In early May 1946, we received orders to close down the HECP at Toriga Saki. There was precious little to do or to dismantle. The post had been used by the Japanese Navy for exactly the same purpose as we used it. We left it as we found it. The Japanese governing officials assumed command. I visited the site in 2003 and found it little changed and being used by the government for an operation which suggested something like the US Coast Guard or Geodetic Survey.
We checked in our M1 carbines. Yes, we were an occupation force, but we never ever carried those carbines. Some Navy work gangs showed up and began to cart stuff away. The kitchen staff (all Japanese) lost their jobs. The Japanese signal gang, who were quartered in Kamoi, said their sad farewells and departed into a still ruined but reviving economy. They worried about jobs, since sending code with a blinking light was not a skill in great demand.
As the deadline for turning out the lights approached, a watch of two or three signalmen would pack up their sea bags and head to the Port Director’s office in Yokosuka. The last day there were still about six signalmen at the tower. We must have turned out the light in the evening, because the two remaining officers “found” a few small boxes of medicinal beverages (mostly whiskey) and invited the remaining six or eight sailors into their quarters for a farewell party. We were all about 18, 19, or 20. By this time, the seasoned sailors serving as signalmen had earned enough points to be sent home. I remember the party well. The youngest sailor got dead drunk. We wondered what to do with him in the morning. We had to pull him out of a ditch and clean him up – but he made it in fine shape. I always wondered what he remembered of his last day at HECP.
Well, we turned out the lights. Our sea bags were packed. We got into two jeeps. The officers left in a blue gray Chevrolet sedan. We drove for the last time through Toriga Saki and to a receiving barracks at Yokosuka. They had no use for us there, but we were assigned for a few days to the Port Director and Navy base Signal Tower which was already fully staffed. We didn’t belong there. There was no longer the “esprit de corp” feeling. We simply waited for processing to return us stateside so that we could be discharged.
Don Ruecker, from Portland, and I had been shipmates since we started signalman school. We often stood watch together because our last names started with an “R.” So naturally we went to the office to officially count points together. The yeoman carefully calculated our points. Don had one more point than I did and was eligible for immediate discharge. We had been in the Navy the same amount of time and had the same duty. We looked at the papers as we signed and both realized the yeoman had added incorrectly. Don put his foot on mine under the table and pressed hard and gave me a meaningful look. I got the message and bit my tongue. Within hours he was on a troop ship headed home. I followed in about four weeks.
My trip took me to Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. From there, a long train ride in a troop train took me right through Junction City, Oregon, on my way to Bremerton, Washington, for discharge. As the train passed through my hometown in front of my Father’s feed and seed warehouse, I executed the plan carefully hatched out for just such an eventuality. I had a ditty bag along with me with essentials in it. My well-packed seabag was with me back toward the tail end of the train. Some sailors toward the front were assigned the task of making sure someone was standing in front of the warehouse. Sure enough my Uncle, Tony Rasmussen, and the feed mixer man, Alfred Christoffersen, were watching the train. The sailors at the front of the train saw them, yelled, waved and pointed, while hanging out the train windows. I was a few cars back, hanging out the side of the train. I saw their signal and threw the seabag off the train. Tony and Al got the message and rescued the seabag. It was hardly the worse for wear.
Discharge was in Bremerton, in June 1946. I took the ferry to Seattle where my old friend Wil Larsen (his family had moved to Seattle) was waiting for me with a small suitcase and civilian clothes. My Navy career was over.