Haruko Wakabayashi

A09U, Haruko Wakabayashi ‘85, Toshio Nishioka, Grandfather, c 1923, Kanagawa: Ōiso-machi, China, Korea

I interviewed my maternal grandfather in May 1984. He was born around 1923 and turned sixty last year.

Q: I would like to ask you first about the conscription (draft) system.

A: I got a small red paper called akagami. It said which unit I would have to join, and on which date. I was drafted into the Azabu Imperial Guards, for which only high-ranking samurai were eligible—just one or two people from each prefecture.

Q: What did you do when you joined this unit?

A: We were trained to hide, to crawl, and to shoot guns and use hand grenades. We didn’t have enough bullets, so we practiced aiming our weapons without shooting them. After three months of training, we were given ten bullets to practice shooting at a dummy 200 meters away. Well, I was used to shooting guns, because whenever we got short of food in Hawaii, we shot at birds and ate them. But the other recruits were rich aristocrats. They couldn’t shoot! 

Whenever they shot a bullet, you could see a cloud of dust just 20 meters away! My sisters in Hawaii could have done better than that. The same with throwing hand grenades. Mine went as far as 60 meters. The person who came second threw it 40 meters. The worst ones went only 20 meters. I felt that WE were the ones in danger, not our enemies.

We also “learned” how to dig trenches. Those people had to learn how to use shovels and needed to be trained to dig holes! I was used to this, because I had had a part-time job as a construction laborer. I was amazed at how those rich people could be so weak!

Another thing we “learned” was “how to wash our own clothes.” One day, we were told to bring pencils and notebooks, because there was going to be some kind of lesson. I was expecting to be taught military tactics and strategy. And guess what the sergeant taught us! “How to wash clothes.” And he told us that because we didn’t have much soap, we should put a little bit on the collar—the dirtiest part—and scrub it so that the soap would flow to other places. That’s the way we should wash clothes. Terrible, wasn’t it?

They certainly taught us to bear and endure all pain. Once an order was given, we couldn’t move until the next order was given. The mean sergeants ordered us to “Present arms!” and then left. We stood there for one hour, holding the heavy guns in our arms, waiting for the sergeant to give us the next order.

Q: You told me that you were in China during the war, right?

A: Yes, I was. After a few months of training, we were sent first to Kyūshū. When I was leaving Ōiso [Kanagawa], your mother Junko came to the station. She wore a red dress. I remember that it was raining. I was wearing a raincoat. In those days, the dyes that they used were not very good, so the red color of her dress got on my raincoat when I hugged her. I kept that raincoat with me all the time while I was away from home.

We were taken to China on a freighter from Kyūshū. We had to climb up a net in order to board the ship. Many people did not have the strength. Because there was a gap between the dock and the ship, those people who couldn’t climb up the net just fell into the sea. A lot of them drowned there.

The ship had only two small cannons on the bow and the stern. It did not sail straight. It went wriggling through the sea to avoid all of the American submarines.

I was surprised that the naval officers were very slow at giving orders. They were very quick in action, but they said things very slowly, as if they were singing. I imagine that was because ships couldn’t change their movements quickly. The ship wouldn’t go fast even if the command was given quickly, as it was in the army.

We landed in Korea. We went by train to Peking [Beijing] in north China. Peking was surrounded by walls, like the Great Wall, which served as protection from bandits.

Q: What did you do in China?

A: I was in the Signal Corps. These days, we only need a small transceiver to send a message from here to the beach [at Hayama]. But in those days, we had a gigantic machine, about as big as six horses, with two men generating all of the electricity. I wasn’t good at typing Morse Code, so I worked on deciphering encoded messages. I always had a book with all of those secret codes in it. I had to be careful not to lose it.

Q: Were those secret codes in letters or numbers?

A: They were numbers.

Q: Did you fight any battles in China?

A: Yes. We fought against the Eighth Route Army led by Mao Tse-tung [Mao Zedong]. They were really strong! One of our men would see them from the lookout. He would return to get more soldiers to help fight. But when he returned to the spot where he saw them, they were not there anymore. They were all young men, about 18-20 years old, who had been trained in the army since they were ten years old.

Q: What kinds of people were in the Japanese Army?

A: All kinds of people. It was very interesting how you would find out. A man died one day, and one of the other soldiers began to chant sutras [o-kyō] in a very professional way. I asked him “Why are you so good?” He replied “I was a Buddhist monk back in Japan.” 

There were men who were very good at Chinese. They spoke to Chinese prisoners, and then the other Japanese soldiers learned for the first time that they could speak Chinese.

There was a carpenter, too. He built an excellent house out of branches and leaves one day, when we were out on patrol. I was very happy to see the house. We always slept outdoors, and I thought we could sleep in a house that night. However, nobody slept in that house. We were ordered to sleep somewhere away from the house. The enemy bombed the house that night, thinking that we would be inside. Nobody thought that we would still be sleeping outside. We were saved, but nothing was left of the house by the next morning.

When we came back to Peking as the war was ending, we decided to put on a play. We knew that Peking was safe, so we wanted some kind of entertainment. Some soldiers were really good at acting and dancing. Of course, they were: they were professional actors and dancers!

When the war ended, American soldiers arrived in China from Okinawa. My English was useful then. It was interesting to see how things had changed. Our colonel used to be very stuck-up. He always boasted that “I’ll give my life for the Emperor. I’m not afraid of death.” He used to treat me like trash. Yet he wouldn’t go to the U.S. Army headquarters without me. I stayed in the toilet and never came out. I could hear his voice calling my name in a panic.

As I was talking to American officers, I could tell that they were kind, well-educated men. One day, one of the officers was interested in the sword that the colonel was carrying. He asked if he could see it, so I said “Go ahead.” He took the sword from the colonel, and when he pulled it out, the high-and-mighty colonel held up his hands, saying “You can keep it if you want it, but please don’t kill me!” The American officer, of course, had enough common sense to give the sword back. He never thought of taking it away from him or killing him with it.

Q: How did you come back to Japan?

A: We took a freight train to Korea and from there a ship to Sasebo. In the train, there were Chinese people who used hooks to steal things from other passengers. Some were even pulled off of the train.

At the harbor, many Japanese were waiting for their turn to get on the ship. About 1000 people rode on one small ship. It was very crowded. Rice was cooked in a large steamer. Not all rice was cooked. It took five days to get to Japan. All that time I was living on dry crackers (kanpan) and water. I couldn’t get any rice.

When the ship left the harbor, a rumor spread saying that we were going to Siberia, not Japan. The ship in front of us was sending signals by floodlights. Fortunately, some of us were able to read the signals, and we were glad to know that we were heading towards Nagasaki. The Japanese soldiers were very happy that they could go home. Not me, though; while the others were smiling, I couldn’t. I could hear the American soldiers saying “It’s so crowded. Let’s just throw these monkeys into the sea!’ I was very scared. They were saying it angrily, and I wished that I couldn’t understand them!

Taking advantage of being able to speak English, I got revenge on all of the officers who had been mean to me. I gave away their military badges. The American officers wanted them for Christmas decorations. They were very pretty. I also gave away the colonel’s good leather bag to a young American officer. I liked to see him being happy. He was a good boy.

From Sasebo, I took a train to Susono, where my family stayed. In those days, you were given a dirty old piece of paper to write down where you wanted to go—and that was the train ticket.

I was wearing the raincoat with the red color when I arrived home.

Q: I heard that you worked at the Tōkyō Trial [International Military Tribunal for the Far East].

A: I did work there for a while, correcting the English translations from Japanese into understandable English. I talked to [General] Tōjō [Hideki, Minister of War and Prime Minister] and other defendants too. When you were drafted into the Army, you usually asked people to sign your flag, called “Buun Chōkyū” [武運長久], wishing for your success in war. Hirota Kōki, the former Foreign Minister and Prime Minister, signed my flag. He was one of those who were hanged, like Tōjō.

Q: Finally, did you experience any discrimination, since you were a Nisei immigrant to Hawaii?

A: Not really—probably because I was first in my class in the Imperial Guards. That meant that I was from an elite background. Now it’s time to watch the Hanshin Tigers play baseball against the Yomiuri Giants, so the interview is over.