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MY BRUSH WITH HISTORY
BY THE READERS
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The Prince and I
Three of us Pacific war correspondents decided to give ourselves a vacation from the military and to get away—if only for a few days —from the frightful and chilling devastation all around us in Tokyo.
I was a war correspondent for TimeLife magazines in the Pacific and had flown a few days earlier from Manila to Atsugi Field, near Yokohama, with others attached to the MacArthur command. We were there to be aboard the battleship Missouri for the surrender ceremonies on September 2, 1945.
The papers were signed, and suddenly the war was over.
We wanted to see the countryside and small towns and villages in a part of Japan untouched by war, at least physically. We settled on a train trip to Nikko, a lovely temple and shrine city in the mountains ninety miles north of Tokyo. Because several of the most magnificent shrines and temples in Japan were in a national park bordering the small city, it had been spared by the B-29s.
Money had little meaning to the Japanese at the moment. They were destitute. A can of Spam or a bar of GI chocolate carried more weight in the market than a hundred-dollar bill. In preparation for our trip we filled three knapsacks with candy, food, and cigarettes purchased at a post exchange and several bottles of Scotch whiskey.
We had a long walk up the main street from the railway station, lugging our bags to the Nikko-Kanaya Hotel. Not many people were in sight to see these three tall strangers chug uphill, and I hoped that they had heard the war was over, for I felt like Gary Cooper walking to his destiny in High Noon.
Shin Kanaya, the charming, bespectacled owner of the hotel, which was just across the road from the sacred bridge leading to the temples, said we were his first American guests since Ambassador Joseph C. Grew, who had vacationed there during his nine years in Japan, came for a weekend visit just before Pearl Harbor. We shared with him our whiskey and sent candies to his wife, who was ill.
Later that afternoon Mr. Kanaya came to my room. ‘The keeper of the emperor’s trout streams would be pleased to bring you each a trout for dinner.” Pause. “A small consideration would be most appropriate, say, a package of cigarettes,” said Mr. Kanaya.
That night we dined on trout. Cost: three packs of Camels. After months of Army rations it was a near-sensual experience.
Mr. Kanaya had one further suggestion. “If by chance you can spare some sweets, I have several small boys who have not had candies for a long, long time. You might wish to surprise them with such a gift, and I would be glad to arrange a small presentation.”
He continued. “All the princes from the Peers School, including the crown prince, were brought here several months ago to get away from the fire bombings. They have been at school in the building across the way.” He pointed to a small white two-story building beyond a grove of trees.
The next morning at precisely eightthirty the three American war correspondents, led by Mr. Kanaya, walked onto the graveled playing field of the school. A dozen small boys were standing in a line at youthful attention but in complete silence. Standing a few feet in front of them, in his role as the future emperor of Japan, was another small boy, Crown Prince Akihito, in shorts and white shirt, round-faced and solemn. We were the first Americans that many of these small boys had ever seen.
Mr. Kanaya told the children who we were and why we had come to this beautiful city of Nikko, and said that Mr. Clayton had a presentation to make. The night before, the three of us had pooled several pounds of chocolate bars and hard candies.
I stepped in front of the boys. I don’t remember what I said, but I do know that when 1 handed the crown prince the bag of candies, we did not shake hands. I bowed, and in return, he bowed.
End of ceremony.
The boys stood at attention until we walked to the edge of the playground and turned into the hotel. As we walked up the steps, I heard shouts and laughter coming from the playground.
We left shortly after for Tokyo.
—Bernard Clayton, Jr., a food and travel writer, lives in Bloomington, Indiana.
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The Emperor and I
From 1965 to 1985 my wife and I and our two daughters lived in a modern house we had built in Bethesda, Maryland. Several years after ours went up, a house was constructed on the lot next door and put up for sale. It was a big Federal colonial that sat empty for some months and then was bought by the Japanese Embassy to house their finance minister.
These diplomats were good neighbors, though very formal. Each of them —there were three ministers in turn during the years we lived there—came to pay a courtesy call shortly after moving in, greeted us with warm formality whenever we saw one another outside, and had us over for at least one formal dinner party. I grew accustomed to seeing, while I was working on some chore at the head of my driveway, the ministers, members of their families, and various servants, men and women young and old, coming, going, or working about outside.
The time came when Emperor Hirohito came to Washington on a state visit. This was a very big deal. The Emperor of Japan rarely made state visits, and never to the United States. There were fears that lingering animosities from World War II might induce demonstrations or even a rash act by some deranged person. Exceptional security precautions were taken for the emperor’s safety, especially at Blair House, the residence across the street from the White House where our most important state visitors are put up.
During the week of Hirohito’s visit, I saw unusual levels of activity across the driveway. Big black cars were coming and going, and there were always one or two parked in their drive. They seemed to have added some servants. Whenever I happened to be outside they had people about: maids going in and out of the kitchen, chauffeurs standing around, an elderly fellow wearing a cardigan working in the gardens, cutting flowers, and always burly young men in dark glasses muttering into their lapels. The servants, even the new ones, smiled and nodded as ever. The young men didn’t. The activity is hardly surprising, I thought. The minister must be going to official functions day and night and maybe entertaining there in the house as well. Once the emperor’s visit was over, things quickly got back to normal.
A few years later we were at a dinner party given by the most recent minister. After the meal the minister got expansive. “You know,” he said, smiling at me, “I must tell you something. When our emperor visited Washington, our two governments were so concerned with his safety that although we made everyone believe he was staying at Blair House, he really stayed here in this house the whole time.”
Well, of course. All that activity and all those people. The emperor was there. Every time I took out the garbage that week, I realized, or came out to do some chore or wash the car, what those guys with the black aviator glasses had been muttering into their lapels was “Relax. It’s only the dentist next door.”
And then I thought of the old man working in the garden. I never saw him before that week; I never saw him after. A personal equerry of the emperor, perhaps? Or a valet or a butler? Probably. Except, who knows? I’ve read that Hirohito was a putterer. Maybe while the governments of two great powers spent great efforts protecting him, he came out and cut flowers for the house. Maybe that old gentleman in the cardigan nodding politely to the dentist across the driveway was the Emperor of Japan.
—Jay L. Wolff is a dentist in Alexandria, Virginia.
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No Beer in Berlin
We were steaming as a part of the Standing On-CaIl Force Mediterranean. It was quite a combination: warships of Turkey, Spain, Italy, Greece, the United States, and our ship, the Federal Republic of Germany’s destroyer Schleswig-Holstein. Our time sailing together as a task group was drawing to a close, and the tempo of our operations was letting up just enough to allow for the simple agreeable routines that build an understanding between shipmates, their ships, and the sea.
As an American exchange officer serving as navigator on board the Schleswig-Holstein, I would regularly visit the chart house between the hours of 2100 and 2300. Usually, the major exercises’of the day had been completed, and this afforded the time to check the time-speed-distance problem for the next day and shoot the bull with the junior navigator of the watch. An added bonus of these visits was a large, ancient piece of equipment known as the Sichtfunkpeiler—a simple radio direction finder that receives a radio signal and reveals the true bearing of the transmitter. By removing a small retaining pin inside the Sichtfunkpeiler, one is able to receive regular radio broadcasts as well. Given reasonable atmospheric conditions, I could well expect to hear Süd-bay-erisches Rundfunk or the Deutsche Welle broadcast. It was nice. We normally caught the latest news and the weather back home.
This particular night I was greeted by the exuberant face of a junior navigator. “There’s no more beer in Berlin! They’re bringing emergency shipments in from the West!”
I must have looked a bit dumb just standing there, so he added, “The Wall has been opened.” As sailors are known for practical joking (it helps pass the time), I remained skeptical. Until, leaning forward to the good old Sichtfunkpeiler, we heard a rebroadcast of a Willy Brandt speech followed by news reports of a tremendous party in Berlin and a beer shortage. The Wall had indeed been opened. I remained for about thirty minutes, and a few sailors came up to listen for a short while and descended again into the ship. They seemed to take the news guardedly. Perhaps it was the fact that we were at sea, receiving this information through an outdated, temperamental radio receiver, but it just didn’t or couldn’t sink in.
The following morning a fly-in of reporters was hurriedly inserted into the ship’s schedule, so two days later, as we tied up in Genoa, there was no doubt. And as major news networks the world over scrambled for satellite relays direct from Berlin, I could rest assured that I had already received the best report of this astounding event: ‘There is no more beer in Berlin.”
—John S. Arbter lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
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FDR’s Bedside Manner
In July of 1944 I was lying in a naval hospital bed in Honolulu, a very young Marine lieutenant shot full of holes in the Saipan campaign. I shared the room with an old friend I hadn’t seen in months until we accidentally ended up together in the hospital, courtesy of the Japanese.
One bright morning an unusual flurry of activity began: cleaning personnel zipping about, corpsmen dashing down the corridor, nurses coming in to check if we had shaved and washed after breakfast. There even seemed to be an inordinate number of planes roaring by the hospital. Questions about what was going on were ignored, but finally a favorite nurse gave us the word: President Roosevelt was in Hawaii—for a conference with his Pacific commanders, as we learned later—and was visiting the hospital and would maybe visit a few rooms.
Later the corridor outside our room began to fill with men both in uniform and in civilian suits, and two of the latter came into our room and checked it out, even peering under the high hospital beds. At one point an older naval officer leaned against the doorjamb and chatted with us; it was not until he turned to leave that I saw the stars on his collar and recognized him as Admiral Nimitz. I kept watching the corridor, and suddenly the mob parted slightly, and I saw the President in his wheelchair. His chin drooped on his chest, and his face sagged in a mass of baggy wrinkles. He looked ghastly, almost unrecognizable as the exuberant, vibrant President I had often seen in news photos and on the newsreels.
A moment later the commanding officer of the hospital took one step into our room, announced formally, “Gentlemen, the President of the United States,” and then stepped back out again. The President was wheeled into our room. I was stunned. You would have thought he was being wheeled onstage at Soldier Field, Chicago, before fifty thousand people. His head was thrown back, that famous broad, open Roosevelt smile on his face had wiped out the sagging wrinkles, and his right hand was raised high in cheery greeting. A complete transformation, and all for the benefit of two wounded Marines. He stayed for a few minutes and chatted, but I no longer remember what he said except that at one point he told a dull joke at which he laughed delightedly, and then he was gone.
For years afterward, when teaching American history at my university, I would tell this story to illustrate Roosevelt’s astonishing appeal and his apparent personal concern for others. There were no reporters present, no photographers taking pictures, no public relations gimmick; all this had been for our benefit alone.
Once, years later, after I had told this to a class, a hand went up from an older student, a retired Army colonel. He said that he, too, had once met the President, and so I naturally asked him to tell us about it. He had been a duty officer at the War Department when the message had come in from General Elsenhower—to be delivered personally—informing the President that the D-day invasion was under way. The officer took off for the White House, which he found jammed with civilian and military brass waiting for this word. He insisted on delivering the message directly to the President, and this was agreed to. He also had the nerve to ask for the message back after the President had read it, and FDR smilingly agreed.
He told the story very well, and he had clearly topped mine, as I’m sure the class thought too. There was a long pause when he finished.
“Well,” I said, “that’s an impressive story, but there is one major difference between your experience and mine. You drove a few blocks across town to see the President. The President traveled six thousand miles to see me.”
Cheers and laughter from the class, and my little brush with history remained secure for another time.
—G. D. Lillibridge is a professor emeritus of history at California State University at Chico.
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The Better Speaker
I hadn’t the faintest idea I was having a brush with history one evening in the spring of 1929. I just knew that it was the end of a wearying, happy day.
The afternoon had seen me place well enough in several events to win my track letter. Now here I was being presented with a five-dollar gold piece as my reward for finishing second in Whittier High School’s constitutional oratorical contest. My speech, “John Marshall and the Constitution,” had just lost to one on the subject “Our Privileges under the Constitution.” I didn’t begrudge the winner of the firstplace ten-dollar piece. Richard M. Nixon had simply been the better speaker.
—Eldon A. Hunt, a retired school administrator, lives in Porterville, California.
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