Tokyo Blues: A Remembrance of Japan and the Far East Air Force 1954-1956

Title: Tokyo Blues: A Remembrance of Japan and the Far East Air Force 1954-1956
LC Subject: Postwar reconstruction United States. Air Force Japan
Local Collection ID: MSS TokyoBlues
Author: Coleman, Ralph O., Jr., 1931-
Description: Tokyo Blues: A Remembrance of Japan and the Far East Air Force, 1954-1956, was self-published by the author in 2009 and features book design by Morgan Ryan-Smith. Following an opening chapter recalling his upbringing and college years in Corvallis, the volume primarily recounts the two years that Coleman spent in Japan as an Air Force Base Contracting Officer. In this, the book specifically focuses on work that the United States armed forces conducted while helping to rehabilitate Japan from the destructive aftermath of the Second World War. Coleman's memoir likewise traces his own maturation as a young man living and working in an environment that was radically different from the Oregon that he had known growing up. As noted in the memoir's introduction, which is written by Chuck Thompson, the book includes "anecdotes of Japan and Cold War Asia [that] bring to life everything from American B-29 spy planes sparring with Soviet MiGs over the Sea of Japan, to explorations of the hidden realm of Japanese bathhouses, hostess bars, hot springs resorts, and off-beat places..."
Work Type: memoirs
Location: Corvallis >> Benton County >> Oregon >> United States
Date: 2009
Identifier: Tokyo-Blues-2009
Rights: In Copyright
Language: English
Place Of Publication: Corvallis >> Benton County >> Oregon >> United States
Local Collection Name: Ralph Coleman Jr. Tokyo Blues Memoir (MSS TokyoBlues)
Type: Text
Format: application/pdf
Set: Historical Publications of Oregon State University OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center
Primary Set: Historical Publications of Oregon State University
Institution: Oregon State University
Number Of Pages: 303
Biographical Information: Ralph Orval Coleman Jr. was born in Corvallis in 1931. The son and namesake of Oregon State's long-serving baseball coach, Ralph Jr. played baseball for his father while an undergraduate at Oregon State College, which he attended from 1949 to 1954. Following the completion of his degree in Business Administration, Coleman was commissioned as a second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force. He spent the next two years in Tokyo, Japan as a Base Contracting Officer. Once discharged from the military, Coleman entered graduate school at the University of Oregon where he earned his masters degree in Communicative Development and Child Psychology. In 1960 he began a doctoral program in Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University, and he completed his Ph.D. in 1963. Soon after, he began a lengthy career at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, Oregon, working as an Associate Professor of Speech Language Pathology and Audiology in the OHSU School of Medicine.