I arrived in Camp Otsu in February General Ralph W. Zwicker was the commander for the Southwest Command Japan. He was decorated for heroism during the Battle of The Bulge. I had gone to school at Camp Eta Jima for installing and operating pipelines. I didn't want to go back there so I ask if they had anything there at Camp Otsu. I had just come from a signal supply depot in Pusan Korea.
They said there was an opening for signal supply specialist at Camp Otsu. I said, "I would like that. Also there was a back log of orders for supplies that hadn't been filled. The stack of orders was about a foot high. The average number of items per order was about Some of the orders were over a month old. The outgoing supervisor hadn't filled any his last 3 weeks there and I got there about a week after he had left. The PFC that had been his assistant hadn't filled any orders either.
I went to the OIC and told him that I would not sign for the building and the inventory without taking an inventory first. He finally agreed and we took an inventory over the weekend. When I showed him my inventory he couldn't believe it and he supervised a second inventory. Those that were a week or less old would be filled and the units notified to pick them up.
We put in the paper work to get married in November and got Married in March General Zwicker was a great commander and would back his men all the way. He was a gentleman in every sense of the word. It was published in the Stars and Stripes.
That is the newspaper for the United States Armed Forces stationed overseas. It is published in all of the countries where our military people are stationed. He worked in G-1 section of the Southwest Command Headquarters.
