Buss Kerstetter visited Wakayama in September 1945 as a fire control third class petty officer from the Cleveland Class Cruiser USS Montpelier, CL-57. The war was over.
Although he had been fighting the Japanese for more than three years, he had an open mind, an adventurous spirit and a compassionate heart. He really appears to have liked Wakayama. In his observations recorded in his letters, Buss mentions stone walls, terraced hillsides, traditional Japanese residential construction, Japanese dwarf fir trees, street cars and a typhoon.
Because his ship was anchored in Wakaura Bay, many of his impressions would have been from the Saikazaki and Wakaura sections of southern Wakayama. Despite this, we believe he and four friends walked into the central part of the city, much of which had been destroyed by US Army Air Corp raids using incendiary bombs.
We have verified all of his comments as part of our research for his biography. Read a summary of his story.
Some of the stone walls are still visible. Some are still in use. Some have been replaced—not necessarily upgraded—with more modern concrete materials.
Terraced housing is still common in the Saikazaki and Wakaura sections of southern Wakayama, as it was when Buss visited in September 1945.
Traditional style Japanese housing—with wood frames and tile roofs—is less common than it was in the Saikazaki and Wakaura areas of Wakayama in 1945.
Small evergreens are still everywhere. We believe they are Japanese dwarf pines. Buss called them Japanese dwarf firs in his letters.
Streetcars, called city trains, no longer run in Wakayama City as they did in 1945. We found one museum piece city train in a city park and verified it with 1945-era photos.
While we don’t have photos of the typhoon, we have verified it happened and did terrible damage to Wakayama City.
In story telling and news reporting, verifying facts is important. Writers sometimes fail here because of ideological motivations, financial considerations, calculated risk, artistic license or laziness. In the story about Buss, the Emperor and Jackie, we are checking as many facts as possible. The perfectionist character of Buss would like it that way.
