Late in 1950 I applied for a 6-month tech school in Japan; Advanced Radio Repair. Six months later I was approved and left on temporary assignment to Johnson Air Force Base, Tachikawa, Japan. I had read several books about the Japanese occupation of the Philippines and talked to Filipinos and Filipinas about their personal experiences. I left for Japan with a bitter taste for the Japs, feeling we should have nuked them back to the stone age. All these years later I still waffle back and forth with my feelings.

JOHNSON AIR FORCE BASE, TACHIKAWA, JAPAN

Recent picture of Mt. Fujiyama at sunset. From Johnson AFB, about 50-miles away, Mt. Fuji was the most dominant feature on the landscape. Beautiful, summer and winter.

Back then, 1951, traveling between bases was left to the individual. I was given a set of written orders to be at Johnson AFB, Tachikawa, Japan by a certain date. The orders gave me a seat on any military plane headed in that direction. You might make it on the first attempt or get bumped by someone with higher priority or rank. I caught a MATS shuttle run to Tokyo, with stops at Okinawa and Formosa (Taiwan). Johnson AFB, about 50-miles from Tokyo was the former Japanese Army Air Academy. Our barracks were single storey wood, similar to those at Camp Stoneman. A few tech school classes started each month. It wasn’t as difficult for me as the school at Scott. Matter of fact, I enjoyed it. No KP, no additional duties at all. School only, with small classes, plenty of free time, day trips to Tachikawa and Tokyo, it was great duty. A visit to downtown Tokyo, where there was a six storey PX with good prices and a good restaurant, also brought home the reality of the beating Japan took from our firebombing. Acres of Tokyo were still flattened. The worst firebombing occurred on March 9, 1945, my 13th birthday. B-29s burned out 25% of the city and killed more than 100,000 people.    A daily ritual at Johnson was to head for the flight line after class for BS about what we had studied that day, have coffee and doughnuts from a chuck wagon and watch the Mustangs going and coming from bases in Korea. There was a B-29 base 12-miles from us and on occasion a damaged bomber coming back from a  mission made an emergency landing at Johnson. One day a B-29 with no apparent damage landed and taxied to the flight line. A good friend, Don Schofield said, Would you look at that name?