Looking back on the Occupation of Tokyo

Eugene Smith walks to his to his work station in South Korea in 1946 while with the U.S. Army. Submitted photo.

The gun fire put Smith within a foot of death, yet was meant to prevent casualties, not inflict them.

Hundreds of tracer bullets flew over Smith’s head as he and other soldiers crawled along a 50-yard stretch at night in August 1945.

Tracer bullets, which can be seen by the naked eye because they ignite, were being fired over the heads of soldiers as they slithered along a 50-yard course for 15 minutes. The intent was to teach soldiers not to look up when crawling on the battlefield. The bullets came within a foot of the soldiers.

“We were told that ‘if you don’t follow instructions you probably are going to die.’’’ Smith had no trouble following orders.

“I didn’t dare look up. I obeyed the rules faithfully. It was painted as a death-defying feat,’’ said Smith, who spoke Saturday at a meeting of the Union County Historical Society, one at which veterans were honored.

Soldiers participated in the machine gun exercise just once.

“That was plenty. The lesson impressed me deeply,’’ Smith said.

Smith and his fellow soldiers took their training seriously, not only because of the machine gun fire but because they knew there was a chance they could be sent into WWII combat. The possibility of being sent to participate in an invasion of Japan loomed as a possibility in Smith’s mind.

Such an invasion never took place, of course. Japan surrendered Aug. 15, 1945, after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima on Aug. 6 and Nagasaki on Aug. 9. They were two bombs that marked the dawn of the nuclear age. Smith recalls Americans being remarkably ambivalent at first.

“There was a surprisingly neutral feeling about atomic weapons,’’ he said.

Smith attributes this to the United States’ distance from Japan and a lack of information about atomic bombs.

“I don’t think there were a lot of details about the destruction. They didn’t seem as horrible as they actually were,’’ Smith said.

Following Japan’s surrender, Smith and the members of his unit, the 657th Engineering Survey Battalion, found themselves on a ship for Tokyo. They reached Japan in 15 days. There they assisted with the Allied Powers’ seven-year occupation of Tokyo. The occupation was conducted to disarm Japan’s military and help the country develop a democratic form of government.

The 657th Engineering Battalion was in Japan the first six months of the occupation. The significance of it was not lost on Smith. This was why he kept a meticulous journal of his experiences there.

“There was a sense of history. We were participating in events important to world history,’’ Smith said.

Nobody knew how the Japanese would respond to the presence of Americans. Some feared that the Japanese would respond violently. Instead they displayed civility.

“They were not hostile to us. I never saw anything threatening,’’ Smith said. “I was unable to detect anger in most of them. They were polite.’’

Nobody in Smith’s battalion got to know any of the Japanese during the occupation.

“We were instructed not to talk to the Japanese,’’ Smith said.

Soldiers, though, were told to be courteous.

“We were instructed to be polite and not act like conquering heroes,’’ Smith said.

American soldiers never had a chance to develop a taste for Japanese food since they were under orders not to eat it because it might make them sick. Tokyo had many open cooking areas, so the aroma of food being prepared was everywhere.

“It smelled so good It was hard to resist,’’ said Smith, who was a supply clerk.

Smith’s battalion left for South Korea six months after arriving in Japan. There battalion members, who had received engineering training in Japan, surveyed the 38th parallel, the border between North Korea and South Korea. The 38th parallel in Korea is 155 miles long and 2 1/2 miles wide.

Smith was relatively impressed with Seoul, South Korea’s capital.

“It had substantial buildings an handsome architecture,’’ Smith said.

Seoul was a stark contrast to the rest of South Korea, most of which was rural and far behind the times.

“It seemed that the way people dressed and lived as if they were serfs from the 15th century,’’ Smith said. “There was no industry and only subsistence farming.’’

Smith’s battalion was in Korea for six months before it was sent back to the United States.

Upon returning, Smith, who grew up in Stonybrook, N.Y., enrolled at Oberlin College in Ohio on the G.I. Bill and later graduated. After Oberlin he attended EOU, where he earned a teaching certificate. Smith taught in Milton-Freewater for two years and in 1961 took a position at the University of Washington, where he taught English for 28 years. Smith and his wife, Marcia, who grew up in

La Grande, moved back here in 2000.

Smith credits his military experiences with positively shaping his life.

“People often say we should show gratitude to our veterans. I feel that I should show gratitude to the military for what I learned from trips to Japan and Korea and for the G.I. Bill, which paid for my college education,’’ Smith said. “The Army and the government made it all possible.’’