Yokohama Navy Exchange was where?

Wally san just got some time and went over all of the photos. How did you find these? brings back many memories. Hey! found one of the Zebra club go to the site and scroll to Dennis Ihle's syonara. Top left. This is now going to sound strange but I only vaguely remember Kama Seya. Obviously it was a navy base and from what i can figure out from the photos the base had something to do with security or communications or whatever. Also they keep refering to a tunnel or something [ a command building?] These guys were really into the group shot. I don't recall that my little unit ever got a group shot together wish we had ..oh well. Another thing, there is a photo of a "blizzard" in 68.Like you had said. The photos prompt my memory. I do remember this snowstorm but as I recal we didn't call it a blizzard. being from new Hampshire a blizzard has to be hurricane force winds and huge deep snow. This one looks like what we are getting today.. another 6 inches. That makes the total this year something about 110 inches or so they tell us. i think this is a record. so much for the so called global warming. Where was kami seya? are there any other sites like this .. good for you you get an A for this.

You should look up Kamiseya on www.wikipedia.com

Also here's a map:

http://m.1asphost.com/japanbrats/KANTOMAP2.html

Hope this helps.

Here's another site I discovered. LOTS of pictures; would take hours and hours to look at all of them. I looked at only a few since I'd heard of Kamiseya when I lived in Negishi in the '80's (and knew someone who worked there), but never visited that Base.

www.navycthistory.com/kami_intro.html

Thanks Lori, should have thought of that myself. der..anywayI have gone over some of the pictures there and are wonderful thanks good you are still with us

I discovered the Kamiseya site a few months ago when I was searching for Kishine pictures. Just re-visited it a couple of days ago. There's a picture of the gate to Isezaki-Cho in there, but I think it is the opposite end where the Peanuts Club was. Man, I thought the 106th could party, but we couldn't hold a candle to that Kamiseya bunch.

Wally san There are several pictures of the entrance to isezaki cho. I am only familiar with the "eastern entrance" and the photo looks like that one. You can "walk" isezachi cho today on you tube. I also saw some ww2 photos of Isezaki cho nothing to look at was a wasteland and I remember that there was mention of an airstrip there. Yes the kamisea guys looked like they could party, however these tech types had cameras so its all documented. They were orginized however. Can you picture all of us in a rowdy bar and one guy says " OK fellas lets step outside for a group photo" Yea right. I bought a camera the first week I was there and still have it. I didn't take as many shots of "day to day " stuff as i would have liked to. Looks like Kamisea was some distance from yokohama so that ment that they just couldn't jump downtown like we could. I could get from my apartment to isezaki cho in about 5 minutes. I remember a shop that was accross the street from the entrance to Isezaki cho. The shop was some type of sex store that I was told had male and female parts in glass display bottles. I'm no prude but i never went into that store. there were also some Japanese movie theatres that had sexy looking posters some looked like birthing classes or whatever. Other than the Bill chickering there were some movies downtown that showed foreign films [ american] we did go to a couple of there i remember Stanley kubrecs 2001 a space oddesey. The japanese subtitles were on the left side of the screen which did not interfear with the film. I remember one scene where Hal the computer announced that "life systems were terminated" this translation must have been far off as the Japanese people in the theatre laughed like crazy. It didn't seem funny to me at the time but I did come to understand at that moment that translations from one language to another can get mixed up. I went to one japanese picture but didn't get anything out of it. my japanese was not that good.

Wow...
What a great collection of pictures from Yokohama, Yokosuka and Kamiseya. I have to confess I was not familiar with Kamiseya, which I gather was a naval air station.
Great Pictures of Swabbies and the Japan environment of the 1950s. Loves the pix of the three wheeled trucks and "Sayonara from Yokohama" as the MSTS boat sailed away.
Whoever found this gets a Gold Star in my book. Thanks!

You can thank Wally-san. I thought you would like them too as they were a little more your era. Have fun there is a TON of stuff there.

After a little Google digging, it became obvious that this was Atsugi Naval Air Station. I don't think anyone except the Navy people ever referred to it as Kamiseya; it was just "Atsugi."
This web site really is a treasure trove of old photos and is worth more than a five minute look. The '54 Chevy wagon at Isezakicho could easily been my dad's '54 Chevy sedan.
Cheers!

Chris I looked on a map and Kamiseya and atsugi looked like different places. I am still not sure what all went on there but I believe its still active. I believe that it was related to Electronic :ie Radio surveillance. By the roster there was a ton of people stationed there. Think that it was more than simply "naval air" . There seems to be some relationship with Kamiseya and the Pueblo incident, which would make sense.. was it also related to NSA ? that would make it a little more hush hush. I Love these photos. Perhaps Ksan could help us out. Also try the current sits of US Army Japan.

I have a forty year old map of U.S. Military Installations in the Kanto Plain Area, and Kamiseya and Atsugi are two different bases. Kamiseya is on highway 16 that runs from Yokohama past Kamiseya, past the Army Hospital at Camp Zama, and runs North past Yokota AB to Johnson AB. Atsugi is about five miles southwest of Kamiseya on highway 246. Of course these highway numbers were all assigned by the U.S. military. Kamiseya was evidently a base full of spooks, as some of them had to know the Russian language.

Ok, guys. From the website I mentioned in my second post on March 2, I found the following:


www.navycthistory.com/kami_decom_book.html

No wonder I never heard of it. The Navy didn't want it advertized...

Yup... spooks. I have my old college roomate who I will ask about this. He was on subs for about 20 yrs and retited a master chief and was involved in stuff he calls oobee doobee S**t. Can't probe too much cuz he would have to kill me if he told me too much.. sorry old joke. One declassified thing he did tell me is that they could track EVERY ship in the atlantic down to about 100 feet from offshore Norfork. Looks like Kamiseya has a lot of spook goings on
with the ammount of people they had there then. Apparently the land it sits on is very desideable and the Japanese would dearly love it back.

Wally-san
Going over the Kami sea site. Found a Guy with your name. Was there from 56-68. Name of George T. Cox. Lives in Bangor Maine. E Mail is Tom.c@stateme.us Hows that for a coincidence?

thats 65-67 not 56-67

A friend from my coal mining days was a buck Sgt in Berlin and worked as a "listener" to East German radio traffic. he was a fluent German speaker and knew German dialects and slang.
It would interesting to talk to one of these Navy guys about monitoring and interpreting Korean dialects, which I understand there are many.

Guy I used to know from doing music was put into russian language school. He was there for 3 or 4 years and then discharged without ever having a duty assignment! Basically they sent him to school his whole time in the Navy. How Ironic.. but I love these kind of military mix-ups. Stuff like some guy who was an engineer and they made him a cook.. like that, Would make a great web site, will have to see if its been done. Went back to loris site and at the end is a contact page with about 90 pages in it with about 10 listings per page, many from mid 60's. They didn't get deep into the work but does seem like spook city. Some of these guys had a beach cottage rented somewhere near enoshima. One guy spent his time looking for tunnels that suposedly ran from Kami to Yokohama. Cant quite fathom that. Also ran into a picture of an area like a ball field that was roped off due to unexploded ordienence. Much great stuff.

It wouldn't surprise me that authorities were looking for old tunnels around Yokohama, Yokosuka and Atsugi. There were at least a dozen caves and tunnels near our house in Sannotani when I was there in the 50s. One had a wooden front on it and was occupied by a Japanese family. The sandstone bluffs made digging caves fairly easy. Air raids made them a necessity

The tunnels I read about suposedly ran from Kamisea all the way to Yokohama if my reading is correct. We went to caves at Taya what a complex. A buddhist santuary of some sourt. Went to Shimoda what a wonderful place. Went for a walk on our first morning there. Got to some caves that passed through from the harbor to the beach beyond. Passing through I thought oh how nice to have an easy passage to the beach area. Then came the realization that the caves and the passage were not dug out for us tourists but were defencive positions dug in anticipation of an invasion as the "lookouts" covered the potential landing beach. So.. how sweet a nice cool passage became oh my.. there could have been an invasion here and death on both sides. the crossifre ranges were perfect for machine guns. I kept this to myself and let my wife enjoy the beach without that realization. Did see a photo somewhere of a Japanese family living in a cave Pretty tough but those were tough times. Also I believe that I learned that the Japanese stashed ocha ? planes in caves near Yokohama. These were rocket planes like a guided missle with a huge warhead. But by the time they were going to be used the US Forces had the p38 mustang that was able to shoot down the bombers that would carry these remarkably inovative aircraft. Yokosuka was loaded with tunnels. One photo [thanks Lori] showed the EM club housed in some tunnel like hole in the cliff 50's photo. Oh also the guys at Kamisea did the exploring on their own it was not an "official" exploration. What ever happened to General yamashita's gold ? Ever hear of that ?