I was living in Tennessee when my husband, a helicopter pilot in Air Sea Rescue, was reassigned to Japan. This was in the mid-fifties. Classified as a military dependent, I had to wait six months before joining him there. In the meantime, I moved to Atlanta to be near my parents prior to my departure.
There was a lot to do to prepare myself and the children for the long trip to a strange, foreign country. We had to get a number of shots, obtain a passport, and arrange to ship our vehicle, clothes, furniture, and wait for military orders.
When the orders came, they specified train travel to Seattle. However, I was in the process of selling some real estate, so I could not meet the deadline for train travel and ended up flying. When we arrived in Seattle, it was very messy, rainy weather. We checked into a hotel and the next day boarded a ship to make the two-week trip to Japan.
The first night out to sea it was rough, stormy weather. I was so scared I stayed up all night, kept the children awake and we ate crackers. The following morning we dressed for breakfast, and as we left our cabin, noticed several people sick and throwing up. As we entered the dining room, we saw a number of passengers who were sea sick and quite ill. However, myself and my children felt fine. I later realized that the reason we avoided the seasickness was because we had stayed up all night, eating crackers.
It took a couple of days to become accustomed to life aboard a ship. We had a number of safety drills in the event anything happened. The food was excellent and there were a lot of activities and entertainment aboard the ship. I played a lot of bridge and the children enjoyed all the activities. Overall, the two weeks crossing the Pacific Ocean was a very pleasant experience.
We docked in Yokohama and were met there by my husband in a military staff car. We drove into Tokyo and checked into the Imperial Hotel, which was such a thrill for me as I’m a huge fan of Frank Lloyd Wright.
The following day we flew in a Japanese aircraft to Itami Air Base, not far from the city of Kyoto. I recall flying over Mount Fuji, taking pictures as we flew over. We landed at Itami Air Base and immediately proceeded to the small, furnished Japanese house my husband had rented, complete with a maid.
In our new house, we had to remove our shoes upon entering. The floors were covered with bamboo tatami mats. It was heated with a kerosene heater and to take a bath, the maid built a fire under a large iron tub. It all seemed so strange, but I decided I had to adapt to a much different lifestyle than I was used to. The little house was comfortable and we unpacked and settled in.
I was the last wife in my husband’s squadron to arrive in Japan and the following night, a large welcome party was planned at the officers’ club to celebrate my arrival. The ballroom of the officers’ club was beautifully decorated and a large buffet was filled with wonderful food. In the center was a huge ice carving filled with shrimp and surrounded by flowers. A live band played while we danced, ate and partied until the wee hours.
The children were fine with the new maid. She spoke very little English, yet children seem to pick up new languages quite quickly and they had no trouble communicating. We adjusted to this new country and different lifestyle. Everything seemed to be going quite well since leaving Atlanta. All the arrangements made by the air force for the dependents went smoothly and pleasantly.
A few days after my arrival, my husband received orders for temporary duty on a flying mission. For a couple of weeks, we were left to adjust to this new living situation. I had shipped my new Buick Riviera from New Orleans and when it arrived, I had to learn how to drive on the left side of the street, which was quite narrow and always filled with people, bicycles and carts. However, I soon learned my way around and how to maneuver through the traffic. So far, so good. Everything seemed to be going quite well.
When my husband returned from his temporary duty, it was late at night and he was quite tired. He dropped his B-4 bag at the end of the bed and fell asleep. That night we were burglarized. I woke up the next morning and the house had been ransacked. Everything was strewn everywhere.
The first thing I noticed missing was my watch and jewelry on the nightstand by our bed. Papers and clothes were strewn everywhere it was hard to tell what had been taken. Another American family lived next door and their dogs had been tied up and tortured by the burglars. I walked outside, sat down, cried and moaned. The neighbors came out and called the Japanese police. I was very distraught, but pulled myself together and went through everything. I inventoried all the losses for the police report. With the help of the maid, we cleaned things up and in a few days, recovered and tried to make sense out of all that had happened.
A couple of weeks later we were contacted by the police saying they had caught the thieves. We went to the police station and were escorted into a room filled with loot. Sitting in a corner of the room were the two thieves. They had apparently robbed other houses because there was a lot of stuff there and the only thing I recovered was my watch.
About a month later, we awakened in the middle of the night to a smoke filled house. The kerosene heater had malfunctioned. We got out of the house but everything was covered with soot and smoke. Fortunately, all of our clothes were hanging in a closet in bags and were not damaged. We cleaned up the damage and tried to get back to normal after this second disaster.
A couple of months later, I was invited to go along with four other officer wives on a sightseeing trip to the beautiful city of Kyoto. The squadron commander’s wife was driving and while there, she hit a young boy on a bicycle. He was not hurt but we were all taken to a Japanese jail.
While held in jail, we were grilled intensely by the Japanese police with a lot of questioning. Insulting questioning like, “have you ever belonged to the communist party?” I was permitted to make a phone call to the air base and the Provost Marshall sent a young airman, third class, to represent us. He simply sat down, folded his arms and informed us we were under the jurisdiction of the Japanese police and was to do what they told us to do.
I was stunned and said, “don’t they know we won the war?” I was highly incensed at being held in a Japanese jail and intensely grilled all day long. And wondered why we had no representation from our government while being held in a foreign jail. I wondered, where is this government of mine—of the people, for the people, and by the people—I studied about in high school civics? I felt totally abandoned. I was in a foreign jail with interrogators speaking to me in a language I could not understand. It was a very frightening experience.
Just before dark we were released and returned to Itami Air Base. That evening, we went to the officers’ club for dinner and it seemed to be a big joke that four officers’ wives had been incarcerated and interrogated in a Japanese jail.
But it was no joke to me. And I couldn’t wait to obtain a copy of the Status Forces Agreement signed by Macarthur. I quickly learned that we were in fact, as American citizens, under the jurisdiction of Japanese authorities and subject to their laws. Had I understood that before departing the shores of American soil I probably would not have gone.
My life was changed forever that day and from then on, I wanted to learn everything I could about political governments in general and the United States government in particular.
Let Freedom Ring!
JUST ME,
AC
My story about life in Japan continues in my next blog . . .
