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159 (160 came ahead of this by mistake) Navy #3247 (Mil. Govt) FPO San Francisco Thurs 3/8/45 7 pm My dearest darling, This afternoon I was awfully pleased to get this copy of a picture of the school (enclosed brown envelope) taken just two days ago, or perhaps it was only yesterday. I am not in the picture, I wasn't even aware that it had been taken, but I remember seeing the plane flying low over the area as I was walking back from lunch (just before school opens in the afternoon) along a road which would be approximately the extension of the bottom white margin of the photograph some distance to the right. The picture is so nearly complete that it gives me an excellent opportunity to describe my working habitat, its surroundings, and some of what goes on there. You are facing almost due East, the direction from which our almost unvarying wind or breeze blows. The fields behind the buildings were all in sugar cane; those in the distance still are, though it's untended, while those directly behind have been replanted as part of the MG farm. (Most of the latter is some distance to the south, or the right of the picture, with the camp in between). The rows of trees in the background scene to be characteristic of sugar cane plantation areas and almost invariably have a dirt road or at least a wagon trail running alongside them. The Quonset hut is of course our office. It is divided into two sections occupying 2/3 and 1/3 respectively; the former (on the left as you face it) is the Japanese teachers’ office, the latter on the right houses 3 flat-top desks: Tel Mook's, mine and Slicer the yeoman's (we've just had him a few days, having had our office yeoman switched regularly about once a month; there seems to be a good chance of keeping this one. He has an M.A. in English, had a govt. job when he was drafted; he is thin, has rather the appearance of an aesthete, affects a small pointed beard. Has picked up a smattering of Japanese here, enough to be useful.) The pyraḿidal (note accent) tent on the right is the Nisei's office, equipped with 3 Marine field desks (they look like trunks, are set on long metal tubular legs and open up like a secretary with lots [pg 3] of pigeon holes) and a long table. Here are stored athletic equipment (softballs and bats, basketballs, footballs, volleyballs, dodgeballs, relay-race batons, discuses, skip ropes….which are checked out to teachers and turned in daily), stationery supplies, Coleman lamps (both gasoline- and kerosene-burning, bright as a light bulbs), and the precious Masonite which Tel and I pick up whenever new Quonsets are being put up and there's a little left over - all our blackboards, pieces of Masonite framed, fastened together and painted black, have been obtained in that way. The pyramidal on the left is the office of the school nurse (a Japanese girl of about 22 who trained before the war) who treats youngsters all day long from 8-4 - cuts and bruises minor skin rashes, etc. She's a new institution at the school and for that reason puts in a full day right now; seems to be working out well. The five long frame buildings with [?] roofs and copper screening in place of windows are of course the classrooms - [pg 4] ten per building for a total of 48; the lower lefthand corner room of the northernmost (left) building is the Korean teachers’ office, and the same room in the building next to it is a specially equipped manual training room for both schools. The Korean school consists of the one frame building to the left, two hospital tents (four peaks) left of that and a pyramidal used as a store house in between. The Japanese occupy the other four frame buildings and three hospital tents. Two of the latter (which house two classrooms each) were obtained just recently after some travail and we now have exactly the number of classrooms that we do classes, for the first time. (until now some had had to double up, some to continue to the few remaining little tin shelters that housed the whole school formerly). The movie screen is easily visible against two of the Korean tents, with the projection booth this side of it. The reason the area looks rather messy is that a coral wall is being built and coral is piled or strewn everywhere. (The section on the right is almost completed.) In front of [pg 5] the booth and within the walls are wooden platforms, boxes and benches for the kids to sit on. It may not look possible, but the enclosed area will seat all of the school's 2300 kids plus the teachers, members of adult education classes and a few invited guests. Others stand on the athletic field behind - capacity unlimited, but an average total crowd now that the newness has worn off is about 5000. The building in the foreground is the Japanese Boy Scout Office. (The Korean Scouts have another building to the left, out of the picture. Also in this unshown area are a second basketball court, a high- and broad-jumping pit, a wrestling ring also of sand, 3 shelters where pre-school children have their morning games, and a shelter housing the generator - looks like a large truck engine, gasoline - which supplies current both for the movies and for such of the building's as are wired. Those at present, are just two: the Quonset, and a half-hidden shelter behind the Nisei's tent. I use this shelter for my evening English classes. - *all who come, anyhow, and that must be ¾ of them on the average [pg 6] Also out of the picture some distance away - about twice the width of the field - are a couple of tents, set amongst trees and sugar cane, where the scouts play at scouting on weekends) Both the scouts (K. and J., boy and girl) and the athletic program generally - a part of the school - are under the direct supervision of Coach Hager. (The department of which he is head also includes Henry Graham's Welfare Office under which are the orphanage - day nursery, relief, warehouse, various religious activities, etc. These are in another part of camp, some distance south.) The Korean upper grades have the whole field from 10-11:30 am and go back to school from 1-2:30; the Japanese schedule is the reverse of this. Small children have their games as part of their morning program, somewhere on the perimeter of the field, and don't come back in the afternoon. Coach, in with [?] from the movies, has just shown me another air view of this same location taken in the early days. There were there no buildings at all on the bare wide expanse except [pg 7] for 3 small shelters. A baseball game was in progress and though there was a fair crowd it looked tiny from that distance. Still, the picture was sharp enough so that Coach could make himself out where he stood as umpire. I saw the field - came to a number of ball games - when it was like that, but it's hard to remember now; so much has happened since. (The whole field was cleared by kids, having been planted in sugar cane) Do you see the boy in back of the scout office with his hand raised, waving at the plane? A lot of children are looking up at it. The platform in front of the center door of the Quonset, built for the new colonel's speech to all the civilians a couple of weeks ago (interrupted by Charley Frankel) is used by the calisthenics leader at 8 o'clock assembly every morning. The Japanese school children are massed this side of it, with their teachers lined up between [pg 8] platform and jeep. The Koreans have similar exercise in front of their own building, and a heavy wooden table used by the leader is barely discernible. The school bell (oxygen tank suspended from a pyramid of 3 long tent poles) is just out of sight behind the left end of the quonset. My poppies, now about 3 inches high, are behind in the center. On the far right of the picture 2/3 of the way down, 3 youngsters are standing by a playground swing which (I imagine) was salvaged from the islands’ main school. Behind that is a Jap truck (remember the “Heitai” and joro and Nikon trucks,” which I promised to explain in greater detail when I got home?) - this one is full of drum cans for collecting refuse. Some 30 or 40 feet beyond that is a typical benjo, [tui?] enclosed (by [tui?] I mean the corrugated roofing material which comes in sheets roughly 6’ x 3’ of which there were large quantities on the island.) - there's still another farther on, with a hole for a new one in between. The building half of which you can see [pg 9] on the far right, middle is the nearly-finished school suiji, which we hope to get started in about a week. As far as supervision and censorship of the academic program per se is concerned, Tel (assisted by five of the Nisei) handles the Japanese school, I (using the [?], the Korean [?]) the Korean. Both of us agree, however, that in matters of policy it's better not to have one of us representing one school and another the other, and we try insofar as possible to work in concert. The suiji, the coral walks and movie wall, and the weekly cleanup of their respective camp areas by the children of both schools in place of exercise, are my particular responsibilities to follow through. There are six (Japanese) Nisei; five of them teach English all morning while the other supervises athletics, takes big groups of kids on field trips to study domestic animals, the farm [we plan to develop a school farm also, north of the picture] etc. is generally available, along with the yeoman (whose work is less than ¼ typing, the rest being to get all [pg 10] sorts of little jobs done). They are all busy in the afternoon working out programs, planning the development of the farm or the operation of the suiji, taking kids out around the island looking for unspoiled sweet potatoes to dig - or ponderous leaves, or other materials for handicraft class - making wall charts for English class, etc. It's too late tonight to take you around on a typical day but at least you now have some of the setting for when I do. Inasmuch as this letter is not particularly personal and I shall leave unexpressed all the little things I would like to say in closing. You might like to show it to any of the CASA men whom you see - Goodnight, darling Warren
