Aragusuku, Okinawa

Images from Robert Torstenson

Please scroll-down. There are 6 photos and narrative.

COM UNIT SUPP 3256 -   Aragusuku, Okinawa   - 1945

Our first group of approx. 15 RM's arrived sometime about the middle of June 1945. They were sent to help in building the station and mostly to set up the antenna farm. We were strictly RI, using the RIP5 underwood typewriter. We arrived on a troop transport about the first part of July, on a wet day. Try getting from a transport to a LC1 in rough weather with full gear. The station was far from complete. The CB's were making roads for us. As far as the location of the station, that is difficult - I only know about Aragusuku because of a little sign that said it. The village was completely destroyed. The only town I saw, not too far away, was Naha - also completely destroyed. I know I never saw any good roads or villages all the way to Kadena on Buckner Bay. I can not visualize any cities or villages on Okinawa - as I never saw any. Just destruction and a few Japanese laying in shell holes that were then when we arrived and still there when we left in November, on the Aircraft Carrier USS Bairoko CVE115. I never thought about towns as there weren't any. Just as the station was completed, receivers in place and watch lists made up, the war ended. Not too long later, a typhoon destroyed a lot of the station and we got orders to return to Pearl and Wahiawa.

Okinawa Landscape, facing China Sea

Our Hut. Holley and Honcho

Paul Wolfe and Frank Cobl

Two 7th Div MP's, and Sprigg

On guard. Hill 69 in the background

A native and his watermelon

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