J01, Reina Baker-Yoshino ‘01, Kiyoe Nakamura, Grandmother, 1925, Ehime, Tōkyō
I interviewed my maternal grandmother about her experiences during World War Il. Her name is Kiyoe Nakamura. She is 73 years old and will turn 74 on November 20, 1999. I interviewed her at home, because we live together, and I found out things that I never knew about her life.
When World War II started, she was attending high school in Yawatahama and later in Matsuyama, both in Ehime prefecture. After this she went to a vocational school at Ōmori in Tōkyō to study biology. From her second year in Tōkyō, she began to have less and less time to study. She had to go to Itabashi to work at a currency printing factory called Toppan Insatsu. She also went to a steel factory in Kamata to drill holes in nuts.
There was very little food in Tōkyō. The lunch at school was far less than adequate, and there was hardly any food on the store shelves in Tōkyō. She once went to Ginza to buy food, but all the stores had were cigars and bananas. She managed to get along with food received from her hometown.The water supply was very limited. They could not flush their toilets, and as a result it was very unsanitary. Those who became sick and were unable to work were forced to leave Tōkyō and return to their hometowns. Her only source of recreation was music. She used to play the piano at school, and so she went to Hibiya Kōkaidō, a public hall, to listen to concerts.
In late 1944, the United States Army Air Force started bombing Tōkyō. As the bombing escalated,those who were supposed to sound the alarm for the arrival of the U.S. bombers, ran away, and the bombings started without any warning. From her school dormitory, she saw the nearby elementary school burning. She did not feel afraid, and she was able to stay calm, but there were people around her who were screaming and seemed to have lost their minds. She started running in the same direction as the other people, and they arrived at a lake next to a temple, Ikegami Hongan-ji. She soaked a blanket in the lake water and covered herself with it to protect herself from the burning debris which was flying all over the place. She stayed there all night, and when morning finally came, she started walking back towards her school dormitory. All the houses along the way were burned flat to the ground. When she arrived at the school, the hospital was still burning, and she helped together with many other people to relay buckets of water to the hospital to put out the fire.
She felt it was no longer safe to remain in Tōkyō. She applied for a risai shōmeishō (bombing victim certificate), because she had no money, and this certificate was necessary to get on the train. She walked many hours on the railway tracks from Ōmori to Shinjuku station, which was the closest place she could get on a train to go home. She boarded the train from Shinjuku to Atsugi and then from Atsugi to Odawara. She needed to get on the long-distance train from Odawara to Onomichi, but this train was so crowded that she had to climb in through a window. She finally got to Onomichi, where she had to spend the night. The inn where she stayed had no food to serve, but she had some uncooked rice which she had received from a friend in Tōkyō, so she was able to cook it and eat it.
The next day she took a ferry to Imabari and got on a train again at last to Yawatahama. On the way to Yawatahama, she met a friend at Matsuyama station, who had nowhere to go because her hometown Matsuyama had been bombed. My grandmother did not know if her home was safe either at that time, so she left her there. She regrets that decision even today.
Finally she arrived home and found her house safe as well. There was plenty to eat at home, because her house was a liquor store, and people brought food to exchange for sake. She stayed at home until the war ended in August 1945. She still played the piano at a nearby elementary school even after she had gone home.
After I heard her experiences, I understood many things that I never knew. My grandmother still plays the piano today, and I realized that the piano is a very important part of her life. Also, although she did not cry when I interviewed her, I think that I saw her eyes were sad. It made me feel that her experience was very tough. She said that she would never want to experience the war again. She also hates Emperor Shōwa because he did not stop the war earlier, and I thought that that was a good enough reason. Although I am sure there are people who had worse physical experiences during World War II, I realized that my grandmother also was hurt psychologically. I thought that this was a great opportunity for me to know more about my grandmother.