Equipped with bulldozers and trucks, a contingent of U.S. G.I.s late in 1952 began to rearrange the sand dunes of Uchinada, a small (pop. 5,953) fishing village 200 miles west of Tokyo. The U.S. Army had taken over about four square miles of Uchinada's sand and ocean as a firing range on which to test the Japanese-made artillery ammunition that it was buying in million-dollar lots. Before long, 105-mm. and 155-mm. shells were whooshing over Uchinada's beaches.
It was not the noise that bothered Uchinada's villagers; it was the Americans. After all,...
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