[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 160 (Thursday, November 13, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2377-E2378]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       A FAREWELL TO DR. DOWNING

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. STEVE C. LaTOURETTE

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 13, 1997

  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, on a December morning in 1996, Lake 
County Coroner William C. Downing walked into my district office in 
Painesville, OH, with a photograph taken 44 years earlier in Okinawa, 
Japan. The photograph showed a young Dr. Downing being presented with a 
scroll of appreciation from the Governor of Okinawa.
  About the time Dr. Downing stopped by my office, there had been a 
rash of bad publicity about U.S. servicemen in Okinawa following the 
rape of a 12-year-old girl. Dr. Downing, a former Army surgeon, was 
distressed by it all, and remembered how warmly he had been received by 
the Okinawan people nearly five decades earlier. He hoped that the 
story behind the aging photograph might make up for some of the 
negative images Okinawans had of Americans in uniform.
  Doc, as he was known by everyone in Lake County, handed one of my 
caseworkers the photograph, taken January 9, 1952, and asked for our 
assistance in locating the folks in the picture. We realistically did 
not know if we would be successful, as the picture had been taken 
almost a half century earlier. But Dr. Downing was adamant about trying 
to find out what became of the people in the photograph, especially the 
4-year-old girl who was held by her parents. After all, in 1952 he 
performed life-saving surgery on the child in the photograph, Sachiko 
Ikei.
  Dr. Downing recalled how the little girl had swallowed a game piece 
about the size of a checker, and for more than a week it had been 
lodged in her throat. Her parents had taken her to every doctor on the 
island but no one could help her. Young Sachiko was unable to eat and 
could barely drink. ``The doctors said to take her home and let her 
die,'' Doc recalled.
  As a last resort, Sachiko's parents brought her to Ryukyus Army 
Hospital in Okinawa where Dr. Downing, then about 30 years old, was 
chief of general surgery. Dr. Downing, the handsome, young American 
surgeon, agreed to perform lifesaving surgery on the little girl, at no 
cost to her family or the Okinawan Government.
  As Dr. Downing explained it to us, there was no hesitation in his 
decision to save the little girl's life. He had never forgotten the 
first autopsy he performed as a young physician in training. It was in 
1946 in Cleveland, and a 5-year-old boy had died after choking on a 
bean from a toy beanbag. Dr. Downing recalled removing the swollen lima 
bean blocking the boy's larynx, and thought it so senseless that an 
innocent child had died from playing with a toy. Six years later, he 
had the chance to save a child in a similar predicament, and he did. He 
made an incision in the girl's neck, and then entered her esophagus to 
retrieve the game piece.
  Over the years, Dr. Downing married, had a family, and worked for 30 
years as a general surgeon before becoming the Lake County Coroner in 
1985. Over the years he thought about the little Okinawan girl often, 
but never knew what became of her or her family. Shortly after leaving 
Okinawa, he had been transferred to Tokyo, where he served as chief of 
surgery in a M*A*S*H hospital for the tail end of the Korean war.

  Although Dr. Downing had never forgotten Sachiko, it took the rape of 
a 12-year-old girl in Okinawa to prompt him to start his search for the 
child he had saved decades earlier. His wife, Jan, after much 
searching, found the photo in a box of old memorabilia.
  Armed with nothing more than an aging photograph, our office set out 
to find the people in the picture. We contacted Army officials, the 
U.S. State Department, and the congressional affairs section of the 
Embassy of Japan. Dr. Downing believed if the people in the photograph 
were still alive, someone would be able to locate them. He never 
imagined it would happen so fast, however,
  Within 2 weeks of receiving the photograph, our office was able to 
determine the whereabouts of all those in the photograph. Most of the 
folks in the photo had passed away, including Sachiko's father, who had 
died in 1970. Sachiko's mother, meanwhile, was alive and well and lived 
in Okinawa. The little girl in the kimono, then just 4 years old, was 
now a mother and grandmother. She lives in Opelica, AL, and works for 
the State of Alabama for the department of vocational rehabilitation. 
Her name is Sachiko I. Thompson.
  The first time Dr. Downing called Sachiko she wept, as she had never 
had been able to thank the kind American doctor who had saved her life. 
As it turned out, Sachiko had moved to the United States in 1973 and 
had never returned home to Okinawa in all those years. She had met an 
American while working in a photography studio in Okinawa, and wound up 
marrying his brother.
  Sachiko said she often wondered what happened to the American doctor, 
and remembers trying to learn more about him when she was

[[Page E2378]]

about 13. All she had was a picture with what seemed like a hundred 
staff members from the Army hospital, plus the tall man in the white 
lab jacket.
  Sachiko said she was so touched when she learned that Dr. Downing was 
looking for her after all these years. ``I thought about it and 
wondered if he ever thought about me, but I never imagined this,'' she 
said.
  Of course a few phone calls weren't enough for Dr. Downing, and he 
set out to complete the mission he'd begun when he walked into my 
office. Last year, at his own expense, Dr. Downing traveled to Okinawa 
to meet the little girl whose life he'd saved so many years before. It 
afforded both Sachiko and her mother, now 76 years old, with an 
opportunity to thank the man who'd changed their lives with his 
humanity and kindness.
  Dr. Downing died today after a brief battle with cancer. I had the 
privilege of knowing him the last 18 of his 77 years, and considered 
him a dear, trusted friend and colleague. For many years we worked side 
by side, as our jobs often overlapped in the most unpleasant of 
circumstances--he was the county coroner, and I was the county 
prosector. I was always impressed by his professionalism and his 
uplifting spirit. He was a man of great, legendary humor and great 
integrity.
  Dr. Downing spent many years of his life surrounded by death, but 
always reveled in the life around him. I have to believe it was his 
love of life and his love for our country that led him on his journey 
to Okinawa. It is fitting that in the final year of his life he was 
able to meet a woman whose life he had forever changed. The rest of us, 
meanwhile, will forever be changed and blessed for having known this 
wonderful, caring man.

                          ____________________