U.S. Troops Withdrawing

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 438, 14 November 1947, Page 18

U.S. Troops Withdrawing

In Hokkaido, possibly even more than in the rest of Japan, the United States authorities are gradually either withdrawing or heavily reducing their, troops and basing their occupation, at least in part, on trained intelligence specialists who speak and write the language and who are able to keep in close touch with the people. As the Japanese have accepted the occupation

peacefully and now that the main tasks of repatriation and demilitarisation are ended this would. seem not only logical ‘but also more profitable than maintaining large numbers af troops who actually have little contact with the people, whose influence is not always for the good, and whose upkeep is a severe strain on an almost wrecked economy. It is to be hoped that the BCOF authorities will decide to adopt a similar policy. Suitably and yet curiously, a large proportion of these intelligence observers are Nisei (American-born Japanese) officers, nearly all in Japan for the first time, who learnt the language in the United States during the war. Their record during the war and since the occupation has been outstanding, and while I found them 100 per cent American in their outlook, certainly (and without self-consciousness) locking on »the Japanese as their former enemies, they seemed, naturally enough, to have a greater capacity for understanding of the people and a greater will to leadership than is possible with a European. At Kushiro, which we were told is second only to London for peasoup fogs, we stayed with a Nisei detachment of six officers. About three weeks before we arrived the ban on the marriage of United States personnel and Japanese women had been lifted and in the first 10 days after the lifting of the -ban there had been 1100 applications made by men wishing to marry their Japanese girl friends. This news was the subject of discussion, and to our surprise we found that these Nisei officers personally were anything but in favour of such a courses It wouldn’t, (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) they agreed, be so bad in Japan, but at "home" even the difficulties of housekeeping would be too much-"Why, if you married one of these girls you’d have to start right from scratch with everything; you couldn’t even send her down the road to buy a pound of butter." These men, $00; have their housekeeping difficulties, So isolated was Kushiro when we were there that army rations arrived only once each month and with some time to go before fresh supplies were delivered. the only meat left in the refrigerator was a lamb. The Nisei officer in charge of the unit typified the American attitude to meat other than pork or beef: "A whole lamb, of all things. Couldn’t we pickle it in It brine and have it as a sort of acon?" he asked pl&intively.