| Summary/Abstract |
Alan Sterling, a teenage radioman in the U.S. Navy, sailed into Tokyo Bay on September 15, 1945, just thirteen days after Japanese delegates had signed the Allied instrument of surrender on board the U.S.S. Missouri. Like many of his peers, Sterling regularly sent home accounts of the peculiar places and people encountered in the course of his military service, arriving in Japan by way of the Philippines and Okinawa. Dissatisfied with verbal description, he shared a mania for photography widespread among U.S. occupation personnel. In a preliminary missive from Tokyo, Alan sought his sister’s help in realizing his ambitions as auteur. “Now that the war is over I would give anything to have a movie camera out here. Even though these islands are practically the same the scenery alone would make very good material for movies,” he announced. After this familiar plea for luxury items from home, Alan added a more unguarded appreciation of photography’s merits. “The things that your other senses make you aware of is what makes these islands seem so lousy. Pictures alone would be the thing so that you would only receive the good things about the place and not all the rest that goes with them when you are out here.” The camera, in Sterling’s view, represented the perfect medium through which to apprehend Asia. It could capture landscapes that would delight the eye without affront to the palette or nostrils. Elevating, and attempting to isolate, sight as the preeminent sense, Sterling hinted at vile smells, tastes, and sensations best left out of the picture.
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