A Little Luxury (93)

1 Nov. '45
Beloved,
     This is really supposed to be yesterday's letter, but somehow, last evening, I didn't get to write you.  Yesterday I did a lot of leg work in my capacity as expediter but actually didn't have much to do.  Nothing new has developed except that the 5th Army has been building a fire under the 25th Division to get their eligible men and officers out.  The General Hospital is still supposed to get in very soon - possibly today.  The other hospital may be de-activated and give unto the 92nd new life and then move 35 miles or so away from here.  That sounds like bushwa to me!  But I don't care what cooks, really.

Japanese Waitresses

     To come to last night, McGinnis invited [Maj. ? Herb] Nigg, [Maj.?] Arnie [Niemeyer], [?]Stevens and me to dinner.  He is at Nagoya base and their field grade officers [major, lieutenant colonel and colonel] live in the Kanko Hotel, a fancy modern one that was untouched [it was built in 1936 in the heart of Nagoya as a state guest house, and even today is a luxury hotel].  My gosh - how the other half of the world lives!  At the door a Jap bell hop in a white bell hop uniform met us.  Several Jap girls in kimonos bowed us down the hall to the elevator.  There was a red plush carpet, fair sized foyer, etc., etc., even to a chicken colonel [full colonel] in a dress uniform reading his paper!  The Jap elevator girl understands floor numbers at least.  The rooms have the original hotel furnishings.  What luxury!
     The base men, as usual, seem to be a hard drinking lot and I didn't attempt to keep up to them.  We had dinner at 6:15.  The dining tables had dark colored cloths with reticular fringes [like net?] - rather odd.  We had a large amount of silver - butter knife, fruit knife, dinner knife, fish fork, fork, soup spoon, another odd shaped spoon and I'm sure something else I can't remember.  We had a thick soup, hard rolls, a fish cake with sauce (quite good - it was very fine grained), then what I judged to be sukiyaki.  Anyway it was meat cubes and vegetables cooked in brown gravy!  Then an ice and real demitasse [espresso coffee].  The kimono gals served and very well.  How they manage their sleeves, I don't see.  We had much light and witty (?) palaver.  4 nurses came in with their escorts.  They wore dress wool blouses and dark wool pants.  I suggested a dark wool kimono should be added to their wardrobe here in Japan!

From a Nagoya newspaper showing a photo of Maj. (?) Herb Nigg, and a ward in the 92nd Evacuation Hospital in Nagoya

     Later - it is now 11:30 A.M. and I've been interrupted.  Glory be - the 229th Gen. Hospital is actually unloading today.  They'll gradually replace our stuff with their own.  It should work out O.K.  We'll have the personnel from both hospitals for a while including 9 Lt. Col.s and 15 or more majors.
     Well, let's see dinner was finished.  Then we went to the bar and began drinking in earnest.  And again, I didn't pace the leaders.  We saw a reunion (after a weeks absence).  Anyway, it was entertaining!  I saw something I want for you, only like nothing I ever saw before!  It is made 10 miles from here and takes months to make.  I hope to go out there this afternoon so perhaps I can tell you more later.  It is a vase of cloisonné.
     Well, the confusion increases!  About 25 or 30 officers from the 2 gen. hosp. moved in.  5 or 600 of their men and the rest of their officers are going into the barracks area in the old castle grounds.  But you can jolly well be I don't worry my head over it.  Nigg is still CO and I just expedite slightly!  That old castle area is something.  It has a moat about 30 feet deep and a wall of a total height of about 30 or 45 feet.
     But I've more interesting items to ramble on about.  I think I have a present for you.  Back to last night.  I left the dinner silverware alone but just couldn't resist a cocktail spoon that has the Jap trade mark hotel name and Nagoya on it! [It must not have made it home, because I have never seen it!]  We came home about 10:30 and Arnie and Nigg were all wound up and insisted on talking till after 11.

Maj. Eugene Pfile in Nagoya

     Now, ahem!  The vase - oh yes, the vase!  A captain and I drove out about 2 miles beyond city limits.  We passed the biggest torii I ever saw.  It must have been 40 feet high and big in proportion.  We came to Shippo (the village) and could see no vase shops so we stopped at a bicycle shop and pointed to their charcoal brazier pot.  They nodded and sent out a young fellow.  He came back with a thick English-Jap dictionary.  So I hunted up "vase" and "cloisonné".  He drew a map on the ground.
     Meanwhile Culver [the aforementioned captain] found a Jap who could speak a little English and we took him with us.  We went another quarter of a mile, turned down a lane for that far, then took a narrower branch, and then a still narrower one!  We wound around houses and finally parked the jeep and walked thru another yard and there we were.  It was just a home with several rooms set aside for this work.  Our man talked for us.  2 old men were working on a huge vase - all of 3 feet high, and another old man at its twin.  They had practically nothing made up, but oh Honey, what they had was simply indescribable.  Their special color is red.  In other places we found it was blue, etc.

To be continued