3 striscie al sole

I was a U.S. Air Force airman in the 1503rd Air Transport Squadron. Our squadron shared air terminal facilities at Haneda International Airport in Tokyo with Japanese civilian airlines as well as a few other international airlines. My tour of duty was 1954-1955. During that period, a small portion of Three Stripes In The Sun was filmed at this airport located in Tokyo Bay. The Columbia Pictures crew recruited a few of us off duty enlisted men to be extras in a scene where Aldo Ray is just arriving in Tokyo from the U.S. Our part was to depart the aircraft by walking down some portable steps to the tarmac and then marching into the air terminal building in a single file. That all seemed simple enough but the first take didn't go so well. One of the navy guys stumbled and fell down the steps so we had to get back into that hot aircraft that had been baking in the sun to do it again. This really upset Aldo Ray because he was a little hung over from doing the town the night before and he didn't relish getting back into that oven.