Note: This is an encore post from 2005 that originally appeared on the 1947project.

It was a tough problem for the armed services. In March, an Air Forces lieutenant at Tachikawa Air Base and “a beautiful Japanese girl” killed themselves in a former geisha house at Hinomachi, and the week before, another couple committed suicide at a Shinto shrine because they were going to be separated.

Also in June, a former soldier who renounced his U.S. citizenship to marry a Japanese woman was sentenced to six months in prison for illegally buying merchandise using his American ration card.

Finally, Congress granted a one-month period in which veterans could marry Japanese women, resulting in 823 unions. The Times reported 597 marriages between Nisei men and Japanese women; 211 marriages between whites and Japanese, and 15 marriages between blacks and Japanese.

Source: Los Angeles Times, March 15, 1947; June 1, 1947; June 4, 1947; Aug. 22, 1947