The US Navy Japanese/Oriental Language School Archival Project
The Interpreter
Number 60
Archives, University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries
Remember September 11, 2001
Our Mission
In the Spring of 2000, the
Archives continued the original efforts of Captain Roger
Pineau and William Hudson,
and the Archives first attempts in 1992, to gather the
papers, letters, photographs,
and records of graduates of
the US Navy Japanese/
Oriental Language School,
University of Colorado at
Boulder, 1942-1946. We
assemble these papers in
recognition of the contributions made by JLS/OLS
instructors and graduates to
the War effort in the Pacific
and the Cold War, to the
creation of East Asian
language programs across
the country, and to the
development of JapaneseAmerican
cultural
reconciliation programs after
World War II.
JLS Director
Inducted Into
Alma Mater’s
Hall of Fame
On a day that annually pays
tribute to the Founders of
Georgetown College, Florence
Walne, former director of the
United States Navy’s Japanese
Language School during World
War II, was singled out for the
singular contributions she made
during her career to international
education and to the American
war effort during World War II.
Since 1993, Georgetown
College has recognized the
lifetime
achievements
of
outstanding alumni and friends
by electing them into its Hall of
Fame. In 2002, Walne, a 1916
alumnus, was inducted along
with a Kentucky governor (186263), who served as a trustee of
the college for fifty years, an
alumnus who translated the Bible
into everyday English, and a
revered psychology professor.
The inductions took place
amidst
the
pomp
and
circumstance of Founders’ Day
Convocation, which included the
singing of hymns, prayer, and
orations.
Some of Walne’s family
attended the ceremonies. Walne
never had children, so nieces and
nephews traveled from Texas to
witness the ceremony. They
included Christine Taylor Walne
and Jeffery Walne, and two
great-grand nieces, Christie
Crews and Karen Ann Taylor.
Walne made her mark on life
in the field of international
education. Her legacy, however,
was established during her tenure
as director of the US Navy
Japanese Language School.
In 1940, with war in Asia
threatening to involve the United
States, the Navy asked Florence
Walne to design a one year
program to quickly train its
officers Japanese. The Japanese
Language School that she
directed prepared America’s first
true brain trust on Japan.
Japanese came naturally to
Walne, having lived all of her
childhood
(1895-1912)
in
Fukuoka, Japan. Her parents,
Ernest Nathan and Claudia
McCann Walne, were Southern
Baptist missionaries to Japan
from 1892 to 1934.
When
she
entered
Georgetown College in 1912,
she showed exceptional promise,
taking leadership roles in campus
organizations and participating
in speech and literary activities.
At the end of her senior year, she
was known “as an all around
college girl, . . . for there is not a
college activity in which she has
not taken part, not a Prof. she has
not punched.”
After receiving her A.B. from
Georgetown in 1916, Walne
continued her interest in the
Japanese language at Radcliffe
College, eventually receiving an
A.M. In the 1930s, she became
the first assistant director of
International House, a residential
non-English language education
program
funded
by
the
Rockefeller Foundation, and
taught Japanese culture at the
University
of
California,
Berkeley.
Being one of a few
Americans that spoke the
language fluently and having an
intimate knowledge of Japanese
culture, Walne was recruited by
the Navy to head its Japanese
language program. She designed
an intense program that trained
Naval officers to speak Japanese
in six months. Students included
language specialists and Phi Beta
Kappas from elite universities.
After the attack on Pearl
Harbor, the Japanese Language
School was moved from
Berkeley to the University of
Colorado,
Boulder,
when
Roosevelt’s Executive Order
9066 mandated the internment of
West Coast Japanese-Americans,
which included most of Walne’s
teaching staff.
Walne returned to the
University
of
California,
Berkley, in 1944, where she
resumed her work as a teacher
and as a director of International
House. She married Samuel T.
Farquhar, director of the
University of California Press,
the same year. Two years later,
she died.
Glen Edward Taul
Director
International Programs
Georgetown College
_______________
Stanley Heath, LT, RN
JLS 1945
Remembered
I received a copy of a bulletin
from the University of Colorado
at Boulder, sent to me by Mrs.
Houghton Freeman. Stanley and
I knew the Freemans very well in
Tokyo between early 1964 and
early 1972. My husband, Stanley
Victor Heath was one of the
“Brits in Boulder” referred to by
H. Morris Cox in Issue #50.
Stanley had been born in
Portsmouth, England, where his
father was a naval architect. He
had interrupted his university
studies at Cambridge to enroll in
the RN. By 1944, Stanley was a
young Lt. In the Royal Navy
who had been on convoy duty on
destroyers in the North Atlantic.
His commanding officer asked
February 1, 2003
Stanley how he liked Americans,
and he replied that he found
Americans
refreshing
and
stimulating. He was then asked if
he minded bourbon whisky;
Stanley’s reply; “tasty and very
stimulating.” He was forthwith
packed off to Boulder, via New
York, where a very short stay
convinced Stanley that this was
definitely a place to come back
to.
He was in the school at the
same time as Ivan Morris (see
Issue # 50). Stanley and Ivan
shared quarters I think, and
together they purchased Jean
Harlow’s
white
phaeton
automobile. In spite of petrol
rationing, they were nevertheless
the envy of other students.
On graduating from the JLS,
Stanley was seconded to the US
Navy and shipped out to the
Pacific where he served during
the latter part of the War. He
recalled the pleasures of
connections between the US and
Royal Navies: liquor was
available in the officers’ mess on
board British ships and food was
better on US Naval vessels.
Apparently there was substantial
traffic visiting back and forth
between the two.
At war’s end, Stanley was an
interpreter, and was one of the
early allied troops into Japan. I
remember him saying that it took
less time then, in 1945, to get to
Karuizawa than it took in 1964
when he was in Tokyo once
again. After being de-mobbed,
he returned to Cambridge and
graduated, doing a double tripos
with honors. From there, being
fluent in Spanish, Greek, Latin,
French and German, he joined
Shell CO. and spent four years
with the company in Buenas
Aires, during the Peron era.
Having been captivated by
New York on his previous stay,
he gravitated there, leaving the
oil world for that of consmetics.
His interests varied: opera,
history, literature, poetry (one of
his Cambridge tutors was W.H.
Auden), mathematics; he was an
accomplished pianist, as well as
a very good tennis player who
sometimes partnered Vic Seixas
in friendly games. I met Stanley
on the tennis court, and decided
it was much safer to be on the
same side of the net when
playing doubles, as he was not
one to give quarter, at least on
the court. Stanley had already
become a US citizen, and I also
became a citizen just before we
got married.
Within a short time at Revlon,
then in its heyday, Stanley
returned to Japan to establish a
wholly owned subsidiary of
Revlon
to
replace
the
distributorship then in place. He
soon carried on much of his
business in Japanese with the
more than 1,100 employees. A
more hard working and loyal
group
I
never
met.
His territory extended to the
entire Far East, South Pacific,
Australasia, and oddly, Alaska.
On one of our home leave
trips to the US, we were visiting
friends in Maine. One day we
went to a small shop featuring
war memorabilia and a very
large variety of antiques. We
came across a Japanese Battle
“Flag”, the type that was worn
by troops into battle. We bought
it and took it back to Tokyo,
where Stanley contacted both the
Pacific Legacy
New Book on Pacific War
Pacific Legacy, Abbeville Press,
New York, $65 in bookstores,
cheaper on amazon.com, or
contact Jerry Meehl to arrange
for a signed copy at a reduced
price: meehl@ucar.edu or
390 Overlook Dr., Boulder, CO
80305
-
Pacific Legacy is the story of
WWII in the Pacific told through
the eyes of the veterans who
were there and, in photos, what
it was like in the islands during
WWII, and what remains today-a kind of then-and-now
treatment. There is a photo essay
on the interpreters, with mention
of Nisei interpreters and the
JLOs, and focusing on the
extraordinary experiences of JLS
Asahi and Mainichi newspapers
to enlist their aid in trying to find
a family member, so the flag
could be returned to them. By
amazing
luck,
someone
responded within 24 hours, and
in a very moving ceremony at
Stanley’s office, he returned the
flag – the only remaining
momento – to the dead soldier’s
mother.
After 9 years in Tokyo and 6
years in Hong Kong, we returned
to New York. Stanley was
enticed by the offer of a
challenging job with Charles of
the Ritz/Yves St. Laurent. He
joined the company in 1978 and
was about to become CoPresident of the international
division, but two weeks before
he was to assume his new duties,
he died very suddenly of a heart
attack – on the tennis court – in
April, 1981.
Judith Heath
_______________
Interpreter Going
To Monthy
The Newsletter has changed to a
monthly schedule, now that the
rate of mail has lapsed following
the 60th Reunion. We can return
to a twice monthly pace should
mail increase.
DMH
Now Available !
graduate, Bob Sheeks, along
with a number of photos of him
in
action,
one
of
him
interrogating Japanese prisoners
on the beach at Tarawa, and
more of him trying to convince
Japanese military and civilian
personnel to surrender from
caves on Saipan and Tinian. Of
course the book is much more
than that, being a comprehensive
treatment of almost every aspect
of the Pacific war, from island
combat, to what it was like on
rear area islands where the main
enemy was boredom, to what
Pacific islanders had to endure,
first
with
the
Japanese
occupation, then the invasion by
the Americans, and finally
watching as their and tropical
real estate was turned into
sprawling air strips and bases.