SASEBO,
JAPAN
by
Norval P. Caples
What was once a sizeable city now lay reduced to
rubble, resembling a composite picture of Vicksburg and Richmond 80 years
earlier, bombed to smithereens and prostrate in defeat. Shipbuilding had been
the major industry of Sasebo a seaport
city at the western tip of Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's three main
islands. Sasebo, pockmarked by bomb craters and presenting a moonscape image,
still showed some signs of life, feeble stirrings among a proud but beaten
people so recently engaged in an all out war. The extensive shipbuilding
facilities, abandoned now but still intact, appeared as ghostly specters of doom
silhouetted against a leaden sky ugly in their idleness as they must have been
at their full war-making activity.
Answering everyone's first question at once, an
officer told us that throughout the war, the United States preferred to allow
the Japanese to build ships and then sink them rather than have the enemy divert
war-making resources into something we were not as well prepared for. Just a few
weeks earlier we couldn't have envisioned this, but here we were sudden victors
of an all out war, freely walking around in a key city of the enemy's homeland.
We went two by two, unarmed and tentative, not fully knowing what to expect.
The
Japanese homeland had not received enough oil from the distant oil fields they
had captured early on because an ever tightening allied blockade and shipping
losses had strangled their supply. Picture an ordinary 1930s school bus, painted
a drab brownish-green with a platform welded onto the rear which held a 50
gallon hot water tank and a much smaller cast iron charcoal burning stove
alongside it, add a pressure gauge and some copper or aluminum tubing, and a
description of the bus's power system is complete. It was all reminiscent of a
Rube Goldberg invention, but it worked. It really did appear that the front
wheels would rear up from all the added weight on the back, but they didn't.
The shore leave party began to disperse and go their
separate ways, some to the train station to see if the bombed station and tracks
had been repaired and the trains were running again, others to watch the
hundreds of small motor powered boats which darted swiftly in and out of the
harbor, making barely audible putt=putt sounds. The Japanese had just about used
up every resource in prosecuting the war except these countless little fishing
boats which remained active and energetic.
My liberty buddy and I had found a tossed-aside Sasebo
newspaper only a few days old. We couldn't read it, but there was an illustrated
advertisement on one of the four pages boldly announcing that a store had goods
for sale. The ad showed a picture of a mercury filled glass thermometer just
like our own medics used. Well, if they sold thermometers, maybe they had other
things for sale, too, and we set out to find that establishment with freshly
printed yen and sen in our pockets just crying out to be spent.
We found it. Downtown Sasebo covered a pretty large
area, but we had only to be on the lookout for an un-demolished building, and
they were few and far between.
Somehow the two store building had survived nearby
bombing with relatively minor damage. The broken windows had been replaced, sort
of, by using other pieces of broken glass to cover the gaping holes. Enough
rubble had been removed from the sidewalk to create a pathway to the door, and
the entrance way had a freshly swept look, making the shop as inviting as
possible.
We went inside. Although electric power had been
restored the interior was dimly lit. Shelves, counters, and showcases were
arranged in much the same manner as in a crossroads general store in the United
States. However, on this particular day they appeared barren and empty. Three
persons were sitting in a semi-circle near the counter area where an abacus was
suspended from the ceiling. We assumed that they were the proprietor, his wife,
and daughter. They had been seeing U.S. military personnel for some days now and
registered no surprise nor apprehension over our presence.
We poked around, looking on every shelf. There was
virtually nothing offered for sale. We passed up the rectal thermometers--they
were probably metric anyway. Some cheap "Made in Japan" sunglasses
were also unexciting with their absolutely round smoked glass lenses which may
have been stylish 30 years prior. I found a rather small rectangular sugar bowl
with pale brown oriental designs printed on it, delicate handles at each end and
a tastefully designed, snugly fitting top.
I paid the proprietor who quickly rang up the sale on
the suspended abacus by using what strongly resembled a pool hall cue stick. My
shipmate had also made a small purchase and we turned to go, our eyes now
accustomed to the dim lighting. Our exit route took us within inches of where
the proprietors pretty teenage daughter sat, not a delicate childlike person
with downcast eyes fanning herself, but a pretty in any language young lady
calmly giving two awkward foreigners a silent appraisal.
Shaken to the very core of a steadfast resolve to
continue hating a cruel nation and its people, I impulsively reached out and
touched her. It was a magical moment, lasting but a second; her eyes lit up and
she shyly smiled while her parents continued to benignly nod to us as we left
the building.
I stuffed a sock inside the sugar bowl, replaced the
lid, pulled still more socks over the outside and then stored my prized purchase
among items of clothing in my sea bag. It made the half-way around the world
trip safely and Mom couldn't have been more pleased with any gift, keeping it
with her best dishes and proudly bringing it out for display on special
occasions.
Within a few months, I saw an identical sugar bowl
(made in Japan) for sale at the G.C. Murphy 5 & 10 in Westminster for 29
cents.
I never told Mom.