My first day in Tokyo
Imagine. You're eighteen years old just out of basic training, just finishing your first year in college and you find yoursef In Tokyo, Japan standing with 250 other young fellows in the lobby of the Dai Ichi building - General MacArthur's headquarter location. We're just across from the moat leading to the Emperor Hirohito's imperial palace. Imagine! I had studied violin and conducting at the Institute of Musical Art (part of the Juilliard School of Music in New York) and becuse of my education was appointed with two other lucky guys to run the ship's newspaper on our 16 day voyage to Japan. We had a great time and figured that with the experience of running the daily paper we had the inside track of working on "Stars and Stripes" the army newspaper. Unfortunately only one us made it - it wasn't me. I had been assigned to general headquarters and had visions of pounding a typewriter for God knows how long.
So here I am finally at the head of this long line facing a redheaded PFC and announcing my name when the PFC looks at me and says "are you Behrens?' I mumbled "yes" assuming I would be hanged when he picked up the phone and said "Sergeant Hoff I have Behrens here" To my shock he asked if I knew where the Ernie Pyle theater was. Of course I said no and he gave me directions for the two block walk.I had heard briefly about the theater how it was named for Enrnie Pyle, the beloved war correspondent who was killed on Okinawa. It was the Japanese equivalent of Radio City Music Hall. I reached this enormous theater and took the elevator , as directed, to the third floor where Sergeant Hoff heartily greeted me and escorted me to the captain's office. Like the good recruit that I was I saluted and was immediately told that one doesn't salute in this office and was cordially asked to sit by the captain's side. The captain was Gerald Cameron, all smiles, who then introduced me to an older gentleman named Claus Pringsheim, the conductor of the Ernie Pyle Symphony Orchestra whose existence was a complete mystery to me. Cameron had all the records and information on me (Suddenly it dawned on me that all the talking I spouted off at Fort Dix, New Jersey actually accomplished something!). Cameron then asked me if would consider being concert master of the orchestra. When I picked myself up from the floor I gasped that I would like the position very much but told Cameron that I didn't have my violin. He laughed and said the theater had plenty of fiddles but immediately wired my family and thanks to my grandfather who handled everything my violin arrived two weeks later and incredible as it might seem was perfectly in tune! Picking up that violin so far from home was like greeting a member of my family. At any rate that first night, with a cheap violin and not having read any music for six months I joined the orchestra and played two Bach Brandenburg Concertos . Two days in Tokyo, knowing no one, eighteen years old and suddenly the concert master of a 100 piece orchestra. It boggles the mind.
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