Meeting Gen. MacArthur, "the old man," while moving into new offices

Wow, I now have seven official Followers of my blog.  Glad you all have made it here, and feel free to leave comments, if you'd like.  The decoder rings should be in the mail soon, as well as instructions for the secret handshake and coupons for a free oil change at Sears.  Talk up the blog with any friends you think might be interested; the more the merrier.  Okay, on to the next letter.

This is Maj. Gillham's first letter written in his permanent digs in Tokyo, the Dai-Ichi Hotel, which is not to be confused with the Dai-Ichi building, where he worked.  Just a quick lexical note:  when a soldier is placed in a private or non-military room, such as at a hotel, he is billeted.  The more general term quartered can be used for any assigned living situation.

Tokyo, Japan
7 Nov 1945

Dearest Darling,

Well, I finally got moved in to Tokyo and will start working tomorrow.  We came in trucks from Zama and it took us most of the day, even though it was only 40 or 50 miles.  We wound around over many little narrow Japanese roads, through little country villages, etc.  We didn't have any lunch, but that didn't bother me.  We had a flat tire in front of a little native shoe shop and I got you and Emily and Monty each a pair of tabe (the big toe sox like you used to have).  They are worn in the house, or with the clogs outdoors.

We arrived at GHQ just as Gen. MacArthur was coming out, so I got a good look at him.  We were all covered with dirt and dust from our trip.  I signed in and am to work in the "Statistics and Reports Section" of SCAP.  A good many of the other staff sections are located in other buildings, but ours is in the GHQ bldg with the old man.  It is the best looking office building in Tokyo, naturally.  I understand it belonged to an insurance company.  It is right across from the Emperor's Palace.

I was fortunate in getting billeted in the Dai-Ichi Hotel, which, next to the Imperial, is about the best place to be quartered in Tokyo.  Only Field Grade officers are quartered here.  The room I have doesn't have a private bath, but it does have hot and cold running water and showers are available just down the hall.  The hotel is about on a par with an average good commercial American hotel, but is one of Japan's best.  The mess here is excellent, and every night we get a beer ration for a quart of Japanese beer, which is excellent.  We also have a bar in the basement, where beer and whiskey can be purchased in limited amounts.

I had dinner tonight with Maj. Raul and another major that used to teach at Charlottesville.

Remember, my address now is:

Maj. W.T. Gillham 0-272207
GHQ-SCAP Adv. Esch.
S. & R. Sect    APO #500
c/o P.M. San Francisco, Calif.

Tokyo is pretty badly bombed and burned.  Worse than I had thought at first.

I got here with all my baggage intact, which is something to be proud of.

Am looking forward to hearing from you before long.

Lots of love,

Bill

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In September, 1945, Gen. MacArthur's staff, known by its official acronym GHQ-SCAP, began moving into the Dai-Ichi building located on the southeast corner of the Imperial Moat.  The building had been built in 1938 as the new headquarters of the Dai Ichi Mutual Life Insurance Company, the oldest mutual insurance company in Japan, founded in 1902.  Dai Ichi Life continues to occupy the building to this day, and in 1993 the company built a skyscraper addition, the DN Tower 21, behind the original building.

Dai-Ichi Insurance Building in 1938, on the Imperial Moat,

later headquarters of SCAP

Aerial view of the Imperial Palace Grounds,

with the blue X signifying the location of the Dai-Ichi building

The Dai Ichi Building as it looks today,

with the new DN Tower 21 behind it

Maj. Gillham was billeted at the similarly-named Dai Ichi Hotel, which, along with the famous Imperial Hotel, was located in the Ginza section of the city.  The Ginza has long been a famous shopping area in Tokyo, similar to Fifth Avenue in New York, with high-end shops, hotels and restaurants.  The area became well-known in the 1870s when, after a sweeping fire, the neighborhood was rebuilt with many European-style buildings designed by the Irish architect Thomas Waters.

The most famous building in the Ginza today, the "Ginza Wako," was built in 1932 for the Hattori company, a watch and jewelry establishment.  During the Allied occupation, this building was used as the PX (or post exchange) for Allied soldiers.

The Ginza during the Occupation, including the Wako building

(with clock tower), which was the Tokyo PX.

Maj. Gillham noted that the city was badly bombed out, much more than he had originally thought.  My guess is that up to this point he had only seen the western sections of Tokyo, as he had been coming to and from Zama, which lies to the southwest of Tokyo.  Most of the damage to the city was in the eastern sections, which were highly industrial and included the port area on Tokyo Bay.  About 50% of Tokyo was totally destroyed during the war.  There were 14 major Allied bombing raids on Tokyo between February and June, 1945, carried out mainly by B-29 bombers.  The worst attack was on March 10, when about 25% of the city was destroyed and over 100,000 civilians were killed.

The bombed-out area of Tokyo near the port, 1945

New orders: Assigned to Tokyo

Six days after landing at Yokohama, Maj. Gillham finally gets his new orders.

Zama, Japan
3 Nov 1945

Dearest Darling,

Got my orders today to go to the GHQ-AFPAC in Tokyo, but I don't know yet what my job will be or when we will go in, but it should be in a few days.  Most of the men I know are going to Korea; in fact, only 68 of the 256 are going to Tokyo.  Chun was very disappointed that he didn't get to go to Tokyo.  The Tokyo set up looks pretty good to me now, living out here in the mud, but you never can tell how things will work out.

We have no mail yet, but some men on another APO# are getting letters mailed in the US as late as 24 Oct.

I haven't been anywhere today because I was expecting to have to move.  I think the hotel in town is full and they must be having to make other billeting arrangements.

Last night another officer and I walked out and down the road about a mile.  We hailed a passing Jap and traded him two candy bars for some charcoal.  He said he was Korean -- they were very poor people.

We built a charcoal fire in a formaldehyde burner that the Japs left here.  It makes an ideal charcoal bucket, and breaks the chill in this room.

My new APO is #500 but that is not a complete address, so wait until I can give it all to you.

Lots of love,

Bill

******************

The GHQ-AFPAC stands for General Headquarters, (U.S.) Armed Forces of the Pacific, which had its base in Tokyo after the war.  The offices were in a group of buildings along the east bank of the Imperial Moat, across from the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo.

The APO stood for the Army Post Office, which was a self-contained unit within the Army responsible for the delivery of all Army mail.  Each APO division had a specific identifying number, usually three to five digits in length, which acted as pre-Zipcode postal codes.  Prior to 1980, each branch of the service was responsible for its own mail delivery.  Thereafter, the Department of Defense created the umbrella Military Postal Service Agency (MPSA) which followed the USPS model and was assigned its own set of Zipcodes.

The situation in Korea at this time was much more volatile than that in Japan, owing to the fact that two months earlier at the Potsdam Conference the Allies had decided unilaterally to divide Korea along the 38th Parallel.  While the country was ostensibly under the control of a U.S.-Soviet alliance, the northern section was an "area of responsibility" of the Soviets.  This made it one of the buffer zones promised the Soviets in return for their aid in defeating the Japanese in WWII.

During the war, Korea was under the control of Japan, which used Korea's resources and manpower in its war effort.  Over 700,000 Koreans were transported to Japan for this reason.  In the above letter, Maj. Gillham writes of an encounter with a Korean, who was most likely in Japan as a result of the war.  In the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, over 25% of all victims were Korean.

Cold War-era map showing relationship

between Korean peninsula and Japan