[1][2] His writings include The Mountain and the Feather[3] about his experiences in the Pacific in World War II as a United States naval intelligence officer and translator.
He received a commendation for obtaining information that helped Navy fliers shoot down the plane of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who had masterminded the 1941 surprise attack on the U.S. military base at Pearl Harbor, HI, which brought the United States into the fighting.
Ashmead became acquainted and friends with a circle of authors including Masao Kume and Yasunari Kawabata who he met and befriended during the Occupation of Japan in mid-1940s, G.V.
Ashmead maintained a network of contacts with key administrators and graduates of the World War II U.S. Navy Japanese Language School which began at Harvard and later migrated to Berkeley, California, and ultimately Boulder, Colorado.
These friends and student-war personnel colleagues include Serge Elisséeff, Donald Keene, Otis Cary, Leslie A. Feidler, Marion J.
Levy, Jr., Jonas Barish and Beate Sirota Gordon who went on after World War II, to become leading intellectuals in their academic fields.
Deciphering the Rising Sun Kanji and Code {http://www-libraries.colorado.edu/archives/collections/jlsp/index.htm}[permanent dead link] The US Navy Japanese/Oriental Language School Archival Project (JSLP)