Reverberating Shot

Irritated when Japanese civilians scrambled recklessly across the U.S. Army's Somagahara rifle range near Tokyo in search of scrap metal, G.I. William S. Girard one day last January decided to get tough. He shoved an expended cartridge into the grenade launcher on his rifle, slid a blank into the rifle, and fired in the general direction of five civilians 30 yards away. The cartridge hit a 46-year-old woman in the back and killed her.

By last week the death of Mrs. Naka Sakai had become an international incident. Japan demanded that Girard be tried for manslaughter in a civilian court (likely sentence: two to 15 years). The U.S., in the person of Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson, refused to release him from Army custody "pending a complete review of the matter."

As much a bone of contention as Girard himself was the U.S.-Japanese "status of forces" agreement, which holds in general that U.S. military men shall be subject to Japanese law except when on duty. Japan claimed jurisdiction under the agreement because Girard shot the woman during a target-practice rest period, therefore was technically off duty. U.S. military authorities (who might have been able to head off the whole uproar by promptly court-martialing Girard) argued that he was on duty during the rest period, was therefore subject to military discipline. Finally, Rear Admiral Miles H. Hubbard, U.S. representative on the joint commission which settles jurisdictional disputes, reluctantly ordered Girard turned over to the Japanese for trial with, he thought, both State Department and Pentagon approval.

Countermanding Admiral Hubbard's decision last week, Secretary Wilson quickly received support from U.S. veterans' groups, criticism from the Japanese for his "lawless, wayward attitude." At week's end Girard was still in U.S. hands, and the "Somagahara incident" was becoming a rallying point for a swelling anti-American movement in Japan.

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