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At Pier F in Jersey City, the repatriated Americans got off the Red Cross exchange ship Gripsholm, and the community of fate dissolved into 1,223 individual owners of 1,223 individual ration books.

They had been caught, despite warnings over & over again from the Army and the State Department, in Japan, North China, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Manila, French Indo-China. They had been interned for as long as 21 months, living on wormy rice, fish and greasy soup—and hope. They had lost some weight (average only 15 lb.) and most of their worldly good's. They had also lost their identity.

Now they owed...

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