Yeah.
Well, I don't know. Maybe a fake. Oh, hey. About that thick and real juicy.
Not too done. Oh, Okay. It's so near dinner time too. And here we sit
talking about things that are 10,000 miles away. Well, let's talk to the
folks a minute. Tell them what you'd like to tell him. Well, just call out
to death and sister and brothers and I hope they're fine. I'm making okay.
Have you always had that little mustache? Well, you know, it's pretty
cute. Looks like Rudolph valentino. Well, thanks a whole lot. You slip
away now. We'll try one of the other boys. Uh, that was uh faustino,
estrada, Williams, Arizona mrs ehh estrada's son. Now, Billy J Hill of
Miami. Billy J Hill of Miami. Um, Billy. How you been doing? Well, that's
good. It can be expected in a place like this. You don't look tall enough
to be in the army. Well, I wish I wasn't, don't they put some kind of
restriction on your height before they let you in? Yes. five ft and I just
hit the mark right on the beam, Huh? How do you like this? Part of the
world? Have you seen enough out here to be glad you came or do you wish
you'd never come out here. I wish you'd never been here. I'd like the
state's better. Oh, well, who doesn't after all the final preference would
certainly take us all back to the states. How many points do you have? 59.
That isn't enough, is it? No, it isn't. When did you join the 32nd In
November of 43. Was that during beginning campaign? No, there's just in
time to get a hold of it. Oh, you were then in a part of it. All right.
Yes. I started out at Sagamore Beach Land. And you got into that mud at
lady in the first class style. Huh? Gee, that stuff must have been
terrible. I've seen lots of pictures of it and it must have been really
rough. It's just about knee deep all over the island, all rained every day.
Well, it's been better up here, hasn't it on lasagna? Yes, it's
considerable better. The weather here is much better than that. Have you
been enjoying good health? Yes, I can say I have no wounds. No. Pretty
lucky. Let's say something to the folks at home in a personal sort of way.
Well, I'd like to say hello for Raymond Wimberly spokes and female
Arizona and to Evan Bill and see there in Miami someday I'm gonna be back
here with you. Have you met many Arizona boys? I hear you speaking here
for some friend of yours. Have you run into a few? Yes, This Raymond
Wimberley from female Arizona. He's in my company now and we run around a
good l together and he's in good health and just as anxious to be home as
you are. Yes. Are you a combat infantryman? Yes. Heavy machine guns? Heavy
machine gunner. Do you work right up with the leading squads? Or do you
bring up the next units? No. Heavy weapons company is kind of a sport
rifleman given overhead fire for advances on them. But you get plenty of
work to do. Alright
well Billy it's good to see you and I imagine that Miami will be glad to
see you one of these days when you get home. Well if you'll slip away now
I'll call one of these other boys in. Billy's mother is living over in
texas but his many friends in Miami will appreciate his message of
greeting and particularly the proxy media greeting that was passed on to
the boy's parents in Piemonte. Our next boy's name. Homer coming home our
comings. And will you give me your address, homer box 9 to 4 jerome
Arizona and your mother and father? Mr Homer Cummings and mrs Maggie
coming and I believe you're married. Yes sir. That's right. What's your
name Marie coming now Marie. Yes I bet she's pretty isn't she? Well I
think so. Oh that's wonderful. Did she write you nice letters? Yes sir
quite often she tells you how much he loved you and all that. So yes sir.
It has all that in it. That's wonderful. And you tell her how much you
love her. Oh yes sir. You're not afraid of the sensor. No I'm not afraid
of him I never seen. Well he probably says the same thing in his letter.
So how you been getting along fine sir? Best of Health and Everything.
That's good. Well, you have a nice ready smile for as long as you've been
with the 32nd division. That's probably some sort of an achievement. How
many times have you been? I've just been with them about two months then.
That smile hasn't had time. I'm are you getting along with the food? All
right. Well at times sir then you mean to condition that by saying that at
times you could stand one of those steaks like my friend. Yes, very
readily. You get any fresh meat at all? No sir. Not in quite some time. Uh
Well, it won't be long one of these days. It will be different. So we're
hoping let's have a greeting to the folks at home. I'd like to send my
love to my wife and sent I'd also like to say hello to my mother and dad
and my aunts in that vicinity. You're all right and they don't need to
work. Yes, sir. That's right. Okay. Well, thanks a lot. Homer cummings
that rounds up the quartet. Another group of four boys whose primary
number one all time personal interest is home. And those of you who make
it home, James burkett, Postino estrada, Billy J Hill and homer cummings
from Eloy Arizona Williams. Miami and jerome. I want to thank these boys
for their courtesy in coming into this warm studio and going through this
friendly routine with us. I know you enjoyed it. Especially those of you
know the boys personally and that you'll be looking forward to our next
broadcast that will bring you another group of the boys who make Arizona a
place of which we are also very proud until our next presentation
greetings to you from the heart of the Philippines from howard Pyle and
now back to fred macpherson. Thanks Howard for a most interesting inter
group. I've just received a cable gram from Howard Friends. I'm going to
read it to you in just a few minutes, but first now that we've conquered
the island empire of japan, I thought you'd like to know firsthand
something of these islands and of the thought processes of their people.
The appearance of the landscape of the Inland Empire is as fragile and
delicate as a print by sexual. This country where every tillable acres in
cultivation and where tillable acres are so few presents. An endless
panorama of mountain and valley have cherished views of sacred fujiyama of
the Tory. The tendency of red lacquered bridges connecting islet with
eyelet, the dancing paper lanterns and glittering fireflies on beautiful
winding streams of giant lacey krypton areas, twisted dwarf pines and
gorgeous chrysanthemums, a flowering cherry and plum in the spring and
blazing maples in the fall.
I found the perfection of this form of fairyland. Designed in such a
variety of charm, strangely contradictory to the suspicious treacherous.
Yes, even evil natures of many of its leaders. The road to the
incomparable summer resort of Miyashita, so beautiful with its gardens and
pools is as tortuous and crooked as the minds of the rulers of Japan. It's
completely incomprehensible to the american mind that every one of his
neighbors may be a spy, that every foreigner in his midst is undoubtedly a
spy. But the Japanese believe this sincerely and it's useless. Of course
I'm speaking of the time I was there, it's useless to try to get away from
a would be inconspicuous, hissing little jap paddling around behind one.
No matter what one's errand or reason for being in Japan. Every Japanese
abroad is a potential spy. Sometimes voluntarily sometimes paid. It's a
well known fact that the Japanese fishermen in Manila were exceedingly
painstaking and sounding of every nook and corner of Manila bay. They did
this long ago. A completely useless task I might add Because for 25 cents
they could have purchased a coast and geodetic survey chart of Manila Bay.
Scientific down to the last decimal point. That's true of hawaii and the
west coast of the United States mainland. But no, the jump wouldn't buy
one of those maps. He couldn't conceive a nation so naive that it would
sell accurate soundings of its strategic ports to all comers. The Japs are
too suspicious to believe it. They firmly believe that we printed the
charge to fool them. So they worked night and day to make their own and
that's just one facet of the japanese mind by boat and by train and by
motor and by rickshaw. I traveled up and down Japan trying to understand
their philosophy of living to ride a car in japan is a harrowing
experiences. Howard has told you the shippers drive or I should say they
did drive like mad through the streets that are so narrow that pedestrians
had to make a mad dash to avoid being run over from one end of the
archipelago to the other. All roads were a moving mass of humanity where
no one seemed to give precedence and bicycles and rickshaws and handcarts
dotted here and they're all in the greatest confusion. Every street was
filled with color and sound and motion, smiling butterfly girls in
colorful kimonos, clop, clop on wooden gators over the uneven pavement and
I bought sushi and trifle from hand cart peddlers and from men with basket
swinging on long bamboo poles. And I saw the whole thing, but I didn't
understand and I still don't and I don't think any other occidental does
either. There are months of great anxiety ahead for the american people.
Every bit of news from japan will be scrutinized for some hint of what
the people of that occupied country are thinking. We have at least a
rudimentary understanding of the german mind and for that reason, our task
of remaking Germany is somewhat easier. But Japan is an enigma. Indeed,
her whole civilization has been carefully planned so that it will be an
enigma, an Impenetrable mystery to foreigners, especially foreigners from
the occident. So far it's been impossible for our correspondents to
determine just what attitude the Japanese are taking toward their
conquerors On the whole. They seem to be extremely cold and aloof, but
that was to be expected when the first occupation troops arrived. It may
be no more than a front that will wear off after the first shock of defeat
and surrender his past. However, there does seem to be one thing that we
can say with some degree of certainty about the Japanese. It is that they
attach not one bit of blame to Emperor Hirohito for starting the war for
losing it or for bringing down upon Japan the greatest defeat and disaster
in her long history. For instance, there was the statement of CGM
Asahikawa, Chief of the Foreign Service of Japan's official domain news
agency. He should know the Japanese mind if anyone does. And he told us,
we do not attribute any responsibility for the defeat to the emperor. The
stigma of losing the war will fall on those men who actually directed it.
Then there was the rather pathetic mayor of Yokosuka. He even went so far
as to drink a toast to President Truman to prove his goodwill. But he also
insisted that the Japanese stopped fighting only because the emperor told
them to that they would have fought to the last man if Hirohito had met
them. Of course there were those mysterious pamphlets probably dropped by
Kamikaze pilots that urged the Japanese to fight on. In disregard of
Hirohito's auditor surrender the fanatical authors of the pamphlets,
whoever they were, then the emperor had been ill advised and didn't know
the real conditions, but it's safe to say the overwhelming majority of the
Japanese would be acutely shocked at heretical talk like that. The
attitude of the masses apparently is that insofar as the end of the war
and the return of peace is good. Hirohito deserves the credit but for the
loss of the war and its consequences, he's not responsible at all. Perhaps
it just isn't human nature anywhere in the world for a nation to admit it
was wrong. What we must watch fall in Japan is not so much a sudden wave
of penitence but indications that the people are talking taking upon
themselves the responsibility for their actions. The familiar word for
that healthy frame of mind is democracy, politically and morally speaking
, democracy is completely unknown in Japan. Our job is to teach them the
meaning of that word democracy and when we do and only when we do the
piece is one, God help us to make it soon and now I have a cable gram from
Howard Pyle, It's Dateline Tokyo via Arca September two aboard the
battleship Missouri total pieces now official in the Pacific, I have just
witnessed the signing of the final documents from the flag bridge of the
battleship Missouri. General Douglas Macarthur, supreme commander of the
allied forces, conducted the ceremony throughout and signed for the allied
powers. His manner reflected the same calm strength that has characterized
his spartan courage throughout the worst and the best of the pacific war.
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz signed for the United States Foreign Minister
Shigemitsu of Japan signed for the defeated power recently liberated
prisoners of war, worn but happy we're privileged to see retribution in
full force. The forward deck of the Missouri was crowded with the
brilliant army and navy command staffs whose spectacular achievement on
land sea and in the air have packed the most crushing power in the history
of modern warfare. White clad sailors crowded into every available opening
, determined to see the climax to history that they helped to make. The
sky was overcast, but no rain fell. The colorful uniforms of the visiting
aligned delegations gave us smart international touch to the proceedings.
The Russians, chinese british french, Australians, Canadians, new
Zealanders and the dutch all shared in the hour of triumph. The official
documents were spread on a long table covered with a green cloth trimmed
in gold drawn up before this centerpiece with the members of the Japanese
surrender party. Their attitude seemed neither belligerent nor offended
Instead, every face was expressionless as they stood stiffly at attention
as the final. This completes the major color and activity of the pacific
war for your correspondent and I have been invited, says Howard to
accompany General wainwright on an immediate flight to Manila, where I
will cover the prisoner of war picture and then return to the States. It's
been a privilege to serve you from the pacific in the closing months of a
war that must never be repeated if we want civilization to survive. And
that's howard piles telegram from Tokyo. And so until tomorrow morning at
7 45 when Howard Pyle will again report for the Valley National Bank to
the people of Arizona. Direct from the pacific. This is fred Macpherson
speaking. This is the abc network
Katya are in phoenix. Yeah, yeah.