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One morning in mid July a guard came up to  Mother in her room  and ordered her with  a firm summons to go down immediately  to the Guards Common room. At first she thought that she had done something very wrong and  was very apprehensive at the order, but  when she entered  the guards  took little notice of her and were just casually lying around chatting . She was  puzzled at first but then one rose and produced  a registered parcel  and a form  for which she was told  to sign for, after which she returned to her room puzzled, and proceeded to open it.   Lo and behold the package was from the Naval Attache at the German Embassy, and there before her eyes was all the  jewellery that she had entrusted to him for safe keeping in 1942. She put it away safely, and it all survived the war, the bombings, shellings etc. and I am glad to say that the whole lot, with its extraordinary story, is now safely in the hands of my daughter  Janet!  
One day  in early July at  about 10 o’clock in the morning whilst alone in the common room, I heard the shrill roar of a plane dive bombing. In a flash I threw myself under a large heavy table just before the explosion at a bridge nearby. The walls all shook with the impact and lumps  of plaster from the ceiling  cascaded down, all around the room  but otherwise it was all right, and just one final test once more of my quick reaction to danger. Mother on the opposite end of the building was hardly  affected at all.  A few days later at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, I took a book into the garden on the edge of the parade ground, and sat in an empty wooden sentry box to read quietly. All the time as I leant against its sides I could feel a steady intermittent vibration, as the walls and floor shook with a steady tremor. I remarked about it to someone else and soon a crowd had felt the pulsating effect that I had noticed and we all knew that to go on for so long so  steadily could only mean fire from Naval Guns.  It continued  without stopping until I went in at 5 o’clock and a couple of days later  day we learnt from the newspaper that the Northern Port of  Sendai lying about  40 miles away had been wrecked by the US 6th Fleet pumping 16” shells all  that afternoon. During the last month of the war the fleet cruised off shore selecting targets at will, and any sizeable seaside conurbation or port was fair game for a hammering .

 July came to a close, with a spate of aerial activity , with now 2,000 plane raids from the offshore carriers, the B29 bombers from Saipan and Okinawa , and with the  fleets  constantly  shelling, we knew that a crisis was about to be reached with a bloodbath of an  invasion . One very disconcerting thing we noticed during the latter part of July was the emphasis the guards kept on about sharpening their swords. We had little doubt that  should an invasion  take place, we could be butchered on the spot on orders from high authority.   But in fact towards the very end the brutal regime relaxed a bit, the commandant was easier, the dreadful interpreter Midorikawa had departed and had been replaced by two young Japanese sisters who were very correct and pleasant.  From April 1944 we also had a new Sargeant or Section Head Guard, Mr Okita  as second in command who could speak a limited amount of   self taught  English  which he liked to practice, and could therefore talk direct to us in a sympathetic way. Also  he was far more human than anyone that we had in authority before.  At roll call in the corridor on the 7th  August he announced with a very grave voice that the Americans now had a new bomb which had destroyed a city called Hiroshima. His face and whole countenance  were  solemn and  putting on the  most earnest expression he told us directly in his limited English   that  just one of  these small bombs was so powerful, that it could wipe out a whole city with fire. It was therefore most important  that when the air raid siren goes, that we wear heavy coats to try to protect ourselves from the terrible burning and the heat from  the new bomb. So for the next few days, in the sweltering August humid heat of Japan, we would don

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