My father, Emil M. Santello from Hamden Connecticut, entered the army on November 10th, 1952 at the age of 19.  He spent the first two weeks at Fort Devens in Massachusetts, then received basic training at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland for nine months. from there he was transited to Fort Lewis, Washington, before boarding the troop ship "James O'Hara", crossing the Pacific and first arriving at Yokohama, Japan in July 1953.  

Emil was assigned to the 49th Ordnance Company at Camp Crawford, on Northern most island of Japan - Hokkaido where he spent the last 14-months of his military service.

The photos in this collection were taken by my father and today would be called 'street photos', but now in historical perspective reflect people and culture of this region, approximately 8-years post World War II Japan.

Notes of date and location were written on the back of the photos. My mother, back in the States, was newly married to my father at the time, and collected these images in a photo album from which they were scanned in high resolution for this blog.

Country Village Outside Sapporo, Japan

Black Market Street, Sapporo, Japan  (November 1954)

 

Countryside, Hokkaido, Japan (1953)

Countryside, Hokkaido, Japan (1953)

Countryside, Hokkaido, Japan (1953)

Family Waiting for Transportation. Sapporo, Japan (November 1953)

                                            Sapporo, Japan (November 1953)

Jozankei Japan (August 1953)

Jozankei Japan (August 1953)

Jozankei Japan (August 1953)

                                        Countryside, Hokkaido, Japan (1953)     

                                                             

  Sapporo, Japan (August 1953)

Sapporo, Japan (November 1954)

   Sapporo, Japan (August 1953)

Traffic Police. Tokyo, Japan (1953)