I thought was pretty neat story. Enjoy.
Year, 1958. Location, Sasebo , Japan . Age 18.
Learned a lot and did a lot of things during my fifteen month tour aboard the Luzon (ARG-2) beginning as a Fireman Apprentice, one of which was the purchase of a 250cc Mizuho motorcycle for the sum of $25. The rate of exchange twofold, one being script, and one being greenbacks. Script was what we called monopoly money, and this was what we were issued when going through the pay line every two weeks. If you exchanged $1 worth of script for Japanese yen, you received 360 yen. At that time, the Japanese were crying for greenbacks, so if you had a $1 bill in greenback, you could exchange it on the black market for 400 to 450 yen. A $1 bill would go for 400 yen, but a $100 greenback would go for 45,000 yen.
My Mizuho was low actual mileage, and an exact duplicate of the American made 250cc Indian Arrow. The Japanese had a lot of reproduction going on at that time. They made a repop of the Harley, which they called a Reco (or something like that). The Indian Arrow was a tad above a piece of junk, and my Mizuho was ten tads below a piece of junk. One of the problems was in the metallurgy. A lot of the stuff had about the consistency frozen butter. Splines ripped off the gear shift lever during normal shifts. The rear wheel sprocket, after 25 miles of riding, wore the teeth completely off. The motorcycle was truly a piece of crap.
The Japanese after the war were always trying to think of ways to get the mighty American dollar. This was most apparant with service jobs. They would come aboard and provide laundry service for the crew. Of course we had laundry service provided by the ship's company, but the quality was no contest. The Japanese did know how to wash, starch up, and press a set of whites. From time to time watchmakers would set up shop on the fan tail to repair and clean your timepiece. It was no problem to get side cleaners to chip and paint the ship's hull and superstructure, for just a few pounds of good old US of A brass. The Captain allowed all these things to take place to help bolster the Japanese economy, and the ship's moral.
One time the Skipper allowed a group of Japanese entrepreneurs aboard, dressed in suit and tie. The spokesman had a very good command of the English language, not unlike WWII's Tokyo Rose. The presentation was set up on the mess decks with a movie projector. Everything was done quite professionally. The movie covered construction work supposedly in process, of what appeared to be a large complex. The movie showed pencil drawings of buildings, machine shops, and motorcycle production lines.
After their film presentation they went in to their sales pitch, offering stock in their company, which was going to be manufacturing motorcycles that would be sold world wide. I forget exactly what the cost of one share was in early 1958, but it was probably less than a dollar. They'd made it easy for a sailor to buy into the company, by making out a Navy allotment check out to the company, which was, I believe, headquartered in Yokohoma.
I listened politely to their spill, which was actually quite impressive, all the while thinking about my crappy Mizuho, and to myself saying, 'No way am I going to invest in THIS company. These Japanese don't have a clue on how to build a motorcycle.
Name of company, HONDA
Max
