Okinawa

VS-23 sailed aboard the USS Breckinridge to Okinawa from San Diego, CA in January of 1951. The ship had the crew and officers of VS-23 and many more US Marines heading for combat in the Korean Peninsula after the stop in Okinawa.

USS Breckinridge heading to the Korean War in 1951.

The following is taken from The Navy Historical Center website http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-g/ap176.htm .

USS General J. C. Breckinridge, a 11,828-ton (light displacement) General John Pope class transport, was built at Kearny, New Jersey, by the Maritime Commission to its P2-S2-R2 design. She was commissioned with a U.S. Coast Guard crew in June 1945 and was enroute to Marseilles, France, on her first operational voyage when the Japanese surrender ended World War II. The transport made four more voyages to France to bring troops home, then was transferred to the Pacific, arriving at San Francisco in January 1946. 

In July 1950, immediately after the outbreak of the Korean War, General J. C. Breckinridge was reconverted to a troop transport at San Francisco and in August carried troops from Seattle to Yokosuka, Japan. She was diverted from her return voyage to support the assault on Inchon, where she arrived with fresh troops the day after the landing. In November 1950 she assisted in the evacuation of Wonsan, and in December she helped evacuate Hungnam. General J. C. Breckinridge made two more troop voyages during the fighting in Korea and then returned to regular MSTS transport duty, carrying both military and civilian passengers throughout the Pacific area. In 1955 or 1956 she was again modified, losing her armament and receiving additional lifeboats. She remained an active part of the MSTS nucleus fleet as one of its few commissioned ships until December 1965, when she was inactivated and turned over to the Maritime Administration for layup in its reserve fleet. General J. C. Breckinridge was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register and permanently transferred to the Maritime Administration in December 1966. The Maritime Administration sold her in August 1987 to a Japanese firm for scrapping.

It is quite striking the differences between Okinawa and mainland Japan. Okinawins were considered a "lower class" by many sophisticated Japanese at the time. Many of the people in Okinawa were poor, but as my father said "...kind, generous, and friendly."