AlwaysRemainFree.com
The Personal Website of Jim Salmon
The Way It Was (continued)
We landed at Anchorage, Alaska. It was still raining. C47s were landing and taking off. The next stop was Shimia, and after that, Alutian Island. We had a small air base there, 300 some men and 3 nurses. The last leg was Shimia to Tokyo. We flew with no parachutes at about 5000 feet. The planes had no seats. They had stretchers on both sides and on top to bring back wounded. They traveled a southern route coming back, Tokyo, Midway, and Hawaii.
Not much happened on the way over, except the plane kept dropping down all of a sudden. Once it dropped and all the food (sandwiches) went flying all over and the toilet for number two only tipped over. They had a tube for peeing, I think it went outside, I am not sure. Once I was strapped in, it went down a lot and I thought it would cut me in half.
We slept, we ate, we played cards, and I spent a lot of time looking out the windows. I didn’t see much until we got near Japan, then it was fishing boats and the like. When we got over land we flew over what used to be a city. There wasn’t much left, a smoke stack or a brick wall here and there. We were told it was Hiroshima and there was nothing for miles around.
We landed at Yokohoma at night. They put us on buses and we left the airport. The first thing I saw was a man standing in the road pissing. We kept going, and the next thing I knew, the bus hit a person in the road and just kept going. I thought, don’t they have any rules over here?
I can’t remember the name of the camp we went to, but it was First Cavalry Division Headquarters in Japan. Walker had been there before, so he knew the layout of the camp. He wanted me to go out a hole in the fence that he knew about, and go find some women. I said, “You’ve got to be crazy, there are guards all over the place. They would catch us in a minute.” I was afraid to go, but he went anyway. He came back about 1:00 in the morning with all kinds of stories, and was pretty drunk. I guess he did know his way around.
I don’t remember too much of what happened there; we were there about a week. Then, we were put on a train. It was a great train, much nicer than any train I had been on in the States. It had comfortable seats and bunks, dining cars and good food, too.
I can remember seeing Mount Fuji. Everything was crowded with people. No matter where we went the sun was out. We were on the train two days. Then we found out we were going to Sasebo, Japan, and from there to Korea. Well, I’ll tell you, Sasebo was the dirtiest place I had ever seen, just scummy and crappy. Of course, I had not been to Korea yet.
We loaded onto what was called a Japanese luxury liner (yeah, right). What I remember most about it was the chow line. We walked around a large kettle and it was so big we had to walk up steps onto a catwalk around this thing and dip our mess kits into what I remember as being like soup. So much for chow. We went down below where we were supposed to sleep on the floor. There were guys all over, crowded as hell. Some guys were sick already and we hadn’t left port yet. I thought, what’s this going to be like later, when we’re on our way over. So, we decided to sleep on deck. It was August, and warm, and we had our field jackets, so we were okay.
They were loading Marines now, and the Army guys were asking them what took them so long, and where were their mothers. They didn’t like that so much, it wasn’t long before there were fist fights, and the officers had to break it up. I found a pistol that belonged to the Marines afterwards. I just left it there; I didn’t want to be caught with it.
Oh, before we loaded on the boat they issued rifles, M1s and two bandoliers of ammo. So, we were busy cleaning the Cosmo line off them on the way over. It was an overnight trip and the waves got real rolly, and my stomach was acting up. I had never been seasick before, but I had never been on a big boat before, either.
It started getting light toward morning and we could see stuff in the water, all kinds of stuff, dead birds, garbage and crap. It smelled terrible and we could hardly see land yet. That was my first impression of Korea. Believe me, there was more to come.
