Chapter Eight
With the Airedales
My orders this time were to the lst Marine Air Wing, the first time I'd serve with Marine Aviation. I was assigned to the lst MAW's ABC School at NAS Atsugi, Japan. The only Marine air units there were Marine Air Group Eleven (MAG11) and an all-weather squadron of two planes.
Those two were the U-2 planes Lt. Gary Powers flew out of Atsugi when he was shot down over Russia. U-2's were funny looking planes with tandem- wheel landing gear — a wheel under the nose and another under the tail. When they landed, a jeep would be waiting at the end of the runway. The U-2 was essentially a glider with an engine, and could take off and land at extremely slow speeds, especially for a supersonic jet.
When it came in for a landing, a U-2 was flying about 45 mph and the jeep would take off down the runway in front of it. A man would be sitting backward in the back of the jeep with his hands over his head. He'd catch the U-2's wing so it wouldn't tip over. When the plane stopped, struts with wheels were stuck under each wing and the plane was rolled into a hangar and the door closed. When it took off again, the struts would fall off. The plane would then go into afterburner, stand on its tail and go straight up until it was out of sight. The U-2's cruising altitude was something like 100,000 feet and when it reached this altitude, the pilot would shut down its engine and glide for eight hours.
One of the instructors I was with at Camp Lejeune was T/S Pfening. We received an advance copy of his orders that he was being sent to the school. I pulled an awful trick on him. Before he arrived, I went around the bars and told the girls that he'd suffered a terrible wound in Korea, that it had left him less than a man, and that although it was really terrible, he couldn't have sex. When he arrived, I took him around to the bars and told them he was the friend whom I'd told them about. They were very friendly and sympathetic — but it was three months before he could convince
them that he was okay in that department. He wanted to kill me.
While in Japan, I put into practice my plan that I'd used in Spain — to visit
small towns where Americans don't normally go. This paid off in cheaper hotel accommodations, people were more open with me, and I met many nice folks. I stayed at one hotel where the service was very good, so when I checked out I left a $10 tip on a small table. I visited the hotel a couple of weeks later and the lady at the desk gave the $10 back to me and said I'd forgotten it. I told her it was a tip for the good service, but she had never heard of anything like a guest leaving a tip.
A friend and I were in one of the local bars when we decided we'd visit the Garden Green Spot, a very nice restaurant. He had a car and we asked a couple of the girls if they wanted to go with us. They thought it was a grand idea. When we got to the restaurant, the other Marine and I got pan-fried trout and the girls got steak. They had eaten fish almost every day of their lives, but always boiled or baked. They had never seen a fried fish. The girl with me took one look at it, tasted it, and pushed her steak over to me and took my trout. It was beautiful — golden brown and almost as long as the platter. Japanese cook fish with the head attached (after cleaning, of course). She called Mama- san over and asked her how the fish had been prepared. Mama-san didn't know and called Papa-san (the cook) and he told her.
About a week later I was in the bar and the girl was not in. She came in a few minutes later and told me to come with her. I went to her apartment and she had bought a frying pan to use on her "hibachi" (portable charcoal-burning brazier with a grill; no one had stoves in those days) and cooked me a pan- fried trout. It was good.
I went down to 1st MAW Headquarters at MCAS Iwakuni for a three-week temporary duty. From there we went to Okinawa and then to Formosa, where we demonstrated how to lay down a STAL Airstrip in 24 hours — from first piece of equipment to first plane landed. We were doing the demonstration for Chiang Kai-check, the nationalist president of China, when we heard shouts of Habu! Habu! (snake, snake). A cobra had somehow gotten into the wing's command post. It was about 20 feet long and about six inches in diameter. It was slithering about 15 mph, with its head sticking up about 18 inches and the hood behind its head spread. No one got close to it.
On the day we returned to Atsugi, it was 2230 and I was tired, so I tumbled into my bunk (I had left it made when I went to Iwakuni). The next day I had the worst infestation of crabs you ever saw. While I was gone a new replacement staff sergeant had slept in it. He caught hell from me the whole time we were in the same outfit. It was the only time in 20 years that I had crabs.
Earning an oh-my-ass card
The CO of the school was a Marine fighter pilot flying jets with MAG11. He told us if we'd get checked out on the ejection procedures and get our "oh-my-ass" card, he'd take us up in the T-9 jet trainer. So I went to Yokota Air Base and got checked out. The training tower for ejection seats is about 100 feet tall with rails on the sides and a seat attached to rollers on the rails. You sit in the seat and squeeze a handle that fires a 20-mm blank shell under it that sends the seat up the tower. It comes back down and under the seat are four coil springs that are supposed to cushion the landing, but it bounces you about halfway up the tower and bounces you about a dozen more times — hence the "oh-my-ass" card.
I went to Yokota one time to get my four hours' flight time to qualify for flight pay. The strip at Atsugi was being refinished, so I went up in a C-47 (DC-3 or Navy-Marine Corps R-4D). The pilot was an Air Force colonel being transitioned into multi-engine aircraft from jets because of his age. We were flying around and he'd fly on one engine, cut it back on and another off for awhile. Then he'd put it into a power dive straight down toward the center-city palace of Japan's emperor. He pulled out about 100 feet short of hitting the buildings. When we landed back at Yokota, we were met by a busload of MPs, who marched us into the commanding general's office. They let the enlisted crew members go, then the commanding general really chewed out the colonel and a captain, who was the colonel's instructor pilot for the transition training.
We called one of our instructors okachi minko-san (meaning "ugly old SOB"). I walked into the Navy enlisted men's club one day and he was sitting at the bar. I yelled, "Hey, Okachi Minko-san!" The girl working at the bar hollered back, "Okachi Minko-san yourself!" After that she and I greeted each other that way every time I walked into the club.
I sometimes MC'd the club's shows, which mostly consisted of country music. The musicians were Japanese who could imitate American singers — even though they were unable to speak English. They bought records, listened, and then mimicked what they'd heard. It was really weird to hear an Asian sing, "I Walk the Line" sounding exactly like Johnny Cash, or a raven-haired, dark- eyed Japanese woman sing "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" just like Tammy Wynette. There was one woman who was a favorite at all the U.S. military clubs there. I saw her several years later when Archie Campbell brought her to the Grand Old Opry — her name was Tammi Fujiyama. She was a showstopper there, too.
Mambo boys
Once some "Mambo" boys (communist-led teenage terrorists who wanted to oust all American military from Japan) beat up on several Marines they caught alone out in the town of Yamato (a MAG11 liberty town). The air group's CO called the Japanese chief of police in Yamato and told him he was bringing his Marines in on dungaree liberty to put a stop to the Mambo boys. The police chief drove out to the base, talked the CO out of his plan, and told him to keep the Marines out of Yamato that night because he'd take care of the situation. So, the CO put the town off limits that night. I was stationed on the Navy side of the field because that was where the school was. The Navy's liberty town was Sagami-Otsuka. I'd exit via the Sagami-Otsuka gate, then catch a 10-yen taxi to Yamato.
The night in question, I didn't know the town was off limits, so I went out to my usual haunt and was sitting at the bar talking to the bartender when six Mambo boys came in. They started to hassle me but the bartender told them to bug off because I was his tomodachi (friend). They then turned their attention to an Army PFC from the Sagami-Hara supply base. They were roughing his hair, putting cigarette butts in his beer, etc.
Three well-dressed men entered the bar, each with a rolled up newspaper under his arm. They walked to the bar, ordered a drink, sat the drinks on the bar, turned around and leaned back on the bar to watch the Mambo boys a minute. One man looked at the other two and nodded his head. Then all three stepped away from the bar toward the six Mambo goons, and began beating their heads with the rolled-up newspapers — each of which was wrapped around a one-inch lead pipe. In 30 seconds, all six Mambos were stretched out cold on the floor. One of the men walked to the door and signaled to someone up the street. A van drove up, they loaded the Mambo boys, and we had no more trouble with them in Yamato.
There were many and varied culture clashes between Marines and the Japanese, most of which were funny and could be laughed off. One Marine married a Japanese woman, so he went to the Navy property office and drew furniture for an apartment he'd rented. Included was a refrigerator, a rare appliance in a Japanese home at the time. His bride was used to the Japanese way of doing things. All her life she'd bought food for one day at a time and it was hard for her to change. One time eggs and bacon were on special at the commissary and on the way home he stopped and got two dozen eggs and two pounds of bacon. The next morning he was awakened to the pleasant aroma of frying bacon. When he went into the kitchen he found 24 fried eggs and two pounds of fried bacon waiting for him.
I went to his house one night. He'd brought home a bag of oranges (about three dozen) and he and I were sitting around talking when she came in with a platter of 36 peeled, quartered oranges ready to eat.
