Twelve O'clock High

Where I currently live, there were several important U.S. facilities, there were in operation during the occupation of Japan by the United States after WWII. There was the Army Headqurter buliding at Roppongi ,the"Stars and Strips"building and printing factory , and the U.S. Embassy building. This brought a lot of American workers and visitors.

Small movie theaters were around and soon after the Korean Wars started the district saw many American service men.
At one of these theaters, I saw "Twelve O'clock High ", staring Gregory Peck with my mother and brother.
The theater was a small pre-war building, and seats were very small and space between the seats was narrow.
Even if there were empty seats, I saw some Americans watching the films standing up, leanning on the walls or bending on the back low of the seats.

The film was exciting for even a boy like me.
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My mother was always a great American Film Fan and even today she orders rental U.S.movies DVD' by internet.
She took us to see the film during the daytime and most of the people watching it were U.S. servicemen who were shift workers.
We are the only ones in the audience sitting in the seats, every one else was standing.
To me that was very interesting memory.

I knew the B-17 bomber was very high off the ground and the crews boarded from a down hatch underneath the belly of the plane ,being forward upward circling.
General Savage could not board this way, due to his high stress level.

To this day whenever I watch this film on Classic Channel, I can still remember the first time I saw this film and all the Americans watching it in that little theater leaning on the walls.

(C)
see, http://www.japaneseweapons.com and http://www.blogs.yahoo.co.jp/japaneseweapons