A Sunny Cruise. . . This is a photo of myself and "Curley", one of the Japanese sailors. This was an army ship with army personnel in charge and Japanese civilian sailors. We are about 2 days from Yokohama harbor. You can see Mt Fuji in the background. We're having a good, not too rough voyage. We had very little to do. In the morning we would go down (or up, I can't remember) to breakfast, have a steaming can of C-rations dropped into our mess trays along with a cup of hot, black coffee. The coffee was not what we were used to. Not that rich thick stuff we got back in the hills. No grounds in bottom of your cup, no burnt lip when you finish. How come we couldn't sue the cooks when we weren't warned that the coffee was hot. The poor guy that had an aluminum cup, had to wait 10 minutes before he could put his mouth on the edge. I had one for a week then seemed to have lost it. After chow we would go up on deck and sack out in the sun in a jeep or truck. Or some guys would be doing their laundry. When you came up one the ladders through a hatch, had to be careful not to knock down clothes hanging along the rail around the hatch. Not very army like but I don't think our officers were around. I can't remember a regular mess hall where we could sit around. I do remember eating my C-rations on deck out of my mess kit, and throwing the can in the sea if it was sausage patties. (Sausage patties was the worst of the rations. The can was half oil, you could tell it was left over from WWII.) There were always seconds and you could go back and try your luck with the next unmarked can. The odds of getting sausage patties three times straight was not very likely. Hey, soon we will be in Japan. Tokyo! I have that 3 day pass coming for going beyond the call of duty in guarding the train.   (continued) Back to Photo Index Page