. He gave me a ride in an F-4 up to Atsugi and back. I also got to ride in a Navy P-3.

ispent a week at expo 70 in Osaka in 1970. They had the moon rocks in the American museum. The Russian museum had the "sputnik" and a lot of professors who were very interesting to talk with.
by scoshie rate this post as useful

My 4th time in Japan 2017/2/21 12:15
In 1975 I spent 3 years from 1975 to 1978 as Deputy and as Fire Chief at Yokosuka.

When I was at Iwakuni there were 8 fire departments in the Yokosuka, Yokohama and Atsugi areas. Virg Slater, the Fire Chief at Yokosuka talked the Navy into consolidating them all into one. Got rid of 7 Fire Chiefs, 13 Assistant Chiefs and a few inspectors. Created the largest department in the Navy at the time. 11 fire stations, 2 fire boats and 265 fire fighters. 260 of them were Japanese.

There were 2 stations in Yokosuka, 2 at the ammunition depot in Ikego, 2 on Hakosaki at the fuel storage and ammo depot, 1 at the fuel storage in Koshiba, 2 in Yokohama, 1 at the fuel storage at Tsurumi near Haneda airport and 1 at Atsugi.

The 7th fleet was homeported in Yokosuka. The hospital had 33 wards, there were 5 dry docks and a housing area.

My quarters was on a hill across from the hospital. I could look out my living room window down into ward D where I had been 24 years before.

During my time as Deputy Chief I had the duty every Thursday in Yokohama. I stayed overnite at the fire house on the hill near the Public Works center there. There was a second fire house near the PX.

by scoshie rate this post as useful

Iwao Matsuoka 2017/2/22 04:08
One night in Iwakuni Iwao sat down next to me at the "New Manhattan club and asked if I minded him talking to me. He wanted to practice his English. He was very interesting to talk with.

I found out he was a Japanese doctor. He told me that he had gone to medical school and the Government had completly paid his way including living expenses. After graduation he had to work for the Japanese Government until he was 40 years old. He was 37 at the time.

Iwao loved golf and I invited him to play at the 9 hole course at the base. On a Sunday he showed up with anther doctor and we played. Afterward he said, :Now you must come and play my course. Two weeks later he picked me up and we drove to his course about 20 miles south of Iwakuni. On Friday night we had rooms in the course motel. That night we spent in the Japanese bath. It was much different than a bath in the states. You soaped and rinsed off before you got into the pool of hot water. When we were in the pool with hot water up to our shoulders, a waiter came into the room with a tray full of ice cold kirin beer. Man did that taste good.

The next day the golf course was fabulous. The members at Pebble Beach would be jealous.

Iwao and I saw a lot of each other at Iwakuni. His Dad owned a hospital in Tokuyama about halfway to Osaka. He was going to go there after he was 40.

When I left Iwakuni in 1971, Iwao gave me a going away party. I was not a fish eater and when Iwao asked me what I wanted to eat I said sukiyaki. Well all the restaraunts in Iwakuni were fish restaraunts. Sukiyaki is a northern dish cooked mostly in the winter up around Tokyo. Iwao finally talked the fish restaraunt into having sukiyaki for me.

As usual the party included a lot of drinking of saki and beer and a lot of appetisers. I was given a piece of octopus. To not eat it would have been an insult to Iwao. So I put it in my mouth. The more I chewed the bigger it got. I will never forget that piece of octopus.
by Dick Olson (guest) rate this post as useful

1968 trip to Naval Base at Sassebo 2017/2/23 06:44
In 1968 I took a weeks annual leave and stayed with the Fire Chief at Sassebo on Kyushu island.

I got on the train at Iwakuni. I was in car 2, seat so and so. I put my luggage and camera on the rack in car 2 and went back to car 11 which was the club car.

I was having a drink when we hit Shimonoseki which was on the southern tip of Honshu. There the train went into a tunnel under the ocean to Kyushu. I didn't know it, but the train split up the and became two trains. The front half went one way to Shimonoseki and back half went a different route

The rear half of the train stayed in Shimonoseki for over 15 minutes. Something seemed wrong. Japanese trains are never late. I got up from my seat in car 11 and started heading back to my seat in car 2. The train started moving. I went through car 10, then car 9 and car 8. After car 8 there was no more.

I was so excited that at first the conductor couldn't figure out what had happened. When he finally did he had me take a seat. About the 4th station he had me get off and the station master stood with me. Pretty soon the front half of the train showed up and I got back in car 2.

My gear ,untouched,was right where I had left it. The car was filled with Japanese passengers. Never a word was said by them. But you can bet that what was going through their minds was: Stupid giagin.
by Dick Olson (guest) rate this post as useful

Yokohama FD in the PX complex 2017/2/24 00:54
Scoshie:

I remember the big fire station built at the PX complex in Yokohama. As a 11 or 12 year old kid, I liked to buzz through the open roller doors of the fire station on my bike, just to irritate the firemen stationed inside.

A straifing run, past the fire trucks nearly always brought out the firemen, shouting at me not to repeat the trick.
Some weeks after I started doing this, the firemen laid a trap for me and my bicycle.

I didn't see the grease pit until just before the front wheel dropped in the 4 foot deep pit. I went over the handle bars and had the wind knocked out and was probably knocked out momentarily.

Our neighborhood policeman was first on the scene, jumping down in the pit to lift me out and then retrieve my broken bike.

As they say in Army Brat circles, "paybacks are a b...."
by Eric (guest) rate this post as useful

Eric 2017/2/24 01:46
That was long before my time there, but the fire station was still manned by mostly Japanese. They were the best. Both in the way they did their job and in the way they treated us stupid giagins.

Also everything was different then. The Navy had taken over what was left of the housing area in Yokohama and what was left was being used as housing for members of the 7th fleet who were home ported for 3 years there.. Towers were being built as housing in Yokusuka and the land in Yokohama was being returned.

Two American Assistant Chiefs were stationed there and every Thursday they were off. That's when I would fill in and pull the duty there.

When you were there, Negishi was a lot bigger.

by Dick Olson (guest) rate this post as useful

Yokohama FD in the PX complex 2017/2/24 02:12
We lived in Japan 1951-1961. First was at Sagamihara. Dad worked at Camp Zama. He was a civilian Hump pilot in the China-Burma-India Campaign.
We moved to Yokohama sometime in the mid 1950s and lived in a house across Avenue D from the middle gate of Area 2. The Sannotani streetcar stop was nearby and the San Kien Gardens were a 20 minute walk behind our place. This property is now a medical clinic. Dad had taken a new job as a purchasing agent for the Army in Tokyo. He was educated as a civil engineer.
The policeman I mentioned was Sase-san, a friend of our family. The officer has past away but his son stays in touch we me although we've never met.
by Eric (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Yokohama Navy Exchange was where? 2017/2/24 02:32
Eric-san and all,

Yokohama is spring storm now, this pix wasgFire Engine Hill" Fire department in Area 2 and others. Try it.

http://photozou.jp/photo/list/3125106/8391477/?lang=en

Good luck,

by Kaoru (guest) rate this post as useful

Kaoru and Eric 2017/2/24 05:18
kAORU

When did you leave Japan? What year was the picture of the fire engine taken? I think I saw from previous entries that you live in the states now. Is that correct?

Eric

In 1968 when I went to Iwakuni I flew from Travis to Yakota. Then flew on a Air America flight to Haneda with a stop at Iwakuni. In 1991, long after I retired, I joined the Bloomington golf course. There was a pilot there who had flown with the CIA. When I played with him I mentioned that I had flown a CIA flight to Iwakuni. He asked if it was a nite flight and I said yes. I flew ya down there he said. My duty at Yakota was to fly the night flite.

HIS NAME IS Bill Shaver. He originally was an Army Air Force pilot flying over the hump for Stillwell during the war. He might have known your dad. Probably not since there were so many pilots flying the hump then, but you never know.
by Dick Olson (guest) rate this post as useful

Yokohama FD in the PX complex 2017/2/24 05:50
The pilots for Air America, some of the Berlin Airlift pilots and civilian Hump pilots had one or two things in common.
Dad wore an officer's uniform with the CBI patch but without rank insignia. He was referred to as "Captain" by others in the group, uniformed or otherwise.
He was a bit of an old timer, having flown commercial airliners for China National Airlines Corp (owned by American Airlines at the time.) Born in 1906, he was a bit too old to "step forward" but still welcomed in the CBI.
He referred to the campaign as the "bump on the butt of the war effort."
by Eric (guest) rate this post as useful

This is an article I wrote on my computer 2017/2/24 09:11
Yokosuka - Nakano and Yamaguchi and Chief Goto of Yokohama

Tom Nakano was the Japanese Chief, Yamaguchi was in charge of Supply and Ishiida was secretary. All three worked upstairs at station one.

Nakano and Yamaguchi both thought of Slater as a form of deity. They had worked with him for many years and watched closely to see that he did right. Actually Virg was married to a Japanese and spent many a weekend collecting Japanese artifacts. There were no antiques as far as the Japanese were concerned. Virg would enter a shop and look around until the momma san would ask her husband in Japanese who was there. And the husband would answer just a gaijin. Then Virg would speak in perfect Japanese and they would be so embarrassed they would let him look anything he wanted. His father had been a watchmaker and Virg collected all kinds of them. But his real financial gain was in Netsukes which were plentiful and cheap when he first came there but were worth a lot of money by the 1970s.

Nakano was educated also in Vancouver, Canada. He could write a letter in English as well as I could. He was very cool and a strong leader. He told me that during the war he was an officer attending the submarine school. Every week the graduating class would leave in submarines. Tom noticed that few were coming back. gchief, I was very worriedh he said. But, luckily, a few weeks before Tom graduated the war ended. And eventually he ended up working at the Yokosuka base fire department.

There were 260 Japanese firemen assigned to the various stations and fire boats which were in districts. While a Deputy Chief I used to spend every Wednesday night in Yokohama. I learned to drive all three districts. In spite of Japanese traffic and signs that looked like scrambled eggs.

Chief Goto was Fire Chief of Yokohama. The city of Yokohama is larger than San Francisco. Since I had been there in 1950 they had reclaimed by filling over 50 miles of bay area. They had built the worlds third largest oil refinery on it. They had a large fire on it and Goto was helped out by the Base Fire Department. Slater introduced them to light water which put the fire out. Goto was very appreciative. Later he was to become a good friend of mine. I was born in the year of the horse. Goto gave me a model of a horse and a picture of a horse as presents.

Oh was a neighbor when we lived in a Japanese house before we moved on base. He headed a shipyard factory in Yokosuka which built super tankers. He had a Yorkie just like ours. It used to come over and visit Prissie. In 1978 just before I came home Oh san went to China to discuss a contract for super tankers. It lasted months longer than expected and he missed New Years which is a big holiday for the Japanese. Consequently he held a belated New Years party at his house and invited us. He had raw fish with all the trimmings. I had spent a total of over 7 years in Japan and managed to avoid raw fish. Ohfs was the first I ate and to my surprise raw fish was every bit as good as a steak. And I didnft discover that until my final time in Japan.

There was a business man from Cleveland who used to write in the Yomiuri Giant every
by Dick Olson (guest) rate this post as useful

Here is the story about the businessman 2017/2/24 09:37
There was a business man from Cleveland who used to write in the Yomiuri Giant every Sunday while we were in Japan. I have forgotten his name but still remember some of the things he wrote. At a party someone would mention an area of Japan where they had been lost. Someone else would say Oh yeah Ifve been lost there too. One week he wrote about attending a school where he could learn Japanese. He found that the only ones who could understand him were other students of the same class. Japanese merchants when they heard Japanese would talk so fast that he couldnft understand a word they said. But his best was the one about insurance. He was driving the Shuto expressway in Yokohama and ran out of gas. This is a good time to find out if that insurance is any good. So he called his insurance agent for 5 gallons of gas. Only he got the wrong number. And woke a Japanese professor. The Japanese got dressed, got 5 gallons of gas and delivered it to him on the Shuto express.

At my going away party one of my Japanese Fire Men said to me gChief donft ever forget us Japanese.h He neednft have said that. There is no way I could ever forget them.
by Dick Olsont (guest) rate this post as useful

Dick-san 2017/2/24 10:58
Welcome to JG, Thanks many posting. I was born Yokohama city and my family is living here.

My dad was a police officer belong the Yamate police station in Honmoku. He had many American friends, especially friendly to Eric's family. Dad was dispatched to the headquarters of US navy SP for several years,

A son of Eric-san had trip to Japan in April of the year before last. And we enjoyed dinner.

Many stories are written this, please see old threads.
by Kaoru (guest) rate this post as useful

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