Latrines as the Measure of Men: American Soldiers and the Politics of Disgust in Occupied Europe and Asia

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...