G07, Aiko Nakamura ‘99, Shigeru Suzuki, Grandfather, 1921, Tōkyō, Chiba
I interviewed my maternal grandfather about World War II on November 15, 1997. His name is Shigeru Suzuki, and he is 76 years old, living in Tōkyō.
My grandfather was 16 years old when World War II began. He was studying to be a teacher. He first heard about the war on the radio, before he left home in the morning of December 8, 1941. There was a military training class, besides the usual classes in the curriculum. When he became 17, he had also undergone military training in Chiba for one week.
As time passed, the war situation had become worse. His school life gradually changed to military training or work on farms or in factories. All men over 20 years old had to join the Army unless they had an illness. Also, if you were a student, you could be deferred. However, the Army needed more soldiers, so he had to enlist before he graduated from school. He was assigned to a military academy in Chiba for officer training in May 1945.
During the war, the most frightening event was the attacks by American B-29 bombers. He lived in Tōkyō and experienced the largest air raids of the war, including on the night of March 9-10, 1945. He was on his way back home from his aunt’s house in Kita-Senju, and there was an air raid siren. He was surprised and scared, but he managed to return to his home in Ōtsuka. The sky was red, and there were loud explosions all night. The next day, he had to work at the factory, so he left home with his friend. However, the trains were stopped, so they had to get off at Kanda Station. Then they decided to walk.
Around Ryōgoku, he saw a lot of dead bodies, which he at first thought were store mannequins. The bodies were burned, and their skin was red. As they kept on walking, they saw more and more corpses. They felt frightened and uncomfortable, but they continued going. After they passed Kinshi-chō Station, there were burned human bodies and horses. They had to walk on top of the dead bodies, because the street was full of them. There were hungry children evacuating from this area, so my grandfather gave them his lunch, although he was also hungry.
They finally managed to get to the factory, but it was all burned down. So they again walked to Hibiya and took a streetcar to Shibuya, and then a train back home. It took almost a whole day. The miserable scenes that he saw were stuck in his mind vividly, and he could not eat for several days.
There was another air raid on the night of April 12, 1945. A bomb dropped near his house, and he and his father put out the fire. But other houses nearby started to burn, so his mother and his sister and younger brothers decided to evacuate. They promised that wherever they went, they would return by the next morning. He and his father tried to put out the first around his house. They were already out of control. Therefore they evacuated, along with many other people. The next morning, they returned and found that their house was completely burned. Fortunately, his family were all safe.
On May 8, 1945, he entered the military academy as a special officer candidate. He trained hard every day. Although the food was bad, mealtimes were the only joyful times he had. In school, students received cigarettes as rations. However, the rules were very strict, and they were not allowed to go outside the academy.
On August 15, 1945, all of the students were ordered to wear formal uniforms, and there was an assembly which announced the end of the war. Japan had finally surrendered after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the assembly, all of the weapons that the students had, such as knives, were confiscated, so that they could not commit suicide. Then they were sent off to go home.
During the war, the government spread propaganda, so that people had a bad impression of Americans. There were very few people who actually knew any Americans, so most people believed the propaganda. They were taught that Americans were their enemy, and that they had to fight against them. Now more than 50 years have passed since the war ended, and there are more chances of meeting Americans and going overseas. My grandfather says that he had the wrong image of Americans during the war. There are many things about the U.S. which Japanese should learn. He finds my international school interesting too.
Most people in Japan now have never experienced war. He says that the time we live in now is very fortunate and precious, compared to the time during the war. We have freedom of speech and action, which no one had during the war. War is the worst thing that ever happens, and it destroys everything. But it is very difficult to abandon wars. What we need to do is learn from the past. He says if we stop learning about war, there could be another big conflict. So although war is what people want to forget, we have to learn from those who experienced it.