K07, Marina Ōhashi ‘02, Shinpei Ōhashi, Grandfather, 1929, Yokohama: Nishi-ku
I interviewed my grandfather, who lives close to me. His name is Shinpei Ōhashi, and he is 71 years old now. I interviewed him in his shop, Ōhashi Shōten, on November 8, 2000.
I started off the conversation by asking the question, “Do you remember the time during World War II?” He said yes, and he started his story. He was 12 years old when this war started. He still remembers when he was at his middle school, and on December 8, 1941, he heard that Japan was going to war against the United States. Because he was 12 years old, he couldn’t comprehend this incident. At the time, he thought that Japan was strong and never even thought that Japan might lose. He went to school for another two years after the outbreak of the war, but after that students couldn’t stay in school. They were taken to the factories, and the factory workers were sent to the battlefield as soldiers. This was called kinrō hōshi, which means the service provided by physical labor. The factories were making equipment for the war.
During the first year of the war, Japan dominated the Allied Powers: for example, the attack on Pearl Harbor and the invasions of Southeast Asia. He thought that Japan would win, but the war potential was far greater in the U.S.
On May 29, 1945, while he was working, there was a massive air raid on Yokohama by B-29s, a type of combat plane. They dropped a lot of bombs, and his factory was also bombed. The substitute teacher tried to put out the fires using a water bucket. But it was impossible for them to do it, so they were ordered to escape to a safer place. The factory was located at what is now called Hamamatsu-chō in Nishi-ku. Everywhere was on fire, and the air was filled with smoke. Because of the amount of smoke, he wet his handkerchief, put it over his mouth and nose, and crawled under the smoke. He reached the crossroads of Hamamatsu-chō and turned onto the road to Hodogaya. He ran up the hill to a place called Kubo-chō. Because the altitude was high, and there were no skyscrapers then, he saw Yokohama burning in front of him. Everything was covered with fire, and he waited for the fires to be put out before he returned to his house. But there was nothing left except the roof, made of an iron sheet coated with tin, called totan ita, and the pillars. Most houses in those days were built of wood, so they burned easily.
Nothing was left there. At the same time when he came to the house, his father came back from a factory in Yokosuka, to check on his house. There was nothing left for them, so they went to one of their relatives in Isogo for shelter. After a few months they went back to the factory to clean the machines, to try to make them work again.
The Japanese military thought that the Americans would attack the territory at Honshū, but on August 6 and 9, the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Emperor surrendered on August 15, 1945, because he feared that all of the Japanese nation would be destroyed. The soldiers gave up their guns, and the Americans controlled Japan.
I asked him about the time when he was most horrified. He described when the incendiary bombs (shōidan) were dropped just a few meters away from him. There were people dying by being directly hit by the bombs.
He was separated from his grandmother, his mother, his sister Teruko, and his two brothers, Matsu and Mikio. They were still too young. The three brothers and sisters were still elementary students. They left Yokohama and were evacuated to the hometown of his grandmother, which was Isawa in Yamanashi prefecture. But luckily all of them were already in Isawa during the air raid.
After the war my grandfather was living in a shanty made by piling up sheets of totan ita (galvanized iron). After the war ended in 1945, he was 16 years old, which is exactly the age when teenage boys eat a lot, but he couldn’t eat and was hungry all the time. There were some days which he couldn’t eat at all, and water was the only thing to take in. The most frequent food for him was sweet potatoes and potatoes. It was impossible for him to eat rice for more than a year, and it was not a common food for more than two to three years. He had no relatives dying in the war, and he is glad that there were none.
By interviewing my grandfather, the relationship between us became deeper than before. He was enthusiastic about talking about this topic, and he even asked me to go with him to all the temples in Kamakura and other parts of Japan. It was a really interesting topic for me, because I could imagine what he had experienced. The terror of the war exceeded my imagination, and it sounded more realistic listening to a real human than reading a book about it.