IN THE JAPANESE NAVY
by Norval P. Caples

                        The uniformed, neat as a pin, Japanese naval officer carrying a briefcase was aboard our ship in August, 1945, on a no-nonsense mission.
                        When World War H ended, the Japanese fully cooperated with the Allies by furnishing detailed information about their extensive mine fields. They went beyond that and furnished directions for a safe route into Sasebo's inner harbor from where mine sweeping operations could be coordinated. In addition, they had disarmed their own surviving warships, keeping the wartime crews intact, and they were now willingly assisting last month's enemy in many constructive and straightforward ways.
                         Our visitor, who spoke excellent English, was the Japanese representative who would help coordinate the resources of both navies involved in mine-clearing operations of Sasebo's harbor and nearby waters.
                        Our visitor, who spoke excellent English, was the Japanese representative who would help coordinate the resources of both navies involved in mine-clearing operations of Sasebo's harbor and nearby waters.
                        The plan was a simple one. Two Japanese warships, which once were coastal patrol vessels, had been stripped of their guns and ammunition. The removal of this weight burden allowed the ship to sail safely above the depth setting of mines the Japanese had !aid to defend their harbors and homeland. Each ship towed one end of the cable which stretched between them, positioned to encounter a mine's mooring cable at a safe depth beneath the mine itself. This enabled a cutting device to free the mines to float to the surface. They were ugly, evil looking things with spikes sticking from them, bobbing unpredictably in the choppy waters.  
                        Into this setting stepped a handful of sailors from the USS Henry A. Wiley for a week to play a key role in clearing the Sasebo harbor area of deadly mines.
                        The Japanese could have been relied upon to destroy the mines themselves, but they were the defeated enemy and had given up all arms under the terms of surrender. So it was that five volunteer riflemen from the H. A. Wiley were assigned to one of the mine sweeping warships to shoot at and explode mines that had been detected and cut from their moorings, bobbing like giant beach balls on the choppy waters, a clear danger to anything afloat until they could be exploded.
                        Lt. Blundon coordinated each day's operation with the Japanese, and my job was to issue 1903 model Springfield repeating rifles and ammunition each morning and collect the rifles and any unused ammunition at day's end to clean and store away for the next day.
                        Everyone, it seemed, wanted to be assigned as a shooter on that Japanese warship. Lt. Blundon announced that he'd accommodate as many as he could. Selections would be made from a sign-up sheet which he left up to me to prepare and pin on the midship's bulletin board.
                        I wanted to go too, but since I was helping get the detail ready, it would look like I was muscling in and putting Lt. Blundon on the spot if he showed me favoritism. What the heck, I signed up anyway, pretty far down a long list.
                        It was a little scary, going aboard a Japanese warship next day with its battle-tested crew still intact. We quickly observed that they were no-nonsense and "by the numbers" precise in whatever they did. All of this could have been intimidating to five wide-eyed strangers from the western world, but these sailors--the ordinary kind—were friendly and outgoing toward us. It didn't seem right to be fraternizing with a cruel enemy, never mind that we'd vaporized the populations of two of their large cities and turned one of the world's major capitals into a gigantic fireball. They started it, didn't they? They were unbelievably cruel and sadistic; they had it coming to them.
                        No doubt they had their own inner thoughts, too, but these teen-aged and 20-year-old sailors suddenly struck us a being so much like ourselves that we started to communicate (some spoke English), trade things, and show each other pictures from home as our initial tensions began to evaporate.
                        We hadn't brought any items with us to trade, believing we'd be isolated in the officer's wardroom which had been set aside for our use and emerging only when a mine had been cut adrift and needed to be exploded.
                        Our briefings about dealing with the enemy now that peace had replaced war had not prepared us for anything like these outgoing Japanese youth with their friendly smiles and mouthfuls of costly gold and silver dental work, but we quickly adjusted. Each of us soon found someone willing to trade something they owned for something of ours. My trading partner could speak some English and told me he had once been to Chicago to visit relatives who were U.S. citizens. His uniform coat had raised metal buttons, gold colored with an anchor and cherry blossom design. They looked really neat, and I offered the only thing I had with me of any value in exchange--a cheap pair of split leather gloves. He accepted and quickly removed the small copper key rings that secured the buttons in place.
                        My new acquaintance now served as a tour guide and showed us around the ship. The enlisted men's living quarters were adequate but rather Spartan. Their bed clothing and mattresses would be rolled up and stacked each morning, leaving the crew what resembled wooden fork-lift pallets to loll about on during their free time. Just like us, they had only a few rag-a-tug books that their officers no longer wanted. One was an English primer which I thumbed through, seeking propaganda that had systematically poisoned their minds toward us. I remember one sentence only, "Americans do not like to carry parcels; a thriving business has been developed in the U.S. to deliver purchases to shoppers' homes." I would have to look elsewhere to discover the seeds of their aggression.
                        We had taken sandwiches along for lunch and had been told it would be okay to drink hot tea if we were offered some but to decline unrefined sugar and other foodstuffs because we might come down with a virulent form of diarrhea to which the Japanese themselves were immune. Some of us had spooned some of the brown crystalline sugar into our tea and drunk it before realizing we had been warned not to.
                        The Japanese sailors would walk around on the deck in their free time eating rice from bowls, some with chopsticks, but mostly with their fingers. I noted how appetizing the rice looked, sparkling white, light and fluffy, but remembered to refuse when offered a heaping portion.
                        Setting in a sheltered place against the deck-house was a large burlap bag resembling a Brazilian coffee sack. It was opened with the top of the bag neatly rolled back revealing the contents. The Japanese sailors would walk by, reach down, and grab a handful of its contents to munch on as they went about the ship's work. This was too tempting; I just had to try some. I did and still do not know what the dried crisp flakes were, but they tasted something like potato chips with the skins left on. Afterward, I sweated out the possibility of getting sick as a consequence of this impulsive act. Fortunately the fearful and dread thought soon dimmed, and I was able to concentrate on other exciting events that were taking place.
                        We had noticed four or five bamboo poles, seasoned and very sturdy, neatly stacked against each side of the deck house, and we had wondered what they were for. We soon found out. Once the mooring lines were thrown off, the ship was vulnerable to wave action which could dash the lightweight ship against the pier, buckling the steel hull plates~ But here were teams of sailors spaced just as they'd been trained with bamboo poles braced against the dock and pushing their warship outward to safety. Returning, it was the same drill, resembling warriors from the middle ages, the sailors planted their stout lance-like poles against the dock as the ship came in too fast for safety toward her mooring space while the skilled sailors, several to each pole, absorbed the impact by their combined weight and muscle, gently easing the ship into her berth.
                        The hazardous mine sweeping operation went off smoothly. Who better than the guys who laid the mines to be depended on more than anyone else to locate and destroy them? When a mine was located and cut free from its undersea mooring to float to the surface, ali operations would stop while we five non-Japanese aligned ourselves along the deck railing and opened fire with our 30-caliber repeating rifles. We simply aimed for the mine itself which bounced and jiggled, half submerged in the sea much like a bobber on a child's fishing lines. With five of us shooting rapidly, we depended on hitting one of the spiny projections by chance alone, blowing the mine up harmlessly. It worked. The ship stood away from the floating hazard at least 250 feet yet we still managed to explode the mine by the time we'd fired four or five times apiece.
                        We'd never know whose shot exploded the mine, but it was all very exciting to five youths who were having a good time.
                        It had been quite an adventure, the kind that does not dim from memory throughout a lifetime. We returned to the H.A. Wiley tired but still excited from the day's events.
                        The mine sweeping operation was completed within S days, much sooner than expected, as the operation had proceeded efficiently and smoothly. Not many of our crew had gotten to participate. The war was over, and we had going home on our minds, but I would sure have been disappointed had I not had that one day in the Japanese Navy armed with an old fashioned rifle, outnumbered 20 to 1, thrown together with last month's enemies on a dangerous mission when we were boys.
                        I still have those gold colored buttons around someplace, and in Japan, some clever old guy may, at this very minute, be telling his grandchildren how he bested a not-so-bright Yankee in a trade 50 years ago.  

N.P.C.'95