Letter from Kyoto (cont.) (91)

     Gene continues his letter to Beth about the conditions in Kyoto.

Scene from downtown Kyoto

Kyoto

     After we came to Otsu, we came out on a good wide cement road that turned west up some nice hills, with an electric car line along it.  We made good time along it to Kyoto.  Kyoto wasn't touched (Phil Moore of the B-29's said MacArthur gave orders to leave it for his headquarters!)  About the only sizable town that wasn't.  It is quite a large town - nice buildings, department stores, office buildings, etc.  There certainly are a lot of people here and some army.
    We got to the Surgeon's office in time to talk to one man and to learn a few things.  We know the Col. at this building so it was suggested we throw ourselves on his hospitality.  They were eating when we came - a dandy dining room.  This outfit is the HQ for what was a medical regiment.  They have separate ambulance companies, clearing companies, etc.  There are only a dozen officers here.  The Col. (Draper) is the CO and the only medical officer - he has to hold sick call for his men!  We had a fair supper in a nice warm room.  It was chilly in the jeep!  Williamson [a doctor who joined the 92nd Evac. fairly late in the war] gave me a new pair of woolen gloves at Baguio that he'd brought from Alaska.  They were a comfort.
     At dinner I met a Rev. Burns, a priest who has been in Japan 16 years.  He was isolated but not interned.  He was going this evening to pay his respects to Miss ?, an 82 (?) year old lady whose birthday it was.  I read about her in the paper on the ship.  She came to Japan 50 or more years ago.  She is the only American the Japs didn't have under some kind of control during the war.  This priest is elderly, nice looking and very pleasant.  He told me about how apprehensive the Japs were before the occupation.  He said a policeman told his (the priest's) cook that we'd take a bunch of women, put needles thru their palms and sew them together in a long line, then take them to the ocean and tow them out with a boat until they drowned!  But since she [the cook] had been with him for 10 years, she didn't believe it.  She went to market the other day and on the streetcar overheard 2 Jap soldiers talking.  One said he had been gone for 4 years and the other, 5 years.  They told each other it had been mighty bad.  The one said "And for what?  Look how it is since the Americans came.  It would have been better to have given up long ago!"  Another conversation she overheard was between some women.  One said that the Americans put them to shame.  That the Jap people were once polite, but now the GI soldiers were teaching them politeness.  She said that on streetcars or trains a Yank (standing himself) would take a young Jap man by the shoulder and make him get up and give his seat to an old Jap man or woman.  Such reports are most gratifying, aren't they?  This priest, when war broke out, had just finished building a TB sanitarium for poor Jap people with money collected in the States.  An order of Jap Sisters were then permitted to take over and run it.
     Tomorrow we will see some men and then try to find a better road home!  Apparently our officers will be able to go.  The EM's [enlisted men] haven't been held up.  The 25th Div. seems to be holding its officers but we aren't under them now.  This Lt. Col. Bumgarten says the 92nd will not be de-activated - that it will be given men from general hospitals.  But the field hospitals well be merged and some de-activated.  So I don't know - maybe I'll be
CO and maybe not.  I hope not!
[Gene now adds some more information about Nagoya]
     Back to Nagoya - all our stuff was unloaded and brought up last night [the night before the trip to Kyoto].  I found my footlocker about 8:30, uncrated and opened it.  Everything was fine.  Gosh but I have a lot of stuff in it!  I declare I'm going to throw plenty away before I come home!  In our room we have a large cabinet with shelves and some drawers and sliding panel doors.  But hanging up things will be a problem.  We don't like to drive nails in the good plaster walls.

Building where the 92nd Evacuation Hospital was set up
in Nagoya

     I took more careful; note of the building.  It is a T shape, 5 stories in front and 6 along the [back] part, with a large auditorium on the 6th floor and a solarium on the roof.  The outside is of smooth white brick facing, but above the ground floor it has been painted over with black and dark red, which is wearing off and streaking.
     Last night I had a poncho and a double blanket under me and 2 over me (one doubled).  I had a pair of heavy socks and a cotton T shirt but about 4 A.M. I got chilly and stayed that way.  This morning I found my duffle bag and got out my air mattress and pajamas.  The room we have here for tonight [in Kyoto] has steam heat.  In our room this morning it was down to 60°.  In about 2 weeks we should have steam heat in our rooms so it will be comfortable.  They don't have hot water in this place so we are ahead of them on that score.
     One remarkable thing about the countryside here is that most of the houses out in the country have electric lights but they certainly don't seem to have any appliances!