Great score Gary. We are jealous.
About this whole possible serviceman's bike scenario. Coincidentally, just last night I was thinking about something related, a thing that I haven't thought about in decades. Allow me to ramble.
I did a 4-year US Navy enlistment, and from 1980 to 1983 I was stationed in San Diego. I was billeted on two different tin cans -- torpedo bait -- small disposable ships. The first was a Destroyer, DD 743, a ship that was built in 1944, while the U.S. was still at war with Germany and Japan. When I joined the crew in 1980, it was one of the oldest operating ships in the Navy. So old, that it was a Reserve ship -- I was active duty, but the ship itself was used for training weekend warrior Reservists. A year later, we decommissioned it. That was some of the sweetest Duty in the Navy. But I digress.
My second tin can was a Frigate, FF 1041. This was a legit, active ship, and legit, active ships stationed on the west coast make periodic WestPac (Western Pacific) cruises, lasting 6-9 months, and hitting places like Hawaii, Guam, Korea, Okinawa, Hong Kong, The Philippines... and Japan. I was fortunate to make 1-1/2 WestPacs -- 1/2 because I was in the Phillipines, on my second WestPac, when my enlistment was up, so I got flown back to San Diego rather than sailing back.
Anyways... You knew I was going somewhere with this, right? Sooner or later on a WestPac, you'd hit Yokosuka, Japan, home of the largest overseas US Naval Base in the world. (A perk of winning a war with an unconditional surrender.) On the Yokosuka base, Japanese auto and car makers had sales offices. Honda motorcycles for sure, probably also Yamaha and Suzuki, maybe Kawasaki, and for autos, probably Honda, Toyota, and Nissan. The deal, at the time, was that your ship's captain allowing, you could buy an auto or car on the Yokosuka base, at Japanese prices, and have it loaded on your ship. There was some kind of Duty-Free loophole, meaning that sailors didn't have to pay import fees, so all told, the savings were substantial.
The little ship I was on had no room for cars, but a couple or so of my Shipmates (out of a crew of about 250) did buy new motorcycles. These were crated. When you got back to San Diego, you would haul your crated bike to the Honda (or whatever brand) dealership, and they would assemble it for you for a fee.
The big ships, like LSTs (Landing Ship, Tank), and LSDs (Landing Ship, Dock), had big holds, and big crews, and could carry cars. When one of them returned to San Diego from WestPac, you'd see the cranes unloading dozens and dozens of new cars and crated motorcycles.
