Jan 14, 2017

Tue, Jan 14, 1947: Tokyo

"ATIS is a big office employing about 1,000 folks including GIs, civilians, and Japanese nationals.  The equipment is not as good as Washington's in that we don't have swivel chairs, fluorescent lights, or the fine reference material that made life so comparatively good....
"The physical surroundings in which we live here in Tokyo are really quite wonderful.  I am in the Continental Hotel which is the old Aji no Moto building remodeled into a hotel for occupation forces of the CAF 1-6.  It is eight stories high, has a fine restaurant in the basement, good lounge and bar on the first, and rooms on the other floors with a room garden and little shrine to fertility on top. (From the number of kids seen running around the streets, the latter is unnecessary)....
"There is no end of stateside amusement here; there are at least six theatres, the Nippon Philharmonic Orchestra which presents concerts every Sunday afternoon, sight-seeing tours, the college courses mentioned before, and trips to other parts of Japan.  In fact, there is so large a community here of Americans that they have called off limits everything which is truly Japanese and force you into this American entertainment which can be better had in Wichita."

--Letter from John Howes, Tokyo, to my father, Winfield, Kans., January 14, 1947. John was a Navy language officer in Japan and a former Navy school classmate of my father.  He was encouraging my father to apply for jobs in Japan. ATIS was the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section.

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