Phil Davidson:
CLASS OF 1953
Yoyogi Elementary SchoolClass of 1953
Tokyo,
Phil's Story
Our family arrived in Tokyo in October 1948 aboard the USNS Patrick to reunite with my Father who had come over three months earlier. Once ashore we drove in an Army sedan to our new home in the suburbs of Tokyo which was about a mile and a half from Washington Heights and was close to a large Mosque (still there as of today).
Our home was very large by Japanese standards having fourteen rooms. The home was built in both the Western style and traditional Japanese. We had two dining rooms and two living rooms, four large bed rooms, three bath rooms, a basement where the coal furnance was located and our own water tower. The front and backyard were both landscaped in traditional Japanese style with large bonsai and granite lanterns. A Japanese gardener would come by weekly for maintenance.
We had five servants: two house girls, a house boy, one cook and a seamtress. We quickly got used to this luxery! A military bus would stop at a common area where myself and brother along with a few other kids who lived close by would board the bus for the 15 minute trip to Yoyogi. As this was 1948 - 52 I have totally forgotten all my teachers names and most of the kids I knew. Just a few come to mind. Gary Poppin, Dick Anderson, Eddie North, Jamie Polk, and Penny Glass and Jesse VanVolkenburg. I'm sure class photos were taken but now, after more than 64 years, I have no memory of that. Would love to see some of those!
After school, weekends and holidays we would explore the areas where we lived. I remember riding the Japanese trains for free, going to a few junkyards and see mountains of scrap Japanese Army helmets, etc awaiting recycle, finding a buried Japanese Army hand gun in our backyard, going to downtown Tokyo, then still a bombed out shell, to the Dai Itchi Building to pick up my Father at GHQ. Watching General MacArthur leaving that same building at 5:00 in the afternoon as the Japanese police and US MPs would halt all traffic as he got into his Cadalic to return to his hime at the former American embassy.
What memories! The large seven story PX in downtown Tokyo, seeing movies at the Ernie Pyle threater that was near the PX, and occasionally going to lunch or dinner at the old Imperial Hotel that was run the by Ar...Expand for more
my. Ah, those were the days.
I still remember my Mom receiving a phone call from Dad saying the North Koreans had invaded the south. And later on going with my Mom to visit wounded soldiers at the various military hospitals.
Few of the roads were paved then except for the major routes in and out of Tokyo. Most were gravel with benjo ditches along each side. As the Japanese roads were not laid out in familiar grid patterns the Army quartermaster would give at least 25 black on white wooden 12 X 6 inch signs with our house number on them, along with an arrow pointing left, right or straight ahead. These were for friends, military maintenance, etc to find their way to our home. All 'off base' homes were given these signs.
At school we would play kickball and baseball. No huts had been built at this time. The parking lot in front of the school contained at least 50 buses to transport the kids to and from school. I do remember the female principal we had. I later learned she died years later in 1982.
During the summer months we would swim at Meji Hall which then was a large country club prior to WW II for wealthy Japanese and now taken over and run by the Army. The summers of course were very hot and humid but us kids loved it. In 1951 my parents took us to the 'Rice Bowl' to see the top two military football teams play for the championship.
We would vacation at Karazawa and Kityazawa both Japanese resorts run by Army Special Services. I first learned to play golf there and still remember a Par 6 hole of 680 yards. At the age of 10, I think it took me 15 strokes just reach the green.
It all came to an end in 1952 when we sailed on the USNS Mann back to San Francisco. I was not to return to Japan until January 1968 to US Army Field Station Hakata in Fukoka, Kyushu, the southern island after having done 18 months in Vietnam. I met my future wife there and we married in Tokyo in 1972. Now 40 years later we live in Lakewood, Washington and Mesa, Arizona. We have two great kids, a girl and boy, and two grandkids who live in Seattle. In the quit times of my mind I return to postwar Japan and dream again of being a young kid in a strange land. I am now 71 and those are some of my fondest memories.
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