On the way to the WarMinistryBuilding where the trials were held, and where I lived and worked for a year or so, two things on the way there really impressed upon me. One was the total destruction of everything you could see. The other was that every so often I’d see a building about 12 x 20 ft and one, two or maybe three stories high. I found out later that they were fire proof vaults. As you know, Tokyo was fire bombed. Later in life, in 1948 -1949 when I lived with my (brother-) Bud and Alma, she said that the family she worked for in Clayton, Missouri had such a vault built into the house where she worked.
We had four shifts at the W.M.Building—two day shifts and 2 night shifts, each 6 hours. A fifth group worked on the detail that took the accused to and from the War Ministry court building to Sugamo Prison, where they were incarcerated while not at the WM Building. (Later we toured Sugamo Prison and I saw the gallows that Tojo was hung in.)
As usual in Tokyo, we had Saturday morning inspections. Word got out that one of the things the inspection would check on was the way we were rolling our bed comforter. (It was winter, and cold.) There were four of us in the room, and on Friday evening, the other three guys decided to roll comforters. We went together all three of them worked on the same comforter. So with three men working on one comforter, they did a good job. When they got done with the first, they went to the second. When they finished the third, I pitched them mine to roll. Each time they rolled one, they improved it a little. When they finished mine, it was perfect. At the Saturday a.m. inspection, mine was the best in the company, so I was asked to bring it to the Orderly room and show the other men how to do it. Ha.
While at the W. C. T., we had several different company commanders. One was a fine young man about thirty with a wife and several children. After he was in our outfit for several months, his wife had made it over (to Japan). He came down with Polio and lived about a week. We have a lot to be thankful for, that polio is not one of our worries.
Aunt Lolly says
Who is the man standing by Gen.Douglas McArther? Loved this story!