日系アメリカ人兵役体験記録データベース
Hayami Sato
Makeshift cold shower in the Philippines; Since we were bivouacked in a staging area on Okinawa, there were no bathroom showers whatsoever - we bathed in the North Pacific Ocean.
Ate only C rations (in cans).
There were no sources of entertainment in war ravaged Manila nor on Okinawa.
In mid-August 1945, General MacArthur gave the 11th Airborne Division, then in the Philippines, the honor of being the first American Division to enter Tokyo. The division rushed its various elements from the Philippines to the staging area on Okinawa. On 29 August, 1945, the 11th Airborne was the first to land in Japan to take up ocupational duties. As a member of the advance party of the 11th Airborne, I rode on a U.S. Army C-50 transport plane from Kadena Airfield on Okinawa and landed at the Atsugi Air Station South of Yokohama City, Kanagawa prefecture. I was quite apprehensive, not knowing what to expect from the until-recent enemy. Also, I was overcome with emotion when I realized that I had set foot on the land of my ancestors, and my immigrant parents.