Springfield man says he was the first American in Japan at the end of WWII
By FRANCESCA JAROSZ STAFF WRITER
Bill Oswald admits he likes to relive his past.
The 82-year-old retired contractor seemingly could talk for hours about his lifetime's worth of skills on the dance floor, which earned him the nickname "Captain Boogie;" his experience as a divorced father single-handedly raising seven children; or the poetry he says God has sent him in his past 15 years as a born-again Christian.
But there's one part of his past that, he says, makes his life unusual: the story of his involvement in Japan's surrender in World War II. He's told and retold it, to reporters, friends and anyone else who listens.
Oswald said he set foot on the dock at Tokyo 60 years ago today to tie up the USS Waterman, a destroyer escort on which he served as a boatswain's mate. He claims those steps, made five days before the official Japanese surrender on Sept. 2, were the first by an American on Japanese soil at the end of the war.
"I don't know why the Lord made me the first man in Japan," Oswald said.
Oswald reads the account aloud as he's written it, but when asked questions about the story, he spills out the details as if they're something he's always known, like the alphabet or counting to 10. He has to tell the story, he said. Otherwise, people wouldn't know it happened.
Oswald's title of first American in Japan post-war, or his story of how he got it, can't be verified by historical accounts. However, Jack Green, public affairs officer at the U.S. Naval Historical Center in Washington, D.C., said it is likely that, as a member of the Waterman crew, Oswald was among the first U.S. servicemen in Japan.
According to the Naval Historical Center, the first shipborne forces to set foot in Japan after the war were underwater demolition team members who came ashore Aug. 28, 1945, to make sure landing beaches at Tokyo Bay, the body of water adjacent to Tokyo, were neutralized. Occupation landings at Yokosuka Naval Base and Yokohama, next to Tokyo, followed on Aug. 30.
Oswald has a photo album about five inches thick. Some of its pages are filled with pictures of him as a sailor, the Tokyo docks and battleships. Others contain mementos such as Japanese currency and newspaper stories in which he's recounted the experience. As he narrates, he points out the photos that illustrate the details and identifies each place he describes on a map of Japan.
This is his documentation.
As Oswald tells it, he was aboard the USS Waterman on Aug. 27, 1945, when it led the cruiser USS Houston into Sagami Wan Bay, west of Tokyo, with another ship. The Waterman anchored in the bay, and Oswald said he issued machine guns for defense because the crew didn't know how the Japanese would react.
"We thought they were going to get under us and bomb us," Oswald said.
That night, Oswald said, a prisoner of war swam up to the Waterman and climbed its ladder. The prisoner told Waterman officers that the Japanese had opened their prison gates near Tokyo.
The next day, Aug. 28, Oswald said, the Waterman crew sailed to Tokyo on a mission to rescue POWs. The ship landed near Tokyo, and Oswald jumped off to tie it to the dock. Two of his crewmates followed, he said. On the dock, they handed out luxuries such as soap, candy and cigars to the Japanese.
After that, all three hopped in a 1937 Buick with two Japanese generals and drove into Tokyo.
"We was there all day, getting drunk and dancing with the girls," Oswald said. "The people bowed down to us. They treated us with love and compassion."
Homer McCoy, one of Oswald's crewmates and one of the two Oswald said accompanied him on his Tokyo expedition, backs up Oswald's account. Oswald was the first U.S. soldier in Japan after the war, McCoy said, and he was the second.
"To Bill, he can't seem to get it out of his mind," McCoy said of their being the first to land in Japan. "It's really not that big to me. I was just doing my duty. All that's history to me."
They were docked at Tokyo with the rest of the Waterman's crew for nearly a week, the two said, during which time about 170 of the 250 men on board were given liberty. Oswald said he spent the week exploring Tokyo.
Oswald said he saw the official surrender ceremony take place Sept. 2, 1945 on the USS Missouri while standing on the bow of the Waterman.
"I said, 'We're gonna have peace and love,'" Oswald said as he pointed out one of several yellow triangular signs in his living room with those words hand-written on them. "I get to go home and we're gonna have peace forever."
For about a week after the surrender, the Waterman's crew helped escort POWs from an area about 180 miles north of Tokyo.
Oswald joined the Navy in 1942, drawn to the war effort by the Holocaust and Pearl Harbor. He served on a destroyer escort in the Atlantic before joining the Waterman in 1943, when he was 20. He served on the ship until January 1946.
The Naval Historical Center's Green said destroyer escorts such as the USS Waterman mainly served as protection for ships that transported goods to troops in Europe and the Pacific amid the threat of submarines and kamikazes.
"At times they were in very dangerous situations," Green said.
While aboard the Waterman, Oswald said, he endured eight invasions and two typhoons, including one storm that killed about 800 servicemen.
He said his worst experience was Iwo Jima, an island invasion during February and March of 1945 in which nearly 29,000 were killed. McCoy said his crew was there for six days.
Oswald said he lost 15 pounds during those few days because the smell of dead bodies made him lose his appetite.
"The thought of all those Marines getting wiped out," Oswald said. "They were my age."
Oswald hasn't been back to Japan since his WWII days. He spends half the year in Hawaii, where his daughters, Cindy and Sherrie, live. He spends the rest of his time on Lowell Avenue, in a duplex cluttered with crosses, paintings of Jesus and sailboats, and well-worn furniture.
Oswald wants to write a book titled, "Big Bad Bill is Sweet William Now," to tell about his conversion, his children and, of course, his time in Japan.
He doesn't know when he's going to write his stories. For now, he said, he'll continue to tell them.
Francesca Jarosz can be reached through the metro desk at 788-1519 or francesca.jarosz@sj-r.com.
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