Lloyd J. Moon, PN3, USN
U.S.S. Los Angeles (CA-135)
c/o Fleet Post Office
San Francisco, California

ABOARD THE USS LOS ANGELES IN THE FAR EAST   One cool and foggy morning in Yokosuka, Japan, this past August, some sixty men from the heavy cruiser USS LOS ANGELES left ship to scale the 12,388 foot sacred Mt. Fuji.  After more than twenty steady hours of climbing up the isolated peak just southwest of Tokyo, 11 of the group slowly pushed their way towards the crest of the icy volcano, amid below zero weather, blinding rain and 75 M.P.H. winds.

It was the first attempt many navy men and marines had made to climb any mountain.

As they advanced into the timberless altitudes of the near perfect volcano cone, many, totally exhausted from the heavy winds, freezing rain and intense cold, remained at rest stops to await the return of fellow climbers.  At each of the ten such stops (prayer stations) holy men burned prayers onto their climbing sticks while the climbers warmed their hands and feet by small open coal furnaces and sipped steaming green tea.  Some of the stations provided canned pears or canned orange slices.

Most of the climbers continued by foot after the bus breakdown, and reached the fifth stop in early evening as darkness was just beginning to set in.  The rest station, illuminated by a single tallow candle, provided canned fish for dinner in addition to the customary canned fruit and green tea.

Portions of the party continued on their climb while others remained at the fifth station for the night.  Climbing now became more and more difficult, the climbers being able to advance only about twenty feet at once before stopping to rest.

The eighth station was the last at which lodgings for the night (at 350 yen, less than $1.00) could be obtained.  In the 11,500 foot altitudes, the strong winds induced most of the climbers to spend the night.  Renewing the climb at 4:30 the following morning, the men were faced with heavy rains and winds at 60 or more miles an hour.  The temperature became colder with each step upwards.  After reaching station nine, the first group of five continued on the last station.  Normally a twenty minute hike, it took the men forty minutes due to the heavy and extreme cold.  They arrived at station ten at 6:00 AM.

The climb to the last (tenth) station was the most difficult.  Often visibility was no more than five feet.  After the first group of five reached the station, the innkeepers - out of generosity - gave them their beds in which to sleep while their rain-soaked clothes were dried.  Six others staggered up within the next four hours.  The climb from the fifth to the tenth stations, normally a seven hour one, took the me  more than ten straight hours of climbing.  Approximately an hour after the last of the 11 had reached the top, the men began their descent.  The trip down was somewhat easier and much more rapidly accomplished.  It took only two hours to arrive at the fifth station.

Most of the men descended on the “sleigh” - an expression describing the manner in which one almost automatically slides down the steep slope aided by the heavy cinder dust and rocks.

By the time the 11 reached their original starting point (station one), men of their fellow climbers had long since arrived, somewhat relaxed, now.  Back again in Fuji village, they refreshed themselves at the Fuji View hotel before proceeding to the New Grand, another armed services-operated hotel, for dinner.

They returned to the ship about 11:45 the evening of the second day.