The Kay Kyser Show in the hills of Okinawa.

One night in 1945, very near to or after VJ Day I attended an Armed Forces Special Services Show featuring Kay Kyser and his orchestra on a hill side on the island of Okinawa. I think that it must have been after VJ Day. There were thousands of soldiers on the hill sitting shoulder to shoulder. Kay asked us to have a match or a cigarette lighter ready. Then Kay had all the lights turned off and then had us all light up. I will never forget what those thousands of lights looked like. A hill side covered with lights.

Kay had a long running radio show that I liked very much and listened to before the war. It was called Kay Kyser and his Kollege of Musical Knowledge. Kay wrote and recorded the song "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition" He was one of the first bands to entertain the military.

Kay always had a group of performers or stars in his orchestra and on his radio show. Such as Ish Kabibble, Harry Babbitt, Ginny Simms and others.

Harry Babbitt and Kay Keyser.

Ish Kabibble on the left. I can still sing one of Ish's hit records. "Three Little Fishes".

The prunepicker leaves his home to go take a shower before the Kay Kyser show. Notice the rock lined walkway at the entrance.

(Army 21) Six months of the my army career was spent on Okinawa.

We worked hard, I played a lot of volleyball. The weather was mild. I was on Okinawa from Easter Sunday (L Day or Love Day) to Typhoon Louise in October.

When I was separated from the 154th Engineers I was not paid or receive any mail for several months. Just before we left Leyte, or just as we boarded the troop transport, I received almost 200 pieces of mail. I can remember spreading it out on my bunk. I had a good time catching up on the news from home.

Before I went in the Army, I remember helping my sister Thelma make fruit cakes that she mailed to my brothers George and Warren. Well, here came one for me! My sweet sister Thelma. I ate a little at a time and made it last for weeks.

For a time on Okinawa we worked unloading cargo. I do not remember how it happened but I ended up with a case of Camel cigarettes under my bunk. Yes I said a case. If someone bummed a cigarette from me I was likely to give them a carton.

Field rations started out as C, then K, and then 10 in 1. A 10 in 1 ration box had food for ten men for 1 day, or 1 man for 10 days. They were good. There was a can of bacon. If you fried the bacon you could cooked the terrible canned eggs in the fat and make it taste much better. I have seen a box that had been opened laying by the road. The toilet paper, the cigarettes, and the bacon would be gone. The rest was wasted.

My outfit had ice making machines. A special services outfit down the road would trade us the latest movies for ice. We had new movies often at our theatre of logs in the woods.

We were not far from Naha, the largest city on the island. It had been bombed real good. It was flat. With bodies here and there sticking out from the debris.

One night we went to see the Kay Keyser Show. It was around VJ Day. See at Kay Keyser.