09 March 2008

The Cracker Caper- Part One


Japanese surrender at Yokosuka Naval Base 1945

The President just vetoed the Intelligence Authorization. He has his reasons, and he explained them. He said that the CIA should not be limited in interrogation to the practices outlined in the Army Field Manual, which is what the Congress thinks is appropriate.

I personally am against torture on moral and ethical grounds, but I am also a pragmatist, and I take some of Mr. Bush's points onboard. He says the Field Manual is on-line, and that the bad guys have access to it.

Therefore, they can train to avoid answering truthfully when interrogated.

Besides, the CIA is likely to encounter illegal combatants, not uniformed foes captured on the field.

I don't know about that, since the people the US Army is encountering in Iraq and Afghanistan are neither uniformed, nor legal. But no matter. I was pondering the matter when a note came across my desk.

I am not kidding. It is a real letter, and it had a real photograph attached to it. The author had been in federal service for over four decades, and he has some stories to get off his chest. One of them is related to what Mr. Bush was objecting to, but it will take two days to get through it.

Bear with me.

Tom is a burly, bullet-headed man now, but of course he wasn't always. In 1944 he was seventeen, the first year he was eligible to serve, with his parent's consent, he went down to the recruiting station to sign up for the Navy.

He was in the Pacific the next year, and he made Third Class Bos'uns Mate a month before all promotions were frozen, and Operation Magic Carpet began to fly all the servicemen home from the places they had fetched up when the shooting stopped.

The uneasy period of the occupation began in September of 1945. What would it be? Guerilla warfare?

It was not. The Japanese accepted their new Shogun when he flew into Atsugi base, and drove in a motorcade up

By 1949, Tom was ship's company on the USS Mount McKinley, and the Occupation had taken on a dynamic all its own. It was no longer about an armed force trying to sit atop a conquered population. It had achieved a certain symbiotic co-dependence.

In order to better himself, Tom had been taking all the Criminal Investigation courses that the Marine Corps Institute had to offer.

The awesome military machine that had overcome the Japanese militarists had withered away, and a few good men were needed to keep things going. With three weeks to go on his enlistment, the XO called Tom in and said that the people on the staff of Commander, Service Forces Pacific (SERVPAC) had looked at his record with favor.

If he was willing to extend his enlistment, there was a job ashore for him, in Japan doing what they called “Police work.” Tom was no fool. He knew about the Army Counter-intelligence Division (CID) and assumed he was being nominated for a Naval Intelligence assignment.

He agreed to take the job. Two weeks later he was a Naval Air Transportation flight in priority status across the Pacific. In the days of the prop plane, it took about five days to hop the ocean.

At Naval Forces Far East, he reported to the force Intelligence Officer, Capt Stone. It was not nearly so grand an institution as it had been in wartime. There were only five intelligence officers west of Hawaii, supported by an equal number of enlisted men. The Captain got right to the point. Navy had to clean up the mess in the Naval Zone of occupation south of Yokohama or the Army would take it over.

He gestured over the desk and said Tom would be going down to Yokosuka to become Supervisor of Japanese Police, and he would be empowered to handle any investigations required.

He said that my immediate boss would be the area Provost Marshal, Colonel A. Bryan Lasswell, who was also fluent in Japanese and Commander of the Marine Barracks. IN a tone of dismissal, he told Tom to “get some civilian clothes,” since rank had no place in this assignment. He would be dealing with corruption that knew no seniority, and deference to authority would only get in the way.

Duvall then reported to Colonel May, McArthur's Provost Marshal, a tough old bird who made it very clear what he was to do: those who had been supervising the police were in the brig for black marketing and most of the senior officers in the area were also making money on the side. He said that Army CID would be in contact, and that he was to work with them.

He was then sent to the Army CID Lab for extensive instruction in collection and preservation of evidence, and procedures in working with Japanese Police.

When the war ended in 1945, the US Navy took over the Imperial Japanese Navy base at Yokosuka. The big gray Japanese ships that had survived the war were long gone, dispatched like mighty IJN Nagato to the A-Bomb tests at Bikini Atoll.

As it became apparent that there would be no resistance, the Navy settled in to a new operating base in the heartland of the former enemy. The base bustled with activity, though the new occupants were confronted with enormous security problems.

The soft crumbly hills of Yokosuka base were honeycombed with tunnels burrowed to provide storage and protection from American air raids. Down in the warrens below were weapons and explosives and booby traps. Some of the first explorers were injured, and more than one was killed.

There was a full field hospital down below. Rumors were that the air base in Atsugi was connected to the Naval base, and there was ammunition stock-piled for the last great defense against the American landings.

The Navy was practical about it. First things first. Where there was a hole in the ground, concrete was poured, and all the tunnels were sealed; not only the ones on base but the ones that led to the Honcho-Ku neighborhood outside the fence.

The one cave that was preserved was the one next to the Headquarters Building. It had been the Command Center of the Imperial Japanese navy, and the new tenants liked to show it off.

The base was a magnet for an impoverished civilian population. Japan had been stripped of all metal for war production, and now anything like copper or other base metals brought high prices on the black market. Japanese employees entering the base had lockers where they changed clothes, under police supervision, both entering and leaving. Copper and brass were literally as good as gold.

During the war all of the wood structures had burned in the fire raids. When peace came, they were rapidly rebuilt. One new home was erected directly over a tunnel entrance leading onto the base. The owner made good pocket change renting his private entrance to the gold mine.

A bulldozer and truck of cement solved that particular problem. That was just the start of it, though.

Tomorrow: The Cracker Caper Concludes

Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocora.com