US currency used to pay members of the military. I this case, in yen so they could be spent in whatever business would accept it.
There was probably some mechanism where the locals could exchange it for their own currency, but if I knew about it I've forgotten it.
During the war they used regular dollar denominations. The benefit was that if a bunch was captured the series could be cancelled and new notes issued. Something that couldn't be done with regular US currency (except the Hawaii notes which never needed to be cancelled )
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