Eldorado (AGC 11) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 13 text:

On to Sasebo for our first call to that portg we wander through the souvenir-stall filled alleys....and become familiar with a town which we are destined to know better at a later time. The 'padre' arranges a bus tour to a china factory and a pearl farm .... and we watch tea pots and oyster-grown necklaces in the making. From Sasebo, we go through the famed Shimonoseki Straits, passing the sleepy city of Moji, and enter the Inland Sea with its scenic beauties. We arrive at Osaka, one of the ten largest cities in the world and the second largest in Japan. Our welcome is hearty, concert bands serenade us, ' we host the Governor and the Mayor l - ....free street car passes are provided for all who care to brave the ride.

Page 12 text:

Our first call at Inchon.... NF1ight Quarters, Standby to Receive Helicopterln ....and Nerine generals come aboard from the front lines. later we are granted daylight liberty and we ventu e into this bombed-out ghost of a city .... to the red brick beer hall, walk the littered streets and gaze into the near empty shop windows, and some of us end up at a hill-top orphanage .... Star of the Sea. Leaving Inchon we venture down the coast to a rock-strewn island with sand-spent beaches, Tokchok-To, where we observe an amphibious landing exercise, the days are full now for there are war-time regulations to comply with, such things as 'darken ship' ...Condition III watches....and the ever present fact that not so far away the Com unists talk icily of peace. Watching the Marine landing exercises, even though it is only a faint, we get a feeling of what H-hour would be likeo

Page 14 text:

1 The Army hosts us to a tour of the nearby city of Kyoto, ancient capital of Japan and scene of where the emperors are crowned. Enroute, we discover that our bus driver is unfamiliar to this city ....two of the ship's photogra- phers - guidebooks and maps in hand - conduct a Cook's Tour par none. The days are filled with shopping in the huge department stores, riding the subways, and hopelessly wandering in the maze of this gigantic metropolis, the evenings we spend in the fabulous Namba - Osaka's amusement quarter .... . with its countless 'pachinko' palaces, neon night clubs, bars and theatres.