T. Gordon Barber was a Lieutenant in the 30th Arty Bgde who was like my section leader or something. He was the officer in direct charge of me and the photo lab that I worked in. He is featured in my stories about Okinawa because he could not requisition the photographic equipment and supplies which I needed to do my Army photo assignments. He could not get those necessary things because the 30th Arty was neither authorized a brigade photographer nor a photo lab for one. Consequently, our supply sergeant was not authorized to order any photographic equipment or supplies. I bought my own camera gear the very first week I was on Okinawa and had to use that to do my 'official' Army photo assignments. I also had to buy film at times to do assignments. When I ran out of photo printing paper and neither I nor Lt. Barber nor anyone else could not manage any way to 'midnight requisition' any paper that I could use, it meant that I could no longer do my job at all. Unfortunately the 30th Arty still expected me to. As a result of that mind boggling, soul crushing situation, I became one rather insane young man. One day Barber saw some of my written work on the Internet and this set of emails were exchanged between us:
From: Karen Barber
I read you memoirs and it brought back a lot of memories. I remember Captain Sawyer. He was followed by Captain Atkinson. I remember Lt Fox. Did you know Jim Lenstra? I believe he was PIO E5 for the 30th Artillery Bd? When did you leave?
My second email to Barber:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Crews"
> To: "Karen Barber"
> Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2006 3:17 PM
> Subject: T Gordon Barber Re: 30th Artillery Brigade
>
>
> > Are you related to T. Gordon Barber? I found his
> name
> > in my old Army files.
His short reply:
--- Karen Barber
> That would be me.
My third email to Barber, he has never contacted me back:
From: David Crews
ursusdave@yahoo.com
To: Karen Barber
eddiebar@bellsouth.net
Subject: Your Take On My 30th Arty Stories
Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 12:12 AM
Hello T. Gordon Barber, and thank you for emailing me.
I think you got me a bunch of photo paper one time
that I couldn’t use in my photo lab, because it was
for use with a pure red safe light only, and my 30th
Arty Bgde Mole Hole photo lab had a reddish-orange
safe light. I showed you how my safe light turned the
paper totally black in the developer right away.
I know you probly weren’t told back then but that lab
was not supposed to be there and neither was I as a
photographer; the 30th could have made me be a cook,
a clerk or anything else, even though I had just
graduated from Army Photo Lab Tech School, but there
was no slot for a photographer in the 30th Arty
Bgde--"This is a true historical fact" (one of my
favorite lines of Dustin Hoffman’s character in the
movie Little Big Man). It’s a bummer we had to butt
heads over the photo supply problems, but both our
backs were up against opposing walls. It was the 30th
Arty Bde command personnel who set up the lab and kept
it going who caused the problems, not us.
I am very interested in what happened with the photo
lab in the Mole Hole after I left. I believe that the
arms room clerk took over for me as photographer when
I left the lab. There were always guys working in the
brigade as clerks, etc. who owned some new, pro-grade,
super low priced at the PX, photo gear and who wanted
to be photographers; they couldn’t have cared less
about the lab being in the decontamination chamber as
long as they got a shot at the much more glamorous
occupation of photography.
Did the 30th Arty ever get another Army trained
photographer?
The Japanese were coming to take over the 30th Arty
Brigade, but did they take over the Mole Hole?
What dates were you there?
I have searched every web site with anything about the
30th Arty Bde and looked at every guest book posting
and memoirs story on them but have only found 2 people
who were in the 30th Artillery Brigade Headquarters
Battery in Sukiran the same time when I was, but then
their email addresses are no good anymore.
It is good to hear from someone who was there at the
time.
And I am open to reading anyone else’s take on
anything which I am writing about---including Capt.
Sawyer, the illegality of the photo lab, whether or
not the lab compromised our defensive capabilities in
anyway, etc..
Also, what were typical officer’s lives like when you
were off duty?
My story is still only a working manuscript; so far I
have had a good number of Okinawa Veterans send me
emails, including some about how The Bush was
established as a segregated, all black GIs, bar
district and on the percentage of girls who were sold
into prostitution by their fathers, and a few do
contradict my take on things a bit, and adjustments
for those contradictions will make it into the final
rewrite of my manuscript. I know from the amount of
feedback I’ve received that I do write these stories
for and on behalf of many people who have lived on
Okinawa, but it is still basically about this ex-GI’s
personal memories. I am determined to write out the
true facts though, if my written memories are known to
you as being incorrect in anyway, please email me
about them. I will appreciate any insight into my
stories which you may have.
http://www.30thbrigade.org/ is the best site for the
30th Arty Bge.
Okinawa
Army
David Robert Crews
US Army
30th Artillery Brigade
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