Title
Charles Goodman interview with two unidentified interviewers
Subject
World War, 1939-1945-Iowa-Oral histories
Description
Goodman was a clerk for the military police and traveled to Hawaii and then to Japan. He maintained the rosters for 800 soldiers, ensuring they had food and a place to sleep. Because he wasn't a smoker, he sold his cigarettes in exchange for laundry service.
Publisher
Buena Vista University
Date
2/17/2011
Rights
These oral histories are available for personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that a credit line reads: "Courtesy of Buena Vista University Archives, Storm Lake, IA." Prior permission from the BVU Archives is required for any commercial use.
Format
video/mp4
Language
English
Type
Moving Image
Identifier
Interviewer
Unidentified
Interviewee
Charles Goodman
Transcription
CHARLES GOODMAN
Speaker 1 [00:00:01] Today. We're talking to Charles Goodman. He's from Alta, Iowa. He was born June 19th of 1927. Before you entered the service, were you in high school then?
Charles Goodman [00:00:14] Before I entered the service, I was in high school over in Alta, Iowa, and I graduated from there. And after I graduated from high school, I decided that I was going to go to the service. So I went to the service on July the 12th of that same year and took basic training in Fort Knox, Kentucky. My basic training was armor-- armory. Basic training for the tanks and such stuff as that. And I went through eight, maybe it was nine weeks of basic training down there. And then I went home, and then I went overseas, and I went from-- from Alta down to-- I believe it was Saint Louis, Missouri, and from Saint Louis, Missouri, we got on a troop train and we went from our troop train all the way out to California. I can't remember-- San Diego, California, I believe it was-- in that neighborhood, I'm not sure. And then we took another few weeks, another two weeks of basic training there. And then they shipped us overseas. And we went overseas on a-- a ship that had-- I think we had 5700 men on board. And this was on one what they called a liberty ship, which wasn't a very big ship. And when we slept, we slept ten high. We went in a place-- in a room no bigger than this-- probably had 400 men in it. I'm not exaggerating, The trip overseas, it took us, I think it was 19 days, I'm not sure. But we had the honor of being within a little ways of Hawaii. And we got to see where the-- the war started. From there, we went to Japan and Nagoya, Honshu, Japan. And I myself went into-- went into the military police-- a unit in Nagoya. Honshu of 800 men. We was four companies. And we were the first people to go in for soldiers, to go into Nagoya, to be military police. And from there, I spent the next 15 months, I think it was, in Nagoya, Honshu. I was very lucky when I got off the boat, they lined us up. Well, you guys go there, there, there, there. And you go over to the-- we're gonna send you to the military police. And when I got to Nagoya, Honshu, they was-- oh, there was about 60 of us that went into the military police from there. And-- "Does anybody know how to type here or do bookkeeping?" I said, "Yes, sir, I do." Said, "You're the-- you just become our clerk." So from there, I'd become the company's clerk for one company at that time. But I was very fortunate. I have to tell you a little bit more about this. I was very fortunate that our sergeant that was in charge of us, got himself in trouble. So they made me the-- the-- full-- full charge of-- of the four companies. So I become what you might call a sergeant major. I never got the rank for it, and I would have got the rank, had I stayed in, but I didn't stay in it. And thank God I didn't because if I had have, I would have got in on Korea. So I'm very thankful of that. Well-- I can keep on talking if you want me to, I will. We-- my--my job in the military police was to take care of 800 soldiers, to make sure they had food, make sure they had a place to sleep, make sure they had-- their rosters were in place-- just so they went out on duty. And we had like, I think 32-- no, 42 Jeeps that we patrolled the city with. And then we had other hand troops that walked the city quite a bit. We had what we called a KP. They're not-- no, they no-- not a KP. A place where you go and get pop and stuff like that. Cigarettes. And we-- we was able to do that, and we had a ration every month. We would get a ration of one carton of cigarettes, and then we could buy a case of chocolate milk. Anything that I missed more than anything else was milk. But our cigarettes, I wasn't a smoker, so I'm probably cheating here a little bit when I say this. I never smoked cigarettes. I sold my cigarettes, and at that time the Japanese were very, very leery of us. And we were leery of them, of course. And when you walked up and down the streets, they were-- they were riding in rickshaws. When the cars-- what cars they had, there'd be a car parked here and they'd be making gasohol or alcohol out of wood so they could drive a little bit farther. I had the-- the-- like I said, I was a very fortunate soldier because I had the privilege of working for a very wonderful colonel. And he-- I kinda think he took me under his wing. I don't know, but anyway, then we had the-- a total of 800 people in our-- our unit. We had four captains, eight lieutenants, one major and one lieutenant colonel. For some unknown reason, I remember his name like it was yesterday. Lieutenant Colonel Dureetee. [sp]
Charles Goodman [00:05:48] This was a very-- he was a old soldier, but he was a fine soldier. We were very-- I was very fortunate in an aspect that I got to travel out of the city because of the position I was in. And I want to tell you, when we first got there, those people, we-- we had our own laundry. We had to do our laundry ourselves. And we learned in a hurry that these Japanese ladies would love to do our laundry for us. And we could-- they'd do our laundry for, oh, maybe a pack of cigarettes a week, and-- but they learned in a hurry. And that soon become two or three packs a week because they learned where-- where they could make some extra money from. Another thing that we had, we had four dance halls in the city of Nagoya Honshu, for the soldiers-- what they called them, they called them-- yeah, there was a name for them, I can't recall the name what they called these-- party-- party room floor and where they had Japanese girls that would dance for the soldiers. And then they had Japanese beer. This Japanese beer would come in, oh, bottles, probably about a quart in size and, oh, I will say probably about 14, 15% alcohol. And then it had -- yes, I'm not kidding. And they had another drink they called sake. Sake would come in a little-- it was a-- it was a-- it was a powerhouse. You could drink a cupful, and then you wouldn't know what happened. It was that strong, and that was very inexpensive. As far as the other things were concerned, we had a lot of streetwalkers. They had a lot of professional streetwalkers, but that was-- one of our duties was to make sure that they got off the streets. We also had a patrol that went out and picked these people up and took them wherever they-- they had to take them. I won't say where they went, but you can get pretty good imagination on that. From there, another soldier and I, we all had a little time off, and we'd get out and we'd walk and we'd walk the city over. And we walked one way, and then we walk another way, and we were right there on the ocean, so we was-- right close to the ocean. Anyway, their bomb shelters were caves. They were caves. Caves, as big as this this room or bigger. They were monstrous. But that's where they went for bombing-- when they had a bombing raid. As far as the Japanese people were concerned, when we first got there, these people were very, very polite. But yet they were very watchful of what we did. And their homes, at that time, were more or less shacks because excuse my way-- way of saying it, they had had the hell blown out of them with bombs. And them shacks were built out of sticks. But we also, like I was telling you before, our food was very good because we were a military police outfit, and our food had to be good. And another thing we had, too-- we didn't have any military pol-- kitchen help. They hired all Japanese women to do our--our kitchen help, so that give them extra money, too. Another thing that really would be-- was quite interesting to me is when you walked on the streets, these people, at that time, didn't have bathrooms to go to. They went on the side of the street and did it. I'm serious, and they had places-- not places, people that would have-- how do you call them? Honey wagons, and they would go in and take this stuff, and then they'd put that on their gardens and they had garden fruit [unintelligible], stuff like that. As far as the service was concerned, I was very fortunate. I got to travel from one end of Japan to the other end because of the other duties I had, and the train service we had was quite, quite good. I can remember once saying something probably out of school here. I had a-- I had to go to, oh, about 200 miles away from where I was at to pick up some men that were going back to come to be M.P.s. And at that time, I rode out with a guy, and this gentleman was a military police officer, and he had a prisoner with him that had murdered some people. And he said, "Well," he said, "you're in the military police, will you watch this guy while we eat?" "Yeah, I'll do that." Well, I-- I had a gun on my side, so I didn't make any difference. And when I say-- he sat across from me like this in the railroad tracks, and he was handcuffed. He says-- excuse my way of saying it but, "You S.O.B.. If I get loose, I'll kill you." Well, he spent the rest of his life in Fort-- down here in Kansas. Leavenworth? Leavenworth, Kansas. That's where he spent the rest of his life. As far as the stuff was concerned, when we first got there, it was really quite inexpensive to buy. But boy, they weren't in a hurry. One thing that I had the privilege of doing, I liked being part of the service I was. I got to know a lot of these people. Got to learn a lot of things that I probably shouldn't have known, but I did know. And I bought-- I bought my mother a set of dishes, chinaware, way back in [19]46. And to this day, there's one piece that's broke, out of a set of 12. And I sent that home in a wooden box, and it-- and it cost me 55 dollars to send it home, I remember that. And to this day, there's one piece that got broken. Go ahead ask some more questions if you want.
Speaker 1 [00:11:29] When you were in Japan, were you involved in any-- did you see, like, skirmishes, like, amongst the-- you and the people?
Charles Goodman [00:11:35] Oh, yeah. We had some skirmishes. We've had-- we had one time we had a-- we had-- we had to get ready for because they thought we was going to have a rat. And they-- they backed off from it.
Speaker 1 [00:11:48] Did that make you--did that make you nervous? Were you really--
Charles Goodman [00:11:50] You know, at the time, it didn't bother me a bit. Didn't bother me a bit.
Speaker 2 [00:11:54] Your unit didn't see much combat?
Charles Goodman [00:11:56] Absolutely none. But I have been shot at.
Speaker 2 [00:12:01] What was that like for you?
Charles Goodman [00:12:02] Well, it was quite different. I got shot at, and I found out where the shooting was coming from, and we took care of the matter real fast-like. Didn't have to shoot anybody. But I have to tell you another instance. We was out on patrol, and we come up on another patrol. They weren't supposed to be there, face-to-face. And that was very scary.
Speaker 2 [00:12:26] You mention that your mom-- you sent her things. Did you send letters back to any friends and family?
Charles Goodman [00:12:32] My mom, friends, and my family. Yeah. And my family-- my family is all gone now. In fact, I have no cousins. I have no brothers or sisters or anything like that. All my-- all my cousins on my both sides are gone.
Speaker 2 [00:12:46] So how did your mom feel when you enlisted?
Charles Goodman [00:12:48] My mother was quite upset when I went to the service. I have to tell you how I come home. When I come home, I got discharged out in Seattle, Washington. And I rode a bus home, and I got to Storm Lake here in Storm Lake, and it was in the middle of night, three or four o'clock in the morning. Come on-- on the Greyhound, I think it was. And I decided, well, if there's a party in Alta, I ought to go home. So I went home, and at the house I stuck-- well, I got up on the house and stuck in the-- snuck up on the roof and crawled in the wooden [unintelligible] and went to bed. The folks wo-- found me that next morning in bed.
Speaker 2 [00:13:27] What was your most memorable experience during your time serving?
Charles Goodman [00:13:33] Well, actually, probably the people. The people were actually not much different than you and I. I-- like I said, I had the privilege of going out quite a ways from-- from Nagoya Honshu. And we went to a-- not we-- I was-- went out to a 4th of July celebration. They celebrated and they had it-- it wasn't on the fourth, but it was a date, and they had a 4th of July fireworks and stuff like that. And these people didn't even realize that they had been in a war. I'm serious. They was out there. They didn't even realize it. Another thing I should tell you is that there were bathhouses. The men took baths in one one house, and the women took baths in another house. Yes. Far as their Japanese food was concerned, if you give them good food, they could do a beautiful, beautiful job of it. In fact, there's another thing that I and another-- like I said, there's three of us that took our laundry to this lady, and she did it. Says, "You give me some beef, I fix you meal." And she did. And it would melt in your mouth. It was very good. But like I said, also, their homes were very rick-shappity (sp). Excuse my way of saying it: they had the hell blown out of them. They was all bombed out. But we had one area there-- I never had the privilege of going to Hiroshima where they had the atomic bomb. I wanted to, but I never did. Another thing that you want to remember, too, is there-- they have monasteries, I guess I'd call them. Like temples where they had their Japanese priests and stuff like that, which never got affected by the war whatsoever. And another thing I can tell you, too-- it wasn't our particular area, but there was a statue of one of their-- that they worship. What would you call 'em? They worshiped 'em anyway, and anyway, a piece of it chipped off and it was solid gold underneath. That-- that I remember.
Speaker 2 [00:15:43] And then towards the end of the war, where were you when you heard that the war was over?
Charles Goodman [00:15:49] In-- in the-- I-- I was here in the States yet at that time. But I went to [unintelligible] thereafter.
Speaker 2 [00:15:53] So you were back in the United States when you heard--
Charles Goodman [00:15:55] No, no, no, no, no. The war was over in November 1945. And I was overseas, it was just-- it was just occupying at that time. Like I said, we were the first unit to occupy Nagoya Honshu. And our our commanding officer was MacArthur. Had to think about that a minute. He was in our particular [unintelligible], but never, never saw the man once. Like I said, we had our [unintelligible] colonel, and he took good care of us.
Speaker 2 [00:16:28] And how did you and the people around you react when you heard the news?
Speaker 2 [00:16:31] Oh,you could have tore us off the ceiling when it was over with. It was-- part of the happiest moment of our life which you don't know what's going to happen next. You don't know if you're gonna-- you might be walking in some jungle somewhere and bang, it's all over with. But other than that, no, the-- actually, the Japanese people were-- In fact, I have to say this about the-- well, you see these people going to the bathroom on a corner, and it'd make you angry. You're not supposed to do that. And you go take a minute [laughter] where you're not supposed over in the back end, but sooner or later [you learn] you're not supposed to do that. These people don't know any better. But like I said, they were rickshaws. There's very few cars. Their transportation-- I think we had streetcars. But I don't remember for sure. I don't remember for sure. But we-- had streetcars. But you get out away from the city itself, and they didn't really realize that there was a sustained war going on. And as far as Nagoya, Honshu is considered today, I don't know how big it is. At that time, I suppose, oh, maybe. I wanna guess two, 300,000 people. Probably-- probably 20 million today. See, that's been seventy years ago.
Speaker 2 [00:17:58] So then after the war, you came back to the United States. What did you do after?
Charles Goodman [00:18:03] Excuse me?
Speaker 2 [00:18:03] What did you do after the war?
Speaker 2 [00:18:04] I went to college for a while, and I didn't like college. And I went to work out here in Storm Lake, at-- at a packing house, which was the biggest mistake I ever made. I worked there for 30 years, but-- and it was good to me. But there again, I had a chance to go to work for the U.S. Post Office, and I turned it down.
Speaker 2 [00:18:24] Do you know of any, like, family members or friends that were drafted? Did you lose any--
Charles Goodman [00:18:29] You know, I had just one brother, and I had one cousin that was drafted into the Marines, and he got seven battle stars when he was in the Marines. And never fired a shot.
Speaker 2 [00:18:41] Did you receive any kind of a commemoration or anything like that?
Charles Goodman [00:18:43] Well, I got-- I got my World War Two veteran. I got three ribbons. I got three ribbons.
Speaker 2 [00:18:50] So then when the war was officially over, what was your final rank that you had?
Charles Goodman [00:18:55] I never got any higher than a sergeant, but if I would have stayed, I'd become a sergeant major. If I'd have stayed I'd have got in Korea, too. Thank God I didn't.
Speaker 2 [00:19:06] Well, we thank you very, very much for your time.
Charles Goodman [00:19:09] We're done? Oh, my. I hope you learned a lot from it.
Speaker 2 [00:19:12] Yup. Do you have anything more to add?
Charles Goodman [00:19:14] What?
Speaker 2 [00:19:14] Do you have anything more to add?
Charles Goodman [00:19:16] Only that we-- our trip back was-- it took us about 17 days to get back to-- and being a--being a Tech Sergeant like I was, I was able to-- I didn't have to sleep like I did before. Another thing I need to tell you, too-- we-- we had paper scrip over there, paper money. And when we got on a boat, they took our paper money and gave us cash for it. And we had a crap game-- crap, see? And one guy got off with over $100,000 off the boat. I remember that. [Laughter from one of the interviewers] And then there was-- I was only in the-- I think I was probably in Washington for about two weeks before I got discharged and I was supposed to go on a-- a World War II casket team, but they decided to discharge me instead. And you know what I mean by that? I would have had to go with the body to wherever he was-- his folks were and present the flag and stuff at that time. But I never had to do that. Which I was quite glad I didn't.
Speaker 2 [00:20:21] Did you lose any friends or--
Charles Goodman [00:20:24] Yeah, I lost one. Yeah, he-- yeah, I remember. He didn't get shot. I think he drowned. I think he drowned.
Speaker 2 [00:20:36] When you heard about the war officially, like, breaking out way back when, did you feel compelled to enlist?
Charles Goodman [00:20:42] Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2 [00:20:43] Yeah.
Charles Goodman [00:20:43] Absolutely. I-- I was just a-- a punk kid. But, boy, I-- I was going to go right now. Yeah, absolutely. A little different feeling then than it is now, I think. We-- I can't recall, but I believe, if I'm not mistaken, there is right at-- this might sound fantastic to you-- 13,000 veterans that die every day. And the military cemeteries are getting quite full of 'em. There isn't-- there is a method that you can get buried in the military. You can get-- tthey will furnish the casket and stuff if you want them to. You have to order-- order it, and then they'll get it to you. And they-- buried in a military cemetery. I think there is a new military cemetery down by Des Moines, Iowa, now, I'm not sure. Not too far from Des Moines. And that they say-- that's really filling up, too.
Speaker 2 [00:21:43] So as far as when you were in Japan, what did you hear of the news around you? Like what did you hear about what was going on in Germany?
Charles Goodman [00:21:50] Not really. No. Not really, no. Just-- just pretty much what was going on-- what was going on in our particular area. Not really that-- we didn't know.
Speaker 2 [00:21:59] Did you hear about the other islands, like, what was going on in Okinawa?
Charles Goodman [00:22:02] Oh, yeah. We-- we knew that was taking place. Okinawa, that reminds me, there's something a lot of people don't know, but Okinawa is nothing but a rock. As lightning strikes her daytime, nighttime, all the time. They could never put a communication tower up because the lightning was striking off all the time.
Speaker 2 [00:22:24] When you went through boot camp, like, how difficult was that for you? I mean, like you said, that you were just a punk kid. Were you not prepared for what was about to happen?
Charles Goodman [00:22:32] I had no idea what was about to happen. I went in at 132 po-- 138 [pounds], I'm going to guess. And when I got through boot camp, I weighed 172 pounds, in just that few weeks. They fed us well. They trained us well. We-- the longest hike I ever took was 16 miles. I think the biggest thing that really got me more than anything else was learning to drill with a rifle. I'll be damned if I can learn how to put that up on my right shoulder and left shoulder. At one time I was-- [he motions to his left shoulder] this was working at it. I was out in front of the barracks. By the way, our barracks was about--oh, 100 feet, maybe 150 feet long. About as wide as this building here, right here and here. And we slept a full company in that one barracks. But we all lived together in that barracks. I'll get back to the rifle deal-- is I was trying to learn to put that right shoulder up, left shoulder up, and try to learn it there. And I turn my back and as-- a bunch of my friends were making fun of me doing it. They go, "Oh, you don't know what the hell you're doing." And all of a sudden they come, "Ten-hut!" "What the hell you ten-huttin' me for?" [I] turn around, there's a captain's standing there. He got a big kick out of that. Another thing that I remember vague-- vastly about the service was that when you smoke-- I didn't smoke, but when you smoked a cigarette, you field-- field-rogue it so there's nothing left. And one of soldiers would throw it and put it-- put their foot on it. You know what happened to them when they did that? They-- they dug a six-foot-deep hole by two foot-- three-foot-wide and buried the cigarette in there and then covered it back up. That was [unintelligible]. As far as our exercise was concerned, we every day we went out onto a little range that we lifted weights and stuff like that to build our muscles up. And then, like I said, the longest hike we had [was] about 16 miles, but also I-- I never fired a cannon. I have been in a tank and I fired-- think it was a 30-- 30 millimeter shell which weighed 26 pounds, and you'd fire that-- we worked on the turret return and everything like that. You learned to site it, and you'd fire it to hit objects out there. And they were in a hurry to train us, so the other soldiers, they just stayed safe. The guy that was up on the gunnner, he got to do all the shooting and then he got to shoot 32 rounds of it. Well, I remember that.
Speaker 2 [00:25:16] And what was your transportation from boot camp over to Japan?
Charles Goodman [00:25:20] Oh, I went from boot camp, I come home, I got on-- I got on a train. I went to Louisville, Kentucky, and crawled on a troop train and went from a troop train all the way out to California. Can't remember the name of the camp. And we got off there, and we had just another week's training. And then they put us on a boat. We went under the Golden Gate Bridge, I remember that, and we went on a boat all the way over. And we was within partway from here to the other side of the lake. Of Hawaii, we got to see Hawaii. My wife and I had the privilege of going back to Hawaii, and we saw that here a number of years ago, which was great.
Speaker 2 [00:26:00] How many days long was your voyage over?
Charles Goodman [00:26:02] I think it was 19 days going over and 17 days coming back or 19 days coming back or the other way round. I'm-- I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 [00:26:11] And what kind of conditions were--
Charles Goodman [00:26:12] On the boat? The conditions weren't good, the conditions weren't good at all. Like I said, we-- we sat in a room no bigger than this here, probably 100, but we's ten high. We'd have to shove ourselves in to sleep. So that wasn't-- wasn't nice. And we spent a lot of time up on deck. And like I said, I can't recall for sure, but I think there was 7000 of us on the boat. It seems like it. We were what they called on a liberty boat. I remember that.
Speaker 2 [00:26:43] Were they all, like, new cadets and that stuff, or were there some, like, returning veterans or--
Charles Goodman [00:26:47] Oh, no, no, no. These were all-- they didn't do such things as [unintelligible] veteran back then. Because they was drafting, and they had enough soldiers to take care of their matters. But now, you know, like the National Guard here, by God, they go overseas four or five times. But, actually, my service time was a real grow-up period for me. It made a punk kid into a man. I have maintained about the same weight as I am now. I weigh right at 200 pounds now. And that's about what I come home with, 200 pounds. When I tell you this, when I first got overseas, I fit in a 36 large uniform. [laughter] I can't even get my arms in them now.
Speaker 2 [00:27:40] Is there anything else you'd like to share with us about your experience?
Charles Goodman [00:27:43] Oh, my experience, I-- I really can't say that I enjoyed my experience, but I wouldn't take $1,000,000 for what I did. The Japanese people in general treated us well-- real well. The Japanese girls over there, they tried to make real good friends with the men because they could get about what they wanted from them. And there's a few of 'em that took Japanese wives and come home with them. Not many of our unit, I suppose, in our unit of 800, I suppose in the time I was there, probably four. That's not very many. And as far as going out with the-- the ladies, no. The guys didn't go out with them. They were just a different breed of cat. Most of them were not much over five foot tall. Another thing I should tell you about is we had a-- we called him "Papasan." He come into our barracks, our place where we-- we lived-- we lived in a more or less like a cement--like-- like a building like this. Only it had five floors on it where we-- we slept and everything like that. Well, anyway, he took care of all the-- he could speak good English, and he could take care of these Japnese girls and tell 'em what to do and stuff like that. And then we had one little Japanese boy that we adopted as our-- what would you call him? Oh, he was with us all the time that we went anywhere. Anyway, he-- he grew up. I don't know what ever happened to him, but he-- he-- he got to be where he was-- we'd dress him in our-- our G.I. clothes. We had clothes to fit him. And he-- he-- he lived with us. His folks were dead. As far as-- another thing that I remember, if you ever watched-- ever watched the suma-- suma-- s-s-suma-- sima-- siminai [sumo] wrestling? I have-- I've got to sit right next to it and watch them, these Japanese people wrestle. And another thing that they did, they was very good baseball players. Very good. But I remember the guys were-- oh, my God (referring back to sumo wrestling) that big. They were monsters, man. It was fun to watch. As far as-- they was places in the city that we stayed away from. But there was also places that had the living hell bombed out of them. There was just nothing left there anymore. As far as their food was concerned, if they had it, they knew how to fix it. Anything else?
Speaker 2 [00:30:19] As far as the bombs being dropped, like, where were you?
Charles Goodman [00:30:22] As far as the bombs being dropped, we were over there at the time that bombing was all done. It was just shortly before that. But the-- this area was just as flat as could be. Everything was gone. Everything was gone. And then they had something they was talking about that the people were affected by the stuff come off the bombs. I don't remember what it was. Wasn't gas. But anyway, then where they dropped the A-bomb at, I've been there, too. I got to see that. And that wasn't really what they said it was. Nothing. There's nothing there. But as far as the people were concerned, it wasn't them that were doing the fighting. It was the big guys up from the top. The Hiroshimas and Hirohito, them people that were doing all the bad stuff. But as far as the people were concerned, I weighed in my mind, they weren't a bad bunch of people, but they learned in a hurry to take the G.I. They learned in a hurry. Another thing that I should tell you, too, is, at the time, like I said, I paid a dollar a carton for cigarettes. I didn't smoke and people would-- I'm not going to say I did, but people got as high as $40 for a carton of cigarettes. Yes. And like I said, they hade the sake, which was-- and you didn't know what hit you. It was that-- hell, it [unintelligible] little glass and you was gone. Other than-- as far as other things [were] concerned, there was an-- yeah, I can't say that either. I was in her stores and stuff like that, but they learned in a hurry. A G.I. would pay extra money for that stuff and they sold it to us that way. I did-- I did bring home some Japanese knives. I brought home one Japanese knife that I wouldn't part with that for $1,000. I'm serious. It's a piece-- it's beautiful. I tried to bring home a couple of swords, but that didn't work. You probably know about that. Other than that, I can't think of anything else that would help you. Can you think of anything else?
Speaker 2 [00:32:35] No. We just want to thank you very much for your time--
Charles Goodman [00:32:38] You're entirely welcome. I hope I helped you a lot of what I said and did here today. And good luck to what you're doing. And I appreciate you asking me to come and talk.
Speaker 2 [00:32:47] We appreciate you coming. Thank you.
Speaker 1 [00:00:01] Today. We're talking to Charles Goodman. He's from Alta, Iowa. He was born June 19th of 1927. Before you entered the service, were you in high school then?
Charles Goodman [00:00:14] Before I entered the service, I was in high school over in Alta, Iowa, and I graduated from there. And after I graduated from high school, I decided that I was going to go to the service. So I went to the service on July the 12th of that same year and took basic training in Fort Knox, Kentucky. My basic training was armor-- armory. Basic training for the tanks and such stuff as that. And I went through eight, maybe it was nine weeks of basic training down there. And then I went home, and then I went overseas, and I went from-- from Alta down to-- I believe it was Saint Louis, Missouri, and from Saint Louis, Missouri, we got on a troop train and we went from our troop train all the way out to California. I can't remember-- San Diego, California, I believe it was-- in that neighborhood, I'm not sure. And then we took another few weeks, another two weeks of basic training there. And then they shipped us overseas. And we went overseas on a-- a ship that had-- I think we had 5700 men on board. And this was on one what they called a liberty ship, which wasn't a very big ship. And when we slept, we slept ten high. We went in a place-- in a room no bigger than this-- probably had 400 men in it. I'm not exaggerating, The trip overseas, it took us, I think it was 19 days, I'm not sure. But we had the honor of being within a little ways of Hawaii. And we got to see where the-- the war started. From there, we went to Japan and Nagoya, Honshu, Japan. And I myself went into-- went into the military police-- a unit in Nagoya. Honshu of 800 men. We was four companies. And we were the first people to go in for soldiers, to go into Nagoya, to be military police. And from there, I spent the next 15 months, I think it was, in Nagoya, Honshu. I was very lucky when I got off the boat, they lined us up. Well, you guys go there, there, there, there. And you go over to the-- we're gonna send you to the military police. And when I got to Nagoya, Honshu, they was-- oh, there was about 60 of us that went into the military police from there. And-- "Does anybody know how to type here or do bookkeeping?" I said, "Yes, sir, I do." Said, "You're the-- you just become our clerk." So from there, I'd become the company's clerk for one company at that time. But I was very fortunate. I have to tell you a little bit more about this. I was very fortunate that our sergeant that was in charge of us, got himself in trouble. So they made me the-- the-- full-- full charge of-- of the four companies. So I become what you might call a sergeant major. I never got the rank for it, and I would have got the rank, had I stayed in, but I didn't stay in it. And thank God I didn't because if I had have, I would have got in on Korea. So I'm very thankful of that. Well-- I can keep on talking if you want me to, I will. We-- my--my job in the military police was to take care of 800 soldiers, to make sure they had food, make sure they had a place to sleep, make sure they had-- their rosters were in place-- just so they went out on duty. And we had like, I think 32-- no, 42 Jeeps that we patrolled the city with. And then we had other hand troops that walked the city quite a bit. We had what we called a KP. They're not-- no, they no-- not a KP. A place where you go and get pop and stuff like that. Cigarettes. And we-- we was able to do that, and we had a ration every month. We would get a ration of one carton of cigarettes, and then we could buy a case of chocolate milk. Anything that I missed more than anything else was milk. But our cigarettes, I wasn't a smoker, so I'm probably cheating here a little bit when I say this. I never smoked cigarettes. I sold my cigarettes, and at that time the Japanese were very, very leery of us. And we were leery of them, of course. And when you walked up and down the streets, they were-- they were riding in rickshaws. When the cars-- what cars they had, there'd be a car parked here and they'd be making gasohol or alcohol out of wood so they could drive a little bit farther. I had the-- the-- like I said, I was a very fortunate soldier because I had the privilege of working for a very wonderful colonel. And he-- I kinda think he took me under his wing. I don't know, but anyway, then we had the-- a total of 800 people in our-- our unit. We had four captains, eight lieutenants, one major and one lieutenant colonel. For some unknown reason, I remember his name like it was yesterday. Lieutenant Colonel Dureetee. [sp]
Charles Goodman [00:05:48] This was a very-- he was a old soldier, but he was a fine soldier. We were very-- I was very fortunate in an aspect that I got to travel out of the city because of the position I was in. And I want to tell you, when we first got there, those people, we-- we had our own laundry. We had to do our laundry ourselves. And we learned in a hurry that these Japanese ladies would love to do our laundry for us. And we could-- they'd do our laundry for, oh, maybe a pack of cigarettes a week, and-- but they learned in a hurry. And that soon become two or three packs a week because they learned where-- where they could make some extra money from. Another thing that we had, we had four dance halls in the city of Nagoya Honshu, for the soldiers-- what they called them, they called them-- yeah, there was a name for them, I can't recall the name what they called these-- party-- party room floor and where they had Japanese girls that would dance for the soldiers. And then they had Japanese beer. This Japanese beer would come in, oh, bottles, probably about a quart in size and, oh, I will say probably about 14, 15% alcohol. And then it had -- yes, I'm not kidding. And they had another drink they called sake. Sake would come in a little-- it was a-- it was a-- it was a powerhouse. You could drink a cupful, and then you wouldn't know what happened. It was that strong, and that was very inexpensive. As far as the other things were concerned, we had a lot of streetwalkers. They had a lot of professional streetwalkers, but that was-- one of our duties was to make sure that they got off the streets. We also had a patrol that went out and picked these people up and took them wherever they-- they had to take them. I won't say where they went, but you can get pretty good imagination on that. From there, another soldier and I, we all had a little time off, and we'd get out and we'd walk and we'd walk the city over. And we walked one way, and then we walk another way, and we were right there on the ocean, so we was-- right close to the ocean. Anyway, their bomb shelters were caves. They were caves. Caves, as big as this this room or bigger. They were monstrous. But that's where they went for bombing-- when they had a bombing raid. As far as the Japanese people were concerned, when we first got there, these people were very, very polite. But yet they were very watchful of what we did. And their homes, at that time, were more or less shacks because excuse my way-- way of saying it, they had had the hell blown out of them with bombs. And them shacks were built out of sticks. But we also, like I was telling you before, our food was very good because we were a military police outfit, and our food had to be good. And another thing we had, too-- we didn't have any military pol-- kitchen help. They hired all Japanese women to do our--our kitchen help, so that give them extra money, too. Another thing that really would be-- was quite interesting to me is when you walked on the streets, these people, at that time, didn't have bathrooms to go to. They went on the side of the street and did it. I'm serious, and they had places-- not places, people that would have-- how do you call them? Honey wagons, and they would go in and take this stuff, and then they'd put that on their gardens and they had garden fruit [unintelligible], stuff like that. As far as the service was concerned, I was very fortunate. I got to travel from one end of Japan to the other end because of the other duties I had, and the train service we had was quite, quite good. I can remember once saying something probably out of school here. I had a-- I had to go to, oh, about 200 miles away from where I was at to pick up some men that were going back to come to be M.P.s. And at that time, I rode out with a guy, and this gentleman was a military police officer, and he had a prisoner with him that had murdered some people. And he said, "Well," he said, "you're in the military police, will you watch this guy while we eat?" "Yeah, I'll do that." Well, I-- I had a gun on my side, so I didn't make any difference. And when I say-- he sat across from me like this in the railroad tracks, and he was handcuffed. He says-- excuse my way of saying it but, "You S.O.B.. If I get loose, I'll kill you." Well, he spent the rest of his life in Fort-- down here in Kansas. Leavenworth? Leavenworth, Kansas. That's where he spent the rest of his life. As far as the stuff was concerned, when we first got there, it was really quite inexpensive to buy. But boy, they weren't in a hurry. One thing that I had the privilege of doing, I liked being part of the service I was. I got to know a lot of these people. Got to learn a lot of things that I probably shouldn't have known, but I did know. And I bought-- I bought my mother a set of dishes, chinaware, way back in [19]46. And to this day, there's one piece that's broke, out of a set of 12. And I sent that home in a wooden box, and it-- and it cost me 55 dollars to send it home, I remember that. And to this day, there's one piece that got broken. Go ahead ask some more questions if you want.
Speaker 1 [00:11:29] When you were in Japan, were you involved in any-- did you see, like, skirmishes, like, amongst the-- you and the people?
Charles Goodman [00:11:35] Oh, yeah. We had some skirmishes. We've had-- we had one time we had a-- we had-- we had to get ready for because they thought we was going to have a rat. And they-- they backed off from it.
Speaker 1 [00:11:48] Did that make you--did that make you nervous? Were you really--
Charles Goodman [00:11:50] You know, at the time, it didn't bother me a bit. Didn't bother me a bit.
Speaker 2 [00:11:54] Your unit didn't see much combat?
Charles Goodman [00:11:56] Absolutely none. But I have been shot at.
Speaker 2 [00:12:01] What was that like for you?
Charles Goodman [00:12:02] Well, it was quite different. I got shot at, and I found out where the shooting was coming from, and we took care of the matter real fast-like. Didn't have to shoot anybody. But I have to tell you another instance. We was out on patrol, and we come up on another patrol. They weren't supposed to be there, face-to-face. And that was very scary.
Speaker 2 [00:12:26] You mention that your mom-- you sent her things. Did you send letters back to any friends and family?
Charles Goodman [00:12:32] My mom, friends, and my family. Yeah. And my family-- my family is all gone now. In fact, I have no cousins. I have no brothers or sisters or anything like that. All my-- all my cousins on my both sides are gone.
Speaker 2 [00:12:46] So how did your mom feel when you enlisted?
Charles Goodman [00:12:48] My mother was quite upset when I went to the service. I have to tell you how I come home. When I come home, I got discharged out in Seattle, Washington. And I rode a bus home, and I got to Storm Lake here in Storm Lake, and it was in the middle of night, three or four o'clock in the morning. Come on-- on the Greyhound, I think it was. And I decided, well, if there's a party in Alta, I ought to go home. So I went home, and at the house I stuck-- well, I got up on the house and stuck in the-- snuck up on the roof and crawled in the wooden [unintelligible] and went to bed. The folks wo-- found me that next morning in bed.
Speaker 2 [00:13:27] What was your most memorable experience during your time serving?
Charles Goodman [00:13:33] Well, actually, probably the people. The people were actually not much different than you and I. I-- like I said, I had the privilege of going out quite a ways from-- from Nagoya Honshu. And we went to a-- not we-- I was-- went out to a 4th of July celebration. They celebrated and they had it-- it wasn't on the fourth, but it was a date, and they had a 4th of July fireworks and stuff like that. And these people didn't even realize that they had been in a war. I'm serious. They was out there. They didn't even realize it. Another thing I should tell you is that there were bathhouses. The men took baths in one one house, and the women took baths in another house. Yes. Far as their Japanese food was concerned, if you give them good food, they could do a beautiful, beautiful job of it. In fact, there's another thing that I and another-- like I said, there's three of us that took our laundry to this lady, and she did it. Says, "You give me some beef, I fix you meal." And she did. And it would melt in your mouth. It was very good. But like I said, also, their homes were very rick-shappity (sp). Excuse my way of saying it: they had the hell blown out of them. They was all bombed out. But we had one area there-- I never had the privilege of going to Hiroshima where they had the atomic bomb. I wanted to, but I never did. Another thing that you want to remember, too, is there-- they have monasteries, I guess I'd call them. Like temples where they had their Japanese priests and stuff like that, which never got affected by the war whatsoever. And another thing I can tell you, too-- it wasn't our particular area, but there was a statue of one of their-- that they worship. What would you call 'em? They worshiped 'em anyway, and anyway, a piece of it chipped off and it was solid gold underneath. That-- that I remember.
Speaker 2 [00:15:43] And then towards the end of the war, where were you when you heard that the war was over?
Charles Goodman [00:15:49] In-- in the-- I-- I was here in the States yet at that time. But I went to [unintelligible] thereafter.
Speaker 2 [00:15:53] So you were back in the United States when you heard--
Charles Goodman [00:15:55] No, no, no, no, no. The war was over in November 1945. And I was overseas, it was just-- it was just occupying at that time. Like I said, we were the first unit to occupy Nagoya Honshu. And our our commanding officer was MacArthur. Had to think about that a minute. He was in our particular [unintelligible], but never, never saw the man once. Like I said, we had our [unintelligible] colonel, and he took good care of us.
Speaker 2 [00:16:28] And how did you and the people around you react when you heard the news?
Speaker 2 [00:16:31] Oh,you could have tore us off the ceiling when it was over with. It was-- part of the happiest moment of our life which you don't know what's going to happen next. You don't know if you're gonna-- you might be walking in some jungle somewhere and bang, it's all over with. But other than that, no, the-- actually, the Japanese people were-- In fact, I have to say this about the-- well, you see these people going to the bathroom on a corner, and it'd make you angry. You're not supposed to do that. And you go take a minute [laughter] where you're not supposed over in the back end, but sooner or later [you learn] you're not supposed to do that. These people don't know any better. But like I said, they were rickshaws. There's very few cars. Their transportation-- I think we had streetcars. But I don't remember for sure. I don't remember for sure. But we-- had streetcars. But you get out away from the city itself, and they didn't really realize that there was a sustained war going on. And as far as Nagoya, Honshu is considered today, I don't know how big it is. At that time, I suppose, oh, maybe. I wanna guess two, 300,000 people. Probably-- probably 20 million today. See, that's been seventy years ago.
Speaker 2 [00:17:58] So then after the war, you came back to the United States. What did you do after?
Charles Goodman [00:18:03] Excuse me?
Speaker 2 [00:18:03] What did you do after the war?
Speaker 2 [00:18:04] I went to college for a while, and I didn't like college. And I went to work out here in Storm Lake, at-- at a packing house, which was the biggest mistake I ever made. I worked there for 30 years, but-- and it was good to me. But there again, I had a chance to go to work for the U.S. Post Office, and I turned it down.
Speaker 2 [00:18:24] Do you know of any, like, family members or friends that were drafted? Did you lose any--
Charles Goodman [00:18:29] You know, I had just one brother, and I had one cousin that was drafted into the Marines, and he got seven battle stars when he was in the Marines. And never fired a shot.
Speaker 2 [00:18:41] Did you receive any kind of a commemoration or anything like that?
Charles Goodman [00:18:43] Well, I got-- I got my World War Two veteran. I got three ribbons. I got three ribbons.
Speaker 2 [00:18:50] So then when the war was officially over, what was your final rank that you had?
Charles Goodman [00:18:55] I never got any higher than a sergeant, but if I would have stayed, I'd become a sergeant major. If I'd have stayed I'd have got in Korea, too. Thank God I didn't.
Speaker 2 [00:19:06] Well, we thank you very, very much for your time.
Charles Goodman [00:19:09] We're done? Oh, my. I hope you learned a lot from it.
Speaker 2 [00:19:12] Yup. Do you have anything more to add?
Charles Goodman [00:19:14] What?
Speaker 2 [00:19:14] Do you have anything more to add?
Charles Goodman [00:19:16] Only that we-- our trip back was-- it took us about 17 days to get back to-- and being a--being a Tech Sergeant like I was, I was able to-- I didn't have to sleep like I did before. Another thing I need to tell you, too-- we-- we had paper scrip over there, paper money. And when we got on a boat, they took our paper money and gave us cash for it. And we had a crap game-- crap, see? And one guy got off with over $100,000 off the boat. I remember that. [Laughter from one of the interviewers] And then there was-- I was only in the-- I think I was probably in Washington for about two weeks before I got discharged and I was supposed to go on a-- a World War II casket team, but they decided to discharge me instead. And you know what I mean by that? I would have had to go with the body to wherever he was-- his folks were and present the flag and stuff at that time. But I never had to do that. Which I was quite glad I didn't.
Speaker 2 [00:20:21] Did you lose any friends or--
Charles Goodman [00:20:24] Yeah, I lost one. Yeah, he-- yeah, I remember. He didn't get shot. I think he drowned. I think he drowned.
Speaker 2 [00:20:36] When you heard about the war officially, like, breaking out way back when, did you feel compelled to enlist?
Charles Goodman [00:20:42] Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2 [00:20:43] Yeah.
Charles Goodman [00:20:43] Absolutely. I-- I was just a-- a punk kid. But, boy, I-- I was going to go right now. Yeah, absolutely. A little different feeling then than it is now, I think. We-- I can't recall, but I believe, if I'm not mistaken, there is right at-- this might sound fantastic to you-- 13,000 veterans that die every day. And the military cemeteries are getting quite full of 'em. There isn't-- there is a method that you can get buried in the military. You can get-- tthey will furnish the casket and stuff if you want them to. You have to order-- order it, and then they'll get it to you. And they-- buried in a military cemetery. I think there is a new military cemetery down by Des Moines, Iowa, now, I'm not sure. Not too far from Des Moines. And that they say-- that's really filling up, too.
Speaker 2 [00:21:43] So as far as when you were in Japan, what did you hear of the news around you? Like what did you hear about what was going on in Germany?
Charles Goodman [00:21:50] Not really. No. Not really, no. Just-- just pretty much what was going on-- what was going on in our particular area. Not really that-- we didn't know.
Speaker 2 [00:21:59] Did you hear about the other islands, like, what was going on in Okinawa?
Charles Goodman [00:22:02] Oh, yeah. We-- we knew that was taking place. Okinawa, that reminds me, there's something a lot of people don't know, but Okinawa is nothing but a rock. As lightning strikes her daytime, nighttime, all the time. They could never put a communication tower up because the lightning was striking off all the time.
Speaker 2 [00:22:24] When you went through boot camp, like, how difficult was that for you? I mean, like you said, that you were just a punk kid. Were you not prepared for what was about to happen?
Charles Goodman [00:22:32] I had no idea what was about to happen. I went in at 132 po-- 138 [pounds], I'm going to guess. And when I got through boot camp, I weighed 172 pounds, in just that few weeks. They fed us well. They trained us well. We-- the longest hike I ever took was 16 miles. I think the biggest thing that really got me more than anything else was learning to drill with a rifle. I'll be damned if I can learn how to put that up on my right shoulder and left shoulder. At one time I was-- [he motions to his left shoulder] this was working at it. I was out in front of the barracks. By the way, our barracks was about--oh, 100 feet, maybe 150 feet long. About as wide as this building here, right here and here. And we slept a full company in that one barracks. But we all lived together in that barracks. I'll get back to the rifle deal-- is I was trying to learn to put that right shoulder up, left shoulder up, and try to learn it there. And I turn my back and as-- a bunch of my friends were making fun of me doing it. They go, "Oh, you don't know what the hell you're doing." And all of a sudden they come, "Ten-hut!" "What the hell you ten-huttin' me for?" [I] turn around, there's a captain's standing there. He got a big kick out of that. Another thing that I remember vague-- vastly about the service was that when you smoke-- I didn't smoke, but when you smoked a cigarette, you field-- field-rogue it so there's nothing left. And one of soldiers would throw it and put it-- put their foot on it. You know what happened to them when they did that? They-- they dug a six-foot-deep hole by two foot-- three-foot-wide and buried the cigarette in there and then covered it back up. That was [unintelligible]. As far as our exercise was concerned, we every day we went out onto a little range that we lifted weights and stuff like that to build our muscles up. And then, like I said, the longest hike we had [was] about 16 miles, but also I-- I never fired a cannon. I have been in a tank and I fired-- think it was a 30-- 30 millimeter shell which weighed 26 pounds, and you'd fire that-- we worked on the turret return and everything like that. You learned to site it, and you'd fire it to hit objects out there. And they were in a hurry to train us, so the other soldiers, they just stayed safe. The guy that was up on the gunnner, he got to do all the shooting and then he got to shoot 32 rounds of it. Well, I remember that.
Speaker 2 [00:25:16] And what was your transportation from boot camp over to Japan?
Charles Goodman [00:25:20] Oh, I went from boot camp, I come home, I got on-- I got on a train. I went to Louisville, Kentucky, and crawled on a troop train and went from a troop train all the way out to California. Can't remember the name of the camp. And we got off there, and we had just another week's training. And then they put us on a boat. We went under the Golden Gate Bridge, I remember that, and we went on a boat all the way over. And we was within partway from here to the other side of the lake. Of Hawaii, we got to see Hawaii. My wife and I had the privilege of going back to Hawaii, and we saw that here a number of years ago, which was great.
Speaker 2 [00:26:00] How many days long was your voyage over?
Charles Goodman [00:26:02] I think it was 19 days going over and 17 days coming back or 19 days coming back or the other way round. I'm-- I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 [00:26:11] And what kind of conditions were--
Charles Goodman [00:26:12] On the boat? The conditions weren't good, the conditions weren't good at all. Like I said, we-- we sat in a room no bigger than this here, probably 100, but we's ten high. We'd have to shove ourselves in to sleep. So that wasn't-- wasn't nice. And we spent a lot of time up on deck. And like I said, I can't recall for sure, but I think there was 7000 of us on the boat. It seems like it. We were what they called on a liberty boat. I remember that.
Speaker 2 [00:26:43] Were they all, like, new cadets and that stuff, or were there some, like, returning veterans or--
Charles Goodman [00:26:47] Oh, no, no, no. These were all-- they didn't do such things as [unintelligible] veteran back then. Because they was drafting, and they had enough soldiers to take care of their matters. But now, you know, like the National Guard here, by God, they go overseas four or five times. But, actually, my service time was a real grow-up period for me. It made a punk kid into a man. I have maintained about the same weight as I am now. I weigh right at 200 pounds now. And that's about what I come home with, 200 pounds. When I tell you this, when I first got overseas, I fit in a 36 large uniform. [laughter] I can't even get my arms in them now.
Speaker 2 [00:27:40] Is there anything else you'd like to share with us about your experience?
Charles Goodman [00:27:43] Oh, my experience, I-- I really can't say that I enjoyed my experience, but I wouldn't take $1,000,000 for what I did. The Japanese people in general treated us well-- real well. The Japanese girls over there, they tried to make real good friends with the men because they could get about what they wanted from them. And there's a few of 'em that took Japanese wives and come home with them. Not many of our unit, I suppose, in our unit of 800, I suppose in the time I was there, probably four. That's not very many. And as far as going out with the-- the ladies, no. The guys didn't go out with them. They were just a different breed of cat. Most of them were not much over five foot tall. Another thing I should tell you about is we had a-- we called him "Papasan." He come into our barracks, our place where we-- we lived-- we lived in a more or less like a cement--like-- like a building like this. Only it had five floors on it where we-- we slept and everything like that. Well, anyway, he took care of all the-- he could speak good English, and he could take care of these Japnese girls and tell 'em what to do and stuff like that. And then we had one little Japanese boy that we adopted as our-- what would you call him? Oh, he was with us all the time that we went anywhere. Anyway, he-- he grew up. I don't know what ever happened to him, but he-- he-- he got to be where he was-- we'd dress him in our-- our G.I. clothes. We had clothes to fit him. And he-- he-- he lived with us. His folks were dead. As far as-- another thing that I remember, if you ever watched-- ever watched the suma-- suma-- s-s-suma-- sima-- siminai [sumo] wrestling? I have-- I've got to sit right next to it and watch them, these Japanese people wrestle. And another thing that they did, they was very good baseball players. Very good. But I remember the guys were-- oh, my God (referring back to sumo wrestling) that big. They were monsters, man. It was fun to watch. As far as-- they was places in the city that we stayed away from. But there was also places that had the living hell bombed out of them. There was just nothing left there anymore. As far as their food was concerned, if they had it, they knew how to fix it. Anything else?
Speaker 2 [00:30:19] As far as the bombs being dropped, like, where were you?
Charles Goodman [00:30:22] As far as the bombs being dropped, we were over there at the time that bombing was all done. It was just shortly before that. But the-- this area was just as flat as could be. Everything was gone. Everything was gone. And then they had something they was talking about that the people were affected by the stuff come off the bombs. I don't remember what it was. Wasn't gas. But anyway, then where they dropped the A-bomb at, I've been there, too. I got to see that. And that wasn't really what they said it was. Nothing. There's nothing there. But as far as the people were concerned, it wasn't them that were doing the fighting. It was the big guys up from the top. The Hiroshimas and Hirohito, them people that were doing all the bad stuff. But as far as the people were concerned, I weighed in my mind, they weren't a bad bunch of people, but they learned in a hurry to take the G.I. They learned in a hurry. Another thing that I should tell you, too, is, at the time, like I said, I paid a dollar a carton for cigarettes. I didn't smoke and people would-- I'm not going to say I did, but people got as high as $40 for a carton of cigarettes. Yes. And like I said, they hade the sake, which was-- and you didn't know what hit you. It was that-- hell, it [unintelligible] little glass and you was gone. Other than-- as far as other things [were] concerned, there was an-- yeah, I can't say that either. I was in her stores and stuff like that, but they learned in a hurry. A G.I. would pay extra money for that stuff and they sold it to us that way. I did-- I did bring home some Japanese knives. I brought home one Japanese knife that I wouldn't part with that for $1,000. I'm serious. It's a piece-- it's beautiful. I tried to bring home a couple of swords, but that didn't work. You probably know about that. Other than that, I can't think of anything else that would help you. Can you think of anything else?
Speaker 2 [00:32:35] No. We just want to thank you very much for your time--
Charles Goodman [00:32:38] You're entirely welcome. I hope I helped you a lot of what I said and did here today. And good luck to what you're doing. And I appreciate you asking me to come and talk.
Speaker 2 [00:32:47] We appreciate you coming. Thank you.
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DVCAM
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0:32:47
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80 kbps