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321 Sunday 9 Sept. 7:30 pm My darling, Three long letters from you yesterday and a delightful note from Wendy (I'm so glad the kimonos fit and will find out how the sash is supposed to tie) made me feel awfully good. I read them while waiting for the civilians from Aguigan to arrive - I had been called down from the school to help register them. Reifsnider and Mook went over on the small ship which picked them up - a slow and difficult procedure because of the ruggedness of the coast and the necessity of getting them out to the ship in small boats - while two of our Nisei joined the staff from Camp Administration Office in waiting at the Tinian dock to meet them and escort them up here. Several other Nisei and some civilians experienced in the work helped me with the job of making out cards on each individual and keeping the cards in family groupings. It was an interesting spectacle: there [pg 2] were almost 300 in all, of whom 120 were Koreans. One Churo Korean told me that all the Koreans known to have been on Aguigan before Tinian was taken were checked in here, and I imagine that the same holds true for the Japanese, with a possible exception of one or two deaths from illness or accident. They were dirty, having been living in caves because the island was bombed sporadically, but not undernourished; there had been a wide variety of fruit and vegetables and some livestock on the island. One old woman came over carrying a live chicken by the feet; others are said to have brought two more chickens and two dogs. Water, which all the civilians here had thought would be a critical situation, was a problem but not an acute one; everybody got 6 gallons a day under the established ration. The health of the people was good; just 10 of the nearly 300 had to be taken up [pg 3] to the hospital, and all as ambulatory patients. One had T.B., another syphilis, the rest different varieties of skin diseases. There were lots of children, and many nursing mothers; some of the latter continued to nurse their babies stripped to the waist as they left the doctor's examination. One or two were fine specimens of female breasts and backs and I found myself thinking idly what a shame it was - certainly in a climate like this - for women to have to cover from the waist up. It was a happy occasion; some people (Korean women) wept a little, quietly; most were busy seeking out old friends and acquaintances. One more arrived very tight because he had been refused permission to bring a large bottle of local sake with him, and decided to stow it away inside him. This morning I stayed in bed till 10 o'clock! I had to make myself [pg 4] do it, but I was determined, and each time I woke up it was easier to go back to sleep again. Oh, but I really need some practice in learning how to relax! And it's you that can give it to me, darling. #380 - Speaking of picture, darling, are you going to send me any more film? How about 2 rolls of 35 mm Kodachrome? It's fairly expensive, but I think well worth it. And it's high time you took some color pictures of Wendy, darling - such things are priceless and we can't afford not to take them. When you finish the roll, all you do is send it to the Kodak Company and they mount the finished transparencies in little individual frames. I believe the whole cost of developing and [pg 5] mounting is included in the price of the film. I forget how many prints come on a roll, but I believe it's 16. Kodak sells an inexpensive viewer for looking at the mounted transparencies; I used one not long ago. When Rein's friend Wally Teed was showing me some Churo when I escorted him around camp. I'll never go anywhere again without a camera and film. Apart from the invaluable record pictures give you, taking them would be a good recreation where varieties of diversion are limited. About leaving Tinian in four months? That was just a guess made by Henry Groehn, Mac (whom, by the way, I've grown used to and like better than formerly) and I based on the fact that the men who preceeded us are being relieved now. The end of the war, however, and the sending to Japan of men who might otherwise have replaced [pg 6] us may alter that situation. Just reflect, Sweetie, that the longer I'm on Tinian the less chance there is of my having to go to Japan and getting stuck there. The Whites having an offspring? Maybe that'll change Doris a little - it sometimes makes a woman out of a shrewish maid. Darling, I’d love to give you a back rub; my hands and fingers ache sometimes just for the feel of you. #381 My chances of coming home by ship are good unless I should be pulled out of here and sent to Japan, an eventuality which I think unlikely. Thank you, sweetie, for not begrudging me that extra three weeks. You ask about the reaction to victory of the Japanese people here - I could write a lot of little sidelights on that, but will save the details until I can tell you about it myself. In general, however, they received the news soberly; some doubted and spread their doubts around camp, even doubts as to [pg 7] the authenticity of the Tokyo radio after they had heard it; most of them believed it and went around for two or three days looking crushed. There was no significant demonstration of any sort either by Japanese or by Koreans. I told one of the teachers about that sign in Yokohama harbor - “Three Cheers for the American Army and Navy” and asked him what he thought of it: he replied that it was the proper thing to do. It's all over now; so it isn't sporting to remain bitter. I told him that the average American just couldn't comprehend such a reaction, and would distrust it or think it extremely naïve - he couldn't understand that. Until the capitulation most of them had thought, not that Japan was going to win in the sense of holding her widespread recent acquisitions, but that she would salvage something out of the war beyond what she entered it with. [pg 8] These people have a sense of humiliation, but apparently none of quiet. The war was a vast sporting arena with no holds barred, but now that it is over they propose to go by the rules again - until the next war. It's a curious phenomenon - not conscious deceit, nor maliciousness. I just call it lack of any capacity for balanced adult emotions. I think the next twenty years will see a very marked change in Japanese society, much of it superficially for the worse but most of it on the whole for the better. Too late to sell the carriage now that the war has ended, sweetie. So let's keep it - it can be shipped in a baggage car without crating, I think. 382 - I'm getting more and more impatient to be home myself, darling - it's going to be hard to settle down to the coming [pg 9] and I hope the last few months. By the way, Sweetie, there is just a chance that I may stay in the Navy for a few months in the United States (Washington) doing work on historical records connected with Military Government. I should like to do it and it would be a convenient step from Navy to civilian life, especially to a government job in Washington where I’d have ample time to look around. I tell you that so you won't be disappointed if I should announce that I'm not getting out right away; however, it would not last for more than half a year. And of course I’d be able to wear civilian clothes much of the time. Guess what month I think I'll get home? All right, just for a guess I'll say April. - Gee Sweetie, [pg 10] the CASA men here tell me that September and October are delightful weather in Carmel - I do wish I could be with you now! All right, Sweetie, another girl and a boy suits me fine. That way we'll be sure to have three. Just what is the simple experiment? And even if it turned out the way you expected it to, what would that prove when the odds are one to one? (But I'm all for the experiment anyway, darling) By all means let's go home (I mean East) by way of Memphis - it's a relatively dull trip and I’d rather take the northernmost route between Chicago and SF (north of the way we did come) but I want you to see Memphis a little and of course we must visit with Muz. I’d love [pg 11] that. Since (I presume) we'll have more leisure returning than we did coming out, I’d like us to take our time and really enjoy the trip. Why don't you, just for fun, drag out some timetables and see how many cities we can take in? You know the railroad will route it almost any way at all. Some of the cities I’d like to take you to (but not all of which would be possible in one trip) are Cincinnati and Indianapolis, New Orleans, Houston and Dallas - I suppose I would like to see Los Angeles once, and it would be fun if we could stop in Boulder - come on, darling, play with the possibilities and tell me what you make of them. A number of us had a laugh at your mention of men at the Presidio being assigned to special work at Harvard [pg 12] in preparation for closing down Navy schools all over the country - what futility, the thought that some such men have probably been to several Navy schools themselves and never seen the outside of a pool. Off to the club now for a wee snort (grapefruit juice and bourbon) and then to bed. I love you, darling Warren
