Back in late 1966 I was stationed on the USS Kitty Hawk. The ship had a boiler breakdown so we headed for the nearest port. That was Yokoska, Japan. The boiler was among other things the source of heat on the ship. I was in a sleeping compartment one deck below the waterline. It was in early December and Japan was cold. The compartment had no heat and being below the waterline made it very, very cold. It was so cold that me and the others in the compartment were shivering. We had full uniforms on, our shoes on and any blankets we could find or borrow. It didn’t matter, we were still shivering cold. One of the guys suggested we go to a place with a sauna or somewhere we could warm up.
We hopped into a cab and told the driver what we wanted and headed out. We arrived at a building outside of town and went inside. I don’t know what we had to pay. We were taken to a locker area and removed our uniforms and we were totally naked then we were escorted to a room with steam cabinets which we gladly got into. The heat was wonderful! After about 20 minutes an attendant took us into separate rooms. A Japanese woman sat me down on a small wooden bench about 5 inches high over a drain hole. She then poured hot water on me, scrubbed me down, rinsed me off and then I could step into a bath tub with very hot water and I soaked for several minutes. Then the woman dried me off with a towel and it was back to the locker room, we put our uniforms back on and left the building to catch a cab back to Yokosuka. We were so relaxed our legs felt like rubber. Back in Yokosuka we had a few Asahi beers before going back to the ship.
The boiler was repaired a day later and we were heading back to the coast of Vietnam so we could drop another load of bombs for the next 8 months until we headed back to San Diego, our home port.
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