Ernest Graves
went to the Pacific. In fact, about half of the engineers did this. That was because they
wanted to get involved. They thought if they went into units in the States--units that
were training--those units might never get overseas. Certainly, at least, their time
overseas would be much less than if they went right away. I had a couple of meetings
with Colonel Brown on this subject, just to tell him the way people thought about it,
and they arranged for us to be assigned pretty much in accordance with our individual
preferences.
By the end of the war, Brown was the executive officer of ENCOM. I went to see him
and told him that I would like to join ENCOM because ENCOM was going to Japan.
And I couldn't see that the 1282d Engineers was going anywhere. So I was transferred
to ENCOM.
Just to finish up with the 1282d, after I left, some of my West Point classmates who had
been sent to the Philippines joined the 1282d; and, I gathered, it revived some. They
moved it back down to the Manila area and it did some good work. It didn't show any
promise while I was there.
I went with ENCOM to Japan. We boarded an LST [landing ship, tank] in Manila and
rode it for ten days to Yokohama right after a typhoon. I have never been as sick in my
life.
Eighth Army Headquarters, Japan, 19451946
Q:
Or scared, I suppose.
A:
I wasn't really scared. An LST in the Pacific Ocean on the heels of a typhoon was a
very rough ride. We went to Yokohama. I won't dwell on all the organizational
evolution. I ended up in the construction division of Eighth Army headquarters. That
group oversaw all the construction activities in the TokyoYokohama area for the army
of occupation.
After a little apprentice period, and after all the people that knew anything had gone
home, I became the chief of the Buildings, Camps, and Hospitals Section. This section
prepared all the directives for all the construction work that was done on buildings,
camps, and hospitals.
Q:
That's a pretty big job.
A:
It was a big job. I have no idea what the monetary value of the program was because
the directives went to a Japanese agency. If we were going to use a Japanese
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