This book describes the experiences of a young US Army lieutenant, newly graduated from West Point at the close of WWII as he took his top-notch military training to Japan to participate in the occupation and rebuilding of that country after its near total destruction during the war. But the book is not about the rebuilding of Japan. Rather, it records the personal experience of being packed onto a troop ship and transported across the Great Northern Route of the Pacific Ocean to a layover in the Philippines and then to the final destination in Japan. He recorded the sites and sounds of mobilization, the physical hardships of the transport, moments of relief, and the arrival in Japan, via the war-torn Philippines, only to come face-to-face with the utter destruction of the surroundings in which they would carry out their new assignments. With his camera and his writing, he recorded life among the surviving people.