An American Abroad Part 2
BY TOM HACH
Thursday, December 19, 2024
Today we traveled by bullet train, or Shinkansen, from Tokyo to Niigata! It took about two hours and it was really fast traveling about 180 MPH. It was an amazing experience! Niigata is located on the northwest coast of Honshu Island in the Niigata Prefecture. For background, a Prefecture functions like a US state and has a governor and a legislature.
It was cold, overcast and rainy day, and we wanted to check into our hotel; however, the Japanese are very punctual people and that applies to checking into hotels too. When they say 4 PM check-in, they mean it! With some time to burn, I went on a little walk around town.
Niigata is about the size of the Cleveland metropolitan area with around 2.2 million inhabitants, and also like Cleveland, is an industrial town. I got the sense that Niigata has seen some tough times. I found a store which had three-stories and sold nothing but anime comic books. There must have been well over 1,000 titles! After checking in, we went to dinner, we headed back to the room to plan the rest of our travels to: Koyto, Fukuotu, Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Iwakuni, which is where Grove is stationed.
Friday, December 20 – A Day of Honor
You might be asking why the out-of-the-way city of Niigata? To answer that, I need to talk a little about my family. My grandfather, George, and both of his brothers served in the armed forces during WWII. My grandfather in Italy with the Army, his older brother, Harmon, in North Africa also with the Army and their younger brother, Jimmy, in the Philippians in the Army Air Corps. [Picture L to R: George, Harmon, Aggie and Jimmy Circa 1978]

For the sake of brevity, Uncle Jimmy, technically Great Uncle Jimmy, became a POW in the spring of 1942 and survived the Bataan Death March and over 3.5 years of imprisonment. As the Allies pushed the Japanese out of the Philippians in 1944, the POWs were moved to the Japanese home islands. Initially he was in a POW camp near Tokyo, but was moved in 1945 to another POW camp, 5B in Niigata, after Tokyo was firebombed.

When Uncle Jimmy passed away in 2012 in Napoleon, Ohio, I collected two brass casings from his 21-gun salute, just as I did at Uncle Harmon's funeral on September 11, 2001. Before I left for Japan, I had them engraved with “James Huff POW 1942 – 1945.” One stayed home, and the other went to Japan. Given Japan's firearms ban, I cut off the base, and then flattened it using a vice. Once we were at the site, which today is a parking garage and housing development, we found a playground behind the parking garage. There Grove videoed me as I spoke about our family and Uncle Jimmy, and I buried the casing in the corner of the playground.
In addition to my grandfather's generation, my father and former father-in-law both served in the Marine Corps, I served in the Navy, and Grove serves in the Navy today. Four generations in a row. To learn more about George, Harmon and Jimmy's experiences during WWII, please read this.
CORRECTION: I wrote the above section as I understood things at the time. However after I returned, I found a POW roster and learned there was another camp, POW Camp Tok-15B Niigata, and it was here where Uncle Jimmy was actually held. While I am very disappointed we were in the wrong location, the camps were about 1 mile apart and certainly he knew of it and may even have visited the camp while in Niigata.

Next we took a train to the Niigata Prefecture Archaeological Research Center. There are over 13,000 archaeological sites in Niigata Prefecture, and this research center mainly focused on analyzing pottery collected from various digs. These artifacts are from pre-Japanese cultures, and the pottery was some of the most ornate and beautiful I have ever seen in person or anywhere else!
In this same area was also an art museum (closed), and a botanical garden which was open. The garden was very well laid out and had beautifully displayed plants and flowers. Adding to the beauty was the facility was decorated for Christmas, and they even had Christmas music playing in the background.
We made it back to the hotel, and we celebrated my Grove's promotion to Second Class Petty Officer at Royal Host, which is the Japanese take on an American steakhouse.
Saturday, December, 21 – On to Kyoto
We left Niigata early in the morning and boarded a Shinkansen to Kyoto via Tokyo which took 5+ hours. We left our bags at the hotel lobby, because it was before 4 PM, and went to Nijo-jo Castle, which was built by Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. It was very beautiful. Inside the palace, the floorboards squeak when you walk on them, and it sounds like birds squawking . Before I read the explanation for the squawking , I actually thought there was a pond outside the building with birds.
Sunday, December 22 – Koyto Day 2
After breakfast at Mister Donut, we went to Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine, which is more commonly know as the 1000 Gates Shinto temple. It was truly impressive. We hiked from the base to the summit, and it took over an hour and a half, and there was one orange gate after another all about 6” apart the whole way. We found out later the writing on the gates were the names of the donors who paid for them.
We decide to stay with the temple theme for the day and went to Kinkakuji Temple, which is also known as the Golden Pavilion. The temple is covered in over 400 lbs of gold leaf, and created a spectacular sight. Adjoining the temple was a Bamboo Forrest, which we enjoyed walking through.
Historical note: Secretary of War Henry Stimson spent his honeymoon in Kyoto, and because of his fondness of the city he prevented it from being a target of the atomic bomb during WWII. You can read more here.