Oral History Interview with Stephen E. Van Nostrand, April 20, 1987 Page: 21
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21
Marcello:
Van Nostrand:Okinawa, to the Japan operation, both my wife and I drove
all the way up to Massachusetts without speaking. We were
just so unhappy at the prospect of leaving Okinawa.,- It was
a very interesting job and a very good existence for the
family at that period.
So the operation on Okinawa, then, is strictly a Caltex
operation. You're not connected directly with Nippon Oil
or anybody else.
Oh, no. In those days I reported directly to New York. We
had a company, a Ryukyan company, which was an unusual
situation, that we were supposed to be training to take over
ultimately. The head of the company, the only man on
Okinawa that really knew anything about oil, had been a
Nippon Oil Company dealer in the prewar years up on an
island called Amami Oshima, north of Okinawa. He was now
living on Okinawa, and he was a very popular and very interest-
ing and knowledgeable man. He had the idea that he wanted
to take over from the military at the time Jim Voss was
drafting the proposals to SCAP that led to our contract.
But SCAP wouldn't think of it. They wouldn't think of
providing an untrained and inexperienced Ryukyan company
with this thing. So finally, as a compromise, they said to
Caltex, "Part of your mission is training. You are to
provide advice and training to the company they're forming,
Ryukyu Oil Corporation--ROCO." So Caltex trained these
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Marcello, Ronald E. & Van Nostrand, Stephen E. Oral History Interview with Stephen E. Van Nostrand, April 20, 1987, book, April 20, 1987; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc306889/m1/23/?q=%22~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Oral History Program.