F01, Thomas Davies ‘97, Wakako Ashizawa, Grandmother, 1926, Yamanashi
I interviewed my maternal grandmother on December 1, 1995. She was born in 1926 and is 69 years old.
Q: What was your most fearsome experience during the war?
A: I feared that my husband, your grandfather, would not come back from the war. He was away in Manchuria. Luckily, he came back after Japan had lost the war. He was wounded in the left side of his stomach. He was lucky to survive, because he had three bullet wounds.
Q: At the beginning of the war, you were only 15 years old. How did the war affect your life?
A: Of course, I was not married yet. I lived with my parents in Yamanashi. I was shocked when the war began, because I had heard from my grandmother that war is an awful thing. My grandmother had lived through World War I, and she told me that she had a tough life. The most difficult problem for me was the lack of food, shelter, and clothing, especially in a rural, mountainous prefecture like Yamanashi. I had to share with my neighbors. I often ate together with them.
Q: What was your opinion on Japanese success in the war, and did you think it would last for a long time?
A: When the Japanese Army decided to start the war against the Allies, the United States and Britain, by bombing Pearl Harbor in 1941, I thought that military success would continue under the power of our beloved Emperor. Of course, this was not true at all. I thought that we could continue expanding territory in southeast Asia, even though I did not like the war at all.
Q: Did you lose any of your relatives?
A: Fortunately, my husband came back, but his brother was killed during his service in the Japanese Navy.
Q: What did you think of Emperor Hirohito during and after the war?
A: We were taught that the Imperial Family were the descendants of Amaterasu, the Goddess of the Sun. Everyone thought that under Hirohito we would be successful in the war. After the surrender, everyone realized that the Emperor was just a single human being, just like us, and he was looked upon as a normal person.
Q: What did you think of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
A: I was horribly shocked when I heard that the U.S. had dropped an atomic bomb in Hiroshima, because although I was not directly affected, I cared for those innocent victims killed by the bomb. I was very angry towards the Americans, but I later understood that it was the only option the Americans had in order to end the war.