In early August 1945 I was sent officially to Saigon from Southern Army Field Operations Railway HQ. My task was to have some engines, which had been sent urgently from Japan, transported to Bangkok. The war situation was deteriorating daily, and even in Bangkok enemy planes came over and bombed our HQ and godowns in the wharves. There was no answering gunfire from AA-gun emplacements in Bangkok and rumours were generated among the worried citizens that we had run out of ammunition. The Army of Occupation in Thailand were making preparations for the final decisive battle (see the editor's Introduction) and the local Japanese residents thought they ought to join up.

It was four years since the war started that I had visited Saigon. It had seemed quiet and peaceful. It was a beautiful town, tidy, and both the greens of the avenues and the Western-style buildings in the ordinary streets seemed not to have changed in those four years, but the citizens in their life-style were feeling something of a strain in financial difficulties.

Immediately on arrival I contacted Inoue Unit, the Saigon materials workshop of Southern Army Field Operations Railways. I went to the wharf in the harbour where the engines were being landed. Several of them had been dismantled (presumably c.k.d.) and the parts piled up. To arrange to get these engines transported I called on the HQ of the French Indo-China Japanese Expeditionary Force. Thereafter by daily visits I kept contact with the HQ asking for transportation either by lorry or by ship whichever proved convenient.

Southern Army GHQ had moved from Singapore to Saigon. At the Japanese French Indo-China Army HQ, too, there were two gunzoku sent by Railway Bureau. They were Kawakami Juichi who had been my contemporary at the Ministry of Railways and Kikkawa Kichizō who had been my contemporary at university. We went into quarters, found within the city limits with HQ's help, and inevitably in these quarters talk of the departed spirits of our friends came uppermost in our conversations. One evening at midnight we heard the sound of footsteps in sandals on the lower floor, but when we got up and looked there was no sign of anybody. The next night at the same time we heard the same footsteps.