This seemed unreal. Here we were tied up in a Japanese navy dock and getting to take leave in Tokyo and Yokohama. This was our first contact with the civilian population. It was very sad in one way. Most of the cities buildings had been bombed to a rubble. People were fighting over the food in our garbage cans. When we got in town they thought we would kill them if they did not do what we told them to do. There were two large whore houses that were not off limits to us. We were warned that all of the women had at least one venereal disease. It was required that you check with a hospital corpsman when you went in and came out.

     The people were still in a state of shock from all the bombs that had been dropped. I saw one woman who was caring a dead baby on her back. She looked so dazed I do not think she knew it was dead. Everyone wanted to buy souvenirs to send home. I was lucky enough to find a silk kimono. The only thing I saw that I would have traded it for was a hand carved elephant tusk. The guy who had the tusk had stolen it from the Swedish ambassadors home. He would not trade it for the kimono.

     We were all praying for orders to go home to the good old U.S.A. When my orders finally came I could not wait to leave. We came back through the Alutun islands and it seemed like it took us forever to get back. The golden gate bridge was a wonderful sight to see.

     I returned to Navy Memphis and was discharged a week before Christmas. This was great, I would get to spend my twenty first birthday at home. There was a country saying that you only became a man when you were free, white, and twenty one. I guess the "white" came from the days of black slavery.