Dick Waldron remembers:

When I got to Wakkanai in 1952 there were three locations where radio operators pulled rotating shifts.  Two Morse Code radio rooms were on the main site and the third location was in a shack on top of a hill a couple of miles from the site.   That remote location was called Nob Hill and was named after the ritzy Nob Hill section of San Francisco.  It had been so ironically named because of the sparce living quarters for the two radiomen who ran the D.F. (direction finding) outpost there.  The D.F equipment and living quarters were in one small Quonset hut on a hill above and beyond 'Hilltop' where the radar site was. 

Radar operations was on a hill maybe a mile from the site and we called it 'Hilltop'.  The D.F. site was another mile or so beyond that on the highest hill in the area, which we called Nob Hill.

At Wakkanai DF, our callsign on Nob Hill, one radio operator and one radio maintenance guy would spend a 24-hour shift.  Then, weather permitting, would be rotated back to the site to get 24 hours off.  Our job included keeping watch, or listening, for the U.S. RB-29 over-flights over Russia that went on regularly - the precursors to the U-2 spy planes.  We also had radio equipment on the site that listened for any possible distress calls from those over-flights.  There were also occasional small, L-20 courier planes with mail and visitors that we talked to from Nob Hill and some F-86 fighter planes that patrolled once in awhile and buzzed Nob Hill and the site.  A few times Russian MIGs swooped down unexpectedly and buzzed either the site or Nob Hill.   I remember one time hearing the Russian pilot on the radio laughing and swearing in broken English at the @!~#$%* Americans, and then heading home to Karafuto up north.

The smell from the fields when we were there was not only from hanging dried fish - it was from hanging seaweed PLUS human excrement. Honey-bucket Sam made his collections among the small houses and dumped his buckets when full in the fields.  Reason given was that his 'residue' made good fertilizer.   And the smell was amazingly bad in the summer.  

We also had a massacre one night in Wakkanai when about a dozen of us got Mohawk haircuts. Most got them willingly, but a few had to be 'talked into it'.  Those folks were spread-eagled and held down on the floor by four guys while a fifth guy sat on their chest and laughingly scalped them.  The manual clippers pulled their hair and hurt if they moved so the unwilling had to get their Mohawk haircuts grudgingly and unmoving. They laughed later, especially since their hair looked more chopped up and ugly and not a neat Mohawk.   Major Haines let us keep them for a few days and then he made us go completely bald because some visitors were coming up from Misawa.  

Lt. Dick Loose was the Old Man and only officer for much of the fun and he let us alone as long as we did not cause trouble and got our regular jobs done, which we did. 

In 1952 and 1953 there was no such thing as a 3-day pass.  Site 18 was a 24/7 operation with limited time off between shifts.   During some Jewish high holidays, the only two Jews at the site - Sandy Friedman and Murray Brown - were given 3-day passes to go south somewhere for their holiday observance.   A few of us Catholics figured that if they could escape the site for a few days then we could too.  So somebody found out about a Trappist Monastary many miles away and to make a long story short, about six of us took the train down to the monastery, brought our own food in C-rations and a blanket, and spent almost 3 days at the monastery.   No talking was allowed for the whole time.  The monks were mostly from Europe and few spoke English. Markovich and Friehoefer (I think) were among those that went.  It was one of the best few days I ever spent in my life, and it all started because Sandy and Brownie got a 3-day pass.  Other than that, every few months a protestant chaplain would make the circuit of all the sites and stay a few days, same with a doctor or dentist.  If there were any accidents, etc. that Doc Greenup couldn't handle, then the patient would have to either take the train to Misawa or be airlifted out.   One guy was airlifted out in a straight jacket.      

When we were there the tour was 30 months and a lot of guys did 30 at Detachment 18.  I escaped after about 15 months and did about 10 months in Misawa where they let some of us go home early as the USAF wound down from Korea.

I came home on the USNS Breckenridge in July of 1953.  Going under the Golden Gate Bridge heading into port was a feeling that I can still remember fifty years later. I forget the number of days returning, but I remember that going over in a troopship, it took us 25 days due to zig-zagging.

Troopship life was a lot different from a number of Pacific crossings I had in the merchant marine in 950-foot container ships (bigger than aircraft carriers) with crews of 25.  Everyone had large single-room living quarters similar to nice hotel rooms, including desk, easy chair and small refrigerator.   I thought of the two troopships I had been on and the difference in living conditions - the troopships' compartments were crammed, jammed and stifling from heat while reeking of sweat and vomit; and each man's 'home' being a bunk two feet above and two feet below other bunks in tiers of bunks five high in rooms with hundreds of others.  Not exactly cruise ships.

 Cooler worked in the motor pool and was told at breakfast that he had to go to Teshio to fix the diesel power unit.  Cooler wasn’t his real name; it was a nickname given because he was always smiling, snapping his fingers, and saying every- thing was cool, man.  Cooler asked Walt, a radio operator, if Walt could get a shift off or swap with someone and go to Teshio with him.  Just to get away from the site for a day.  He said we’d be back tomorrow.

Walt said maybe but I dunno. I just came down from Nob Hill but I don’t have to go back up til tomorrow night. I’ll ask Red.  Big Red, the radio NCOIC, said ok, you can go to Teshio as long as you’re back for your next shift on DF.   Walt said sure no problem.  See ya tomorrow.

Teshio was a small town on the west coast of  Hokkaido, Japan. It was about a hundred miles from the Air Force radar detachment at Wakkanai, known to the Air Force as Site 18, where Cooler and Walt were stationed with about fifty other enlisteds and two officers.  Teshio’s claim to fame from the Air Force point of view was that it had a two-man FM radio relay site on top of a small mountain.  Its purpose was to automatically relay FM radio transmissions from Site 18 on down to Misawa, the main base on Honshu.  Teshio’s diesel power unit was on the blink and Cooler had to go fix it and to bring some spare parts, mail and C-rations for the two guys spending a month there. They were radio maintenance men and spent a month at a time at Teshio before rotating back to Site 18.

Tom, a motor pool driver who was always a little drunk day or night, drove the six-by to the RTO train station.  Cooler and Walt rode in the back of the truck with a few boxes and their carbines, a requirement at the time while traveling to Teshio. Walt would do the heavy looking-on at Teshio after helping to carry the supplies.

Tom was always pleasant and smiling, which could have been from frequent sips of cheap whiskey, and everyone on the site liked him.   So did the little kids along the mile-long dirt road between the detachment and downtown Wakkanai, a dirt-poor fishing village.  The kids knew Tom by sight because he tossed out candy and gum to them as he drove past.

 When they arrived at the RTO station Cooler laughed and complained to Tom about the bumps and jolts and did Tom hear the swearing coming from the back of the six-by.   He said that Tom should go back because he missed a pothole.   Walt chimed in saying to Tom that they almost bounced out a couple of times and was Tom aiming for the potholes and ruts on purpose and was Tom mad at them?  Tom laughed them off and told them not to give him a bad time like they always do.  Besides, Tom said, you wouldn’t want the Old Man to know that we stopped at the store for some booze for your trip, would you?  I doubt if he would be happy knowing you had something else in with those the C-rations. 

Cooler draped his arm around old Tom and with a big smile told him that he loved him and that he drove the safest and smoothest six-by in all of Japan. In fact, Tom should get a medal for being so consistent.  Scout’s honor.  Honest injun.  Tom’s smiling answer was unprintable as he helped Walt and Cooler get their stuff off the six-by and onto the train.  Cooler told Tom to mind the house while we’re gone, and not to worry too much because we shall return.  Ya, that’s what I’m afraid of. You guys will be back said Tom.  Bowing low, Walt added  syonara, Tommy-san, keeyo-skitay. 

And so the travelers boarded the train while Tom, with a wave, headed the six-by back to the site.   The train stunk.  Literally.  Even though the Americans traveled first class coach the stink was heavy in the air.  The smell was from the crowded Japanese passengers and was a mixture of body odor, fish smell, and open packages of seaweed and noodles that some passengers were slurping up with chopsticks.

The windows were closed so the air was not moving.  Combined with the polite Japanese custom of slurping their food noisily the Americans winced and screwed up their noses and were just not too comfortable.  The passengers on board were mostly poor as were most people seen throughout the island of Hokkaido during the Korean War.  Most seemed to be either fishermen or farmers, and on the train some had their families.

The locomotive was an old steam engine type from long before WWII and the passenger cars with their wooden seats seemed to be out of an old cowboy movie. Teshio was about a hundred miles away but because of many stops and delays the train trip would take almost five hours, so they wouldn’t arrive until early afternoon. 

Walt and Cooler got a seat at one end of a car and propped their carbines against the wall under the window.  They put the ammunition clips in their pockets and sat back to ‘enjoy’ the ride as best they could, making themselves comfortable with a couple of cigars.  They also opened a small bottle of cheap and terrible-tasting Japanese whiskey they bought on the way to the RTO. The two Americans did not exactly present a warm friendly picture to the inscrutable Oriental stares they received, but they didn’t care.

Both had been stationed at the isolated radar site about a year already and both, for different reasons, had come to have either a neutral opinion or a dislike toward Japan and the Japanese, except for the little kids and old folks.  They could get along with the adults when they wanted to or when they had to,  but basically the two friends counted the days until they could get the hell out of Japan and go home.   Each had over a year to go on their two-and-a-half-year tour and life at the small isolated site had outlived its novelty.

Walt was from Boston and was a radio operator. He had gone into the Air Force six months after high school because the Korean War had started and he didn’t want to get drafted into the army where he might have problems with his asthma.  Besides, there was nothing else to do, so why not join the Air Force with a few friends.  After all, everyone around town was already in the service, was getting drafted, or was going to join up.  The big question most had was which branch to join  – Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, or Coast Guard.  Only a few were staying home to work or go to college.

Cooler was from Indiana and one of his reasons for joining up was to get away from some unpleasantness at home that he didn’t talk about.  He liked jazz and jazz terms and seemed to have fun and bring fun into all circumstances.  Everything was always cool, man.  So obviously someone called him cool, and then called him The Cooler.  The name stuck, and over time, many forgot or never learned his real name. It was just Cooler. Both Walt and Cooler had their serious moments, but both preferred the lighter approach.  They liked to laugh and have fun, and tried to have both whenever they could.  For the trip they had gotten a few sandwiches from the messhall at the site and ate a couple of them on the train,  washing them down with sips of the cheap and searing whiskey.

But they did not drink enough to really bother them so when they finally got to the RTO at Teshio they were only a little more rambunctious and happy than usual.  The little booze they did drink distracted them from the stench and sounds on the train more than anything else.

The FM radio relay site was on top of a small mountain, or more like a very high hill.  It was a few miles from the train station at Teshio and arrangements had been made for Papasan to meet them with his horse and wagon since there were no military vehicles or taxis available.  Papasan was an energetic old man with a short, white beard and gold-filled teeth that showed conspicuously from his ever-present smile.  He also nodded his head at everything and anything that was said to him in English or in some form of G.I./Japanese, whether he understood or not.

Despite the language and communication difficulties Papasan tried hard, and the guys who spent weeks at a time at Teshio liked him.  He had been hired to bring visitors, supplies and food supplies up the mountain and they needed him. On this day Papasan’s wagon was not the usual one that Cooler had seen on previous trips to Teshio.  This wagon was similar to the chariots used by Roman gladiators a couple thousand years ago.   This chariot was not as elaborate as the Romans’ but the construction was similar.  It had a waist-high railing that went around three sides and a small platform where the driver stood.  There was no railing to the rear and no seats. The place for the driver was standing in the middle at the front holding the reins and a short whip.  Yep, it was a chariot alright.

As Cooler and Walt looked and talked about the resemblance of the wagon to old Roman chariots,  Cooler said he thought Roman gladiators might have looked somewhat different in their bright and gaudy outfits compared to the plain clothes worn by Papasan and the fatigues the Americans wore.  The horse was also old, and had seen better days  -  quite a few days.  In fact, Cooler went over for a closer look to see if he was awake.  He was, barely. Cooler smiled and greeted the old man with the white beard with konichiwah, Papasan, ekaga-deska?  -  a more polite way of saying hi, Pops, howzitgoin’?

Papasan grinned from ear to ear showing all those shiny gold and white teeth and nodded vigorously while speaking rapidly in Japanese to the two Americans who did not understand a word. The three loaded the supplies on the chariot-wagon and when the three passengers stepped on board the ancient two-wheeled cart creaked.  

The old horse turned his sleepy head to the rear and seemed to creak also while he looked over this unwanted load.   But maybe the creaking of the horse was only their imagination and the creaking sound was the old harness. And so, of course, Cooler named the horse Nellie-san.

You know, Walt was thinking out loud while looking at the Cooler, this remind you of a movie?…whaddaya think?     Hey that’s cool, man, smiled the Cooler, and these here  opportunities don’t come along every day.

Using his pigeon-G.I.-Japanese, which was poor at best, and with many hand gestures,  Walt asked Papasan if he could drive the chariot.   Papasan didn’t like the idea but Walt kept after him and Papasan gave in.  Walt took the reins and stood in the front middle of the platform,  Papasan stood to the left holding on to the rail, and the Cooler stood on the right holding on to the other rail.  Nellie-san neighed and snuffed, turned his head, and gave another disgusted look back.   With the three of them standing on the old cart and the supplies stacked up on the floor, they were ready. 

In the Americans’ eyes and vivid imaginations the old horse became a snorting stallion,  the old cart became a gaudy chariot with saw blades sticking out of the spokes, the curious Japanese standing around staring silently became cheering spectators at the Coliseum in Rome and the open space near the RTO became the starting point to a chariot race...Of course.

Then with a loud yell from Walt as he gave a big stinging belt with the short whip on the rump of the ‘stallion’ the old nag lurched forward, faltered, lurched again, and off he went at a slow gallop up the dirt road as onlookers moved out of the way. 

Papasan held tight to the rail on the left with one hand, spoke excitedly in Japanese, and tried to get the reins back from Walt with his other hand. Meanwhile Cooler couldn’t stop laughing as he held tight to the rail on the right side.  The town was very small and the chariot ‘roared’ through it, scattering a few chickens in the road, causing a few dogs to bark, and bringing curious faces to turn to see what the noise was.  Shortly the now trotting horse and the not-quite-Roman chariot was through and out of town.  All in a few noisy minutes.  Walt still had the reins and didn’t want to slow the horse down, but Nellie-san, had had enough.  He first quit galloping and then quit trotting.  In fact he didn’t want to walk, but he did, barely.

Papasan took over the reins and Cooler and Walt just couldn’t stop laughing.  Papasan had been mad at first but the people watching had actually enjoyed the noise and spectacle.  They waved, smiled and called others to come see the crazy Americans.  Papasan was worried about his old horse and old cart and he was relieved when Walt gave him back the reins.   Papasan wasn’t mad at the two Americans.  He knew all Americans were a little crazy but harmless.  Skoshe baka was how he put it. 

He knew the Americans liked to have fun and didn’t actually mean any harm.  Also the Americans on the mountain took good care of him financially for the occasional use of his horse and cart.  They only paid him the equivalent of a few dollars a month but it was more than some farmers made.  Papasan appreciated the pay he received so he put up with the antics of these visiting Americans. Nellie-san fared none the worse for its brief ordeal, and after a short rest he continued the journey at his normal slow pace.

The cart creaked slowly on the dirt road as they passed farms with men and women working in the fields who looked up and answered the Americans’ waves.  Farmers working in the water-filled rice paddies wore bright colored shirts, pants rolled up to the knees, headbands with Japanese letters or words marked on them, and kerchiefs. They were both men and women, and some of the women had small children strapped on their backs in a sling.  In one field, two men worked alone and the backs of their light blue work shirts had the large letters ‘PW’ painted in black, a silent grim reminder of WWII that had ended a short eight years before.  The two ex-POW’s ignored the Americans, bent back over the rice shoots while the Americans passed, then stood unmoving, silently staring at the cart as it moved away with its American passengers.  Cooler and Walt watched them but said nothing, even to themselves.  They just wondered.

The trip to the bottom of the mountain took about an hour as neither Papasan nor the horse was in any rush.  Cooler and Walt could have walked faster, and they did at times because standing and riding on the rig wasn’t very comfortable. Like the train, the rig belonged to a distant past.  The road going up the mountain, which was more like a very steep hill, was too steep for the horse with the load plus the three passengers.  So they got off the rig and walked, giving Nellie-san just the weight of the cart and supplies to pull.  The winding road seemed about a mile to the top, and the dust and distance worked up a thirst among the travelers.

Reno and Dietz,  aka Kraut,  were waiting for them at the top along with two Japanese maintenance men from JADF (the Japanese Air Defense Force) who were doing a bit of on-the-job training as eventually JADF would take over the relay site.

Reno and Kraut had been there a couple of weeks and both had beards, grins and hearty heys howzitgoin?  Cooler gave greetings from the outside world and asked       what did they have for a drink.  Even a coke would do.  Kraut said never mind that; did you guys bring any mail?  Walt said that was no way to greet a tired visitor far from       home, and yeah we have some mail for ya.

The JADF men chatted with Papasan as he tied up and watered Nellie-san.  The horse was obviously tired and needed to rest a bit,  same as the three visitors.  The radio shack was a small one-room building built by the Americans.  It was fairly new and in pretty good shape. Inside were two bunks on opposite sides of the room, a table and a couple of chairs in the middle.  The FM equipment was along the wall opposite the door.

Plenty of room for two but too crowded for four.  At night two had to stay awake while the other two slept.  The two JADF  maintenance men lived down the mountain in Teshio and they came up at night to stand watch while the Americans slept.  Their job was to wake up the Americans if anything unusual happened or trouble arose if the equipment malfunctioned.

As the Japanese chatted while unloading the rig and taking care of Nellie-san the Americans went inside. Walt and Cooler helped themselves to a couple of cokes while Kraut and Reno sorted their mail by postmark before sprawling out on their bunks to read their letters. It was chow time and while two read the other two opened some C-rations, heated them on the oil stove, sat down at the table and ate. The four talked idly about things on the mountain and back at the site but Kraut and Reno were more interested in their mail.  Chatter was light as two read and two ate.

After awhile Cooler asked about the diesel power unit that wasn’t working, and he went outside to look it over before it got dark.  He did not know how long it might take to fix, or even if it needed a part he didn’t have.  But as it turned out, he got it going within an hour. 

Fixing heavy equipment at a remote location with a minimum of tools and spare parts always involved luck, either good or bad. If a particular part was worn or broken it could take days or even weeks to get a replacement  -  and meanwhile the FM relay site might be out of service.  The radio guys who rotated monthly at the site knew very little about diesels so they could not fix it if it broke down.                                     

With a big grin on his face Cooler came back into the hut saying that you guys called me all the way out here from the site to fix this thing? can’t you do anything by yourself?  Kraut came back at him saying Reno and I are technicians, which means that we’re not supposed to get our hands dirty. Reno jumped in saying he had a little story about Walt over there and how one night last winter when the snow was       almost too deep for the weasel and there was a blizzard going on, that Walt-san was up on Nob Hill and couldn’t get any volume out of the DF equipment. 

So, about two o’clock in the morning he calls the site and asks for a maintenance man to come up and fix it because we had a spy flight over Russia that night.  I was elected so I woke up old Tom, and we drove up the hill in the weasel in the middle of the night in the snowstorm.  When we finally get up there,  I fiddled around and turned up the volume knob and it worked perfectly.  For that I lost a night’s sleep.  Wait a minute yelled Walt. Not so. Whatever you did was inside the receiver, not the outside knob.  Big difference.

Reno, laughing , said the fact remains, O’Marconi, that I had to go out in the middle of the night in the middle of a blizzard and half freeze to death and almost get killed on that winding road just to turn up your volume.  Walt just laughed with him.

Papasan had gone back down the mountain after resting the horse and the two JADF men were sitting quietly listening to the Americans, trying to understand what they were saying.  Since Cooler had been able to get the diesel power unit back on-line, the job was done and he and Walt had to think about getting back to Wakkanai.  The next train was in mid-morning so they had to stay overnight somewhere.  They thought of the cramped radio shack but there really wasn’t enough room.

So after sitting around for awhile with Kraut and Reno, talking about everything and nothing, they decided to go back into town, get a room and catch the morning train.  Cooler and Walt walked down the mountain road as the sun was setting out over the ocean. They could look out at the Sea of Japan toward Far East Russia that they thought was Siberia, and they knew that over there out of sight to the left was the war in Korea.

Their view of peace and beauty of the sunset over the calm sea contrasted in their minds with the shooting war not too far away.  They knew that fighter aircraft flew combat missions from the main base at Misawa on northern Honshu, and they knew that Misawa was the controlling base for the remote radar sites that ringed Hokkaido.  But that was about all they knew.

Those stationed at the dozen Air Force radar sites in northern Japan had their own war of nerves coming from boredom and isolation but nothing could compare to the shooting war.  None of the young airmen on the site could explain why they were where they were, or why the war was going on.  They just were doing their jobs, knowing they were a remote part of the war in Korea. And most of them would spend thirty months on the sites.

The walk down the mountain didn’t take too long and Cooler and Walt continued along on the road to Teshio, hoping to catch a ride with a farmer going into town in a wagon.  They carried their carbines slung over their backs and nothing else.  After walking on the dusty road awhile and seeing no signs of life other than farmers still working in the fields, they came to some railroad tracks heading toward town.   Figuring that the tracks were more direct and would save some time they decided to walk the tracks.

Ten minutes later while walking the tracks about a hundred yards from the road they heard the sound of a vehicle approaching.  It was too far away to signal it to stop so they just swore at their luck and watched to see what it was.  Around a corner and with a following cloud of dust came what looked like a brand new red 1953 Plymouth hardtop.

Walt and Cooler stood there staring dumbfounded with jaws hanging open.  They were speechless.  First of all, there were very few American cars on Hokkaido and those were very old.   Second, Teshio was a small town in the mountains with very few paved roads for hundreds of miles.  A car like that might be found in a big city, like Tokyo a thousand miles south.  Third, the car was a new one and looked like it was American. 

They had not seen any 1952’s or 1953’s except maybe in an ad in an American magazine, so the two of them were amazed. It was weird, and completely out of place.  They mumbled that they may have missed riding in it by a few minutes by not walking along the dusty road.   Then the red car was gone, leaving a settling dust cloud in its wake.  Cooler and Walt continued walking the tracks and wondered if they both had really seen what they both saw.

But their luck changed.  Coming down the single train track toward them from Teshio was a railroad handcar propelled by a single trainworker sitting on a bicycle seat and peddling the handcar along the track like a bicycle. The handcar had a bicycle seat on each side, an open platform in the middle, a railing in front, and was about five feet long.

The two Americans in their fatigues with carbines on their backs, waved down the man in the handcar and as it slowed to a stop they saw a big ‘combat jug’ of saki hanging from the front railing. The train worker smiled and appeared happy and friendly but he did not speak any English.  In their best G.I./Japanese, Cooler and Walt, with hand, arm and body signals, asked him if he would turn the handcar around and give them a ride to the Teshio RTO a few miles away. He was willing, and after hiding the combat jug of saki in the weeds and marking the spot with a white rag, the three of them lifted the handcar off the tracks, turned it around, and set it on the tracks heading back to Teshio.

Of course Walt and Cooler wanted to do the peddling and the man agreed.  So he took a position in the middle holding on to their shoulders and Walt and Cooler got on the bicycle seats on each side, grabbed the handlebars, and  off they went peddling toward the town.  It was hard to say who enjoyed the trip more, the G.I.’s or the trainman.  Cooler and Walt peddled furiously to get up some speed and the whole scene struck them funny.

They started laughing and couldn’t stop, and the railroad man joined in.  The track was not straight and curved around a few farms and hills.  Also there were some upgrades and downgrades over small hills,  and on the downgrades they were clipping over the tracks with good speed, huffing, puffing and laughing all the way.

It was all so unexpected and different that they didn’t realize until later that the scenery they peddled through was beautiful in the quiet twilight as the purple shadows moved over the hills and farms. They laughed and peddled the whole time they were on the handcar and when they reached Teshio they were weak from both.  Then the three of them picked up the handcar, turned it around, and set it back on the tracks in the other direction. 

They started to give the smiling train worker two hundred yen–about fifty cents American at the time – but he refused even though it might have been a day’s pay to him.  With friendly waves from each of the three, trainman started peddling back up the tracks, hoping he would be able to find his white cloth marking the hidden jug of saki as it was getting dark.  He also would have a wild story to tell his family about two crazy Americans he had met today.

Teshio was a small town with one main street a few blocks long and some short side streets, all unpaved.  Buildings were wood and one story and the main street had mostly small shops.  It was a remote, poor village that seemed far removed from the modern 1950’s and the twentieth century.  They found the one tea shop and went in, intending to ask the location of a rooming house the guys on the FM site had told them about.  The tea shop was small, one-room, dimly lit and reeked of fish.  Two old men sat silently at a table smoking pipes, with small cups of warm saki before them.

It was getting dark and Walt and Cooler were tired. But instead of getting a beer and sitting down for awhile in the tea house, the smell of fish got to them.  So they bought a small bottle of saki and went back out to the street to look for the rooming house.  The town was almost deserted as they walked around looking for the rooming house, and they finally found it. The small rooming house seemed to be owned and run by an old couple and Cooler and Walt got two small rooms at the equivalent of a dollar each.  There was no dining room but when they said they were hungry the old man and woman went to their kitchen and fixed a meal of rice, eggs and tea for them. 

The four then sat on the floor in the ‘lobby’ around a charcoal hibachi pot, eating with chopsticks and trying to talk Japanese that each could understand.  The attempts to speak each other’s language were humorous to all and the meal was pleasant and friendly.

After the meal Mamasan and Popasan heated the saki the G.I.’s had with them and the four continued sitting on the floor,  the Americans sitting cross-legged and the Japanese sitting on their heels.  Everyone tried to talk slowly and with limited vocabulary as best they could about Japan and America.

Walt and Cooler’s cynicism and coldness toward Japan and many Japanese melted away before the friendliness and hospitality of their elderly hosts.  Plus their fun experience with the handcar was fresh in their minds.  As there were no beds Cooler and Walt slept on bamboo mats rolled out on the floor of their tiny rooms, and had heavy quilts for blankets.  They left their boots in the hallway and in the morning  ate a breakfast of rice, eggs and tea the Mamasan prepared.  They put their boots on, thanked the old Mamasan and Papasan for the breakfast, paid them, and walked down to the RTO to catch the morning train.

They had left an extra couple hundred yen in the rooms even though tipping was not expected and often refused, figuring that the old couple could use it, and also that they owed them extra for the meals.

As the old steam locomotive dragged the train slowly into the old RTO station,  Cooler asked Walt if he had brought any extra cigarettes.  Walt had two unopened packs and asked why, since he knew Cooler didn’t smoke cigarettes.

Cooler explained that ever since he was a little kid back in Indiana he had wanted to ride up in the engine of a train with the engineer and blow the train whistle.  He thought maybe we could ask the engineer if we could ride in the cab with them and maybe we could bribe him with a pack of cigarettes.     Walt said why not try it, we have nothing to lose.

The two fatigue-wearing, carbine-carrying, unshaven G.I’s walked up to the locomotive and tried to explain their offer and request to the train engineer who was leaning out the window watching the few passengers get on board.  The Americans had a hard time explaining what they wanted but the engineer finally understood and he laughed,  saying they were either crazy or like little boys.  There were those words again:  skoshe baka.

There may have been more truth in skoshe baka than he realized.  But he smilingly consented and Cooler and Walt climbed up into the cab of the old coal-burning steam engine.  They stayed out of the way while the fireman shoveled coal into the furnace; and when the engineer pulled the cord letting out a long blast of the train whistle, they got underway.

Once out of the station and in the countryside the G.I.’s looked around and asked about the various controls and gadgets in the cab.  The Japanese engineer and fireman were friendly and cooperative but neither spoke English and Walt and Cooler spoke G.I.-Japanese – which was accompanied by hand signals, pointing, and of course, laughs.  The trainmen got caught up in the scene and joined in the fun.

Cooler said to Walt that this was one crazy iron horse as he sat at a side window. Walt pointed to a iron nameplate on the console and said look at this, the engine was Made In England!  There’s no date indicated but it had to be years before WWII.  Cooler asked the engineer if he could pull the train whistle cord, and added a whistle sound as he asked and pointed to the cord and then himself.

The older engineer, who they naturally called Papasan, laughed and pointed to the two cords, one on each side of the cab, then pointed to both Walt and Cooler, and nodded his head.  That started it.  Cooler sat at one side of the cab at the window and Walt sat on the other side at the opposite window.

Walt was a Morse Code radio operator and after Cooler pulled the cord to make long train whistle sounds,  Walt tried to send Morse Code words with his train whistle.  Both laughed and waved to farmers working in their fields and they blew the whistles over and over as the old train chugged through the countryside.

Passengers on the train must have thought that strange goings-on were happening up front at the locomotive, and farmers in the fields must have felt the same way.  But the farmers smiled and waved.  Walt and Cooler, sober in the morning air, were enjoying a wild ride they would never forget. They shoveled coal, watched the dials, pulled the cords,  waved at farmers, talked in Japanese and English, and laughed their way through the rural countryside. 

Meanwhile the engineer and fireman enjoyed the interruption of their routine trip and smiled as they repeated the phrase ‘skoshe baka’,  and occasionally ‘tocksan baka’ –  words that meant a little crazy and a lot crazy.

After awhile everything settled down and the novelty wore off. The day was beautiful and Cooler and Walt’s curiosity had been satisfied.  But they did not like the idea of leaving the cab of the old steam engine and going back to riding in a smelly passenger car.

 At one of the many stops, they got off to stretch their legs and Walt said that he had an idea as he looked back along the train at the three passenger cars and a dozen or so freight cars.  Cooler was game for anything so he asked what was the idea.  Walt told him to look way down to the back of the train and see a couple of empty low coal cars; whaddaya think?     Cooler said why not?

They thanked the engineer and fireman, gave them the two packs of cigarettes, answered their bows with their own slight bows, and trotted down the station platform to the end of the train with the empty coal cars.  On the way they saw a couple of small wooden crates and took them with them for seats in case the inside of the cars were dirty. 

They threw the crates into the low open coal car, climbed in, propped up the crates in opposite corners at the rear, and sat down.  They were in the last car of the train and out in the open.  The air was fresh and the breeze welcome; the train did not go very fast, and countryside scenery remained impressive. 

Cooler and Walt quieted down and lit up cigars as they sat on the crates, each in a back corner of the coal car with arms stretched on top of the car’s walls.  They relaxed and enjoyed the ride, just looking out at the hills, mountains and farms. Their only problem came when the train went through a few short tunnels and the smoke from the chugging coal locomotive enveloped them for a few seconds. 

But they still preferred the open coal car to riding in a crowded and smelly passenger car.  At a train stop where they saw a sign listing the various towns on a train schedule,  they saw that Wakkanai was next.  So they decided to leave the open coal car and ride the last few miles inside a passenger car in case anyone from the site was at the RTO with their friend Tom.

They knew that the Old Man had to go into town now and then and therefore could be with Tom.   If so, they doubted that the Old Man would appreciate seeing them climb out of an open coal car at the back of the train.

 But it was only Tom at the RTO to meet them, and they asked Tom if he had missed them.  He hadn’t, and he asked if everything was okay in Teshio and did they have a good trip.  Cooler told him that all was fine in Teshio and the trip was cool, man. Just plain vanilla.   Still smiling, Cooler snapped his fingers.

This time, with no packages and boxes and just their carbines, they climbed in front of the six-by with Tom as he drove back to the site, bouncing the three of them all the way as he hit many potholes and ruts in the dirt road.  The two were convinced that Tom never tried to avoid a pothole.  They got back to the site in time to take a shower and get to the evening chow.  After eating with Al and Slim and telling them some of the things about their trip, Walt and Cooler had to go different ways.

Walt rode the weasel on the two mile, uphill, bumpy ride to his overnight DF shift on Nob Hill.  No shift time had been lost, but Big Red had been asking if anyone had seen Walt because Walt had better be back for the next shift at Nob Hill and why wasn’t he back yet from Teshio.  Red was a bit edgy, but no sweat, Walt made it in time.  As for Cooler, after chow he headed to the bar for a beer and to laugh and tell stories about the trip.

As he walked out to the renovated Barn where the bar was, he ran into Tim who said how’d it go at Teshio?  Cooler smiled and said just fine, man. Everything’s cool. …And he snapped his fingers as he bopped along the path.

                                                                      Epilogue

This true little story is dedicated to the memory of Merle Everett, better known as The Cooler.  Some months after this Teshio trip Cooler was injured seriously in an accident at Site 18.  It was his back that was injured, and he traveled south to see Air Force doctors.  They told him that a minor operation should fix up his back just fine. So he had the operation.

But a mistake was made on the operating table and his spinal cord was cut,  making Cooler a quadriplegic for the rest of his life, which turned out to be about forty years.

Some guys from Site 18 saw Cooler a few times back in Indiana before he died and they said that he kept his smile and fun attitude in his special wheelchair more than they had expected. 

But one time he did say, with a smile as always, that the worst thing about being a quadriplegic was that he couldn’t even commit suicide, man. He said that while drinking a beer through a straw, and probably would have snapped his fingers if he could.