K10, Erica Tanaka ‘02, Emiko Watanabe, Grandmother, 1933,Yokohama: Naka-ku, Kanagawa: Hakone-machi, Miyagi
On the evening of November 5, 2000, I interviewed Mrs Emiko Watanabe, my maternal grandmother. She explained in detail her experiences and her memories of World War II. She is 67 years old presently, and therefore she was in grade school, eight years old, at the start of it. The interview was held in her house, which is close to mine. We sat in the living room together, relaxed, the tape recorder ready, and began.
The first memory I asked her to bring up was her life before World War II. I thought that this was an appropriate question to ask first, because it would tell me relevant information that would later help me in comparing and contrasting it with what her life was like after the war came to an end. Also, it served as a “warm-up question,” as it might be difficult for her to remember some relevant details from many years before.
Her answer to this was that her family, consisting of her father, mother, and younger brother (who had just been born), lived peacefully with coziness. “My everyday life was very normal, with some bad times, but more happy and good times,” she said. Since her father was working in a business involving foreigners, many times German, English, and American people came to her house to eat dinner. They were friends of her father.
Then, when she was eight years old, the war began. Even then, peace still remained, and she experienced no disasters such as hunger, at this time. Gradually, conditions grew worse, and food was rationed by the government. At least money was not necessary, so they didn’t have problems with that. The German, English, and American people, including her father’s friends, had to return to their homelands, since the war had started.
In 1942, the Japanese Army conquered Singapore. She described to me how all of the Japanese were overjoyed with this, and there was a chōchin gyōretsu at night, literally a large parade of people carrying chōchin (Japanese lanterns).
My next question, which was the main one, was about her memories and experiences during the war. “By this time, World War II was a serious problem and a threat to Japan and all of its citizens,” Mrs Watanabe pronounced. It was in her sixth year of grade school when the first air raid came. Although adults, including her parents, had to stay behind, the children from the cities (such as Tōkyō or Yokohama) were evacuated (sokai) in order to protect them from the fierce bomb attacks. This was a system when only the children were taken to a part of the nation where there were fewer attacks and still quite peaceful and safe. These places usually consisted of the countryside, or rural areas.
My grandmother’s place of sokai was Yumoto, in Hakone. She stayed at a Japanese-style hotel (ryokan) with many other children. Since this had an onsen (hot spring), they never had any problems with baths or cleaning themselves. “However, since they did not have either gas or electricity, in order to eat, it was necessary to go collect wood for making fire,” she explained, “and there was not a huge amount of food. We only had one bowl of rice, plus mikan (tangerines) three times a day.”
Since she was not able to meet her parents, she would often think “What if they die, and I become an orphan?” This was her biggest fear, and probably for all of the other children as well. She would also often wonder how they were doing and feel lonely and sad without them. Some children even tried to escape, wanting to see their parents and family so badly. So every person in this sokai helped each other, by comforting and supporting one another.
Finally, a year later, Mrs Watanabe was able to come back and live together with both of her parents. In March 1945, she entered a middle school called Ferris Jogakuin School. Unfortunately, in May of the same year, Yokohama was the target of a major air raid, and it was a disaster. She remembered that the B29 airplanes were speedily soaring above, dropping many bombs that made thousands of Japanese their victims. “I still remember the sound of them when they came down,” she said, “the bombs were falling like rain.” She was extremely scared and her fear was at the greatest peak at this time of war, it seemed, from the way she was describing the event.
Since their house was burned, for safety my grandmother and her family went into a bōkūgō (air raid shelter). Although it did not provide complete protection at all, it was much better than nothing. I think that she might have been extremely scared at this time as well, since at any time a bomb attacked the bōkūgō, the family would immediately die. They (not to mention the rest of the Japanese citizens involved in the war) were really caught between “life and death.” Although they were living, with one step they could enter “death.” And that “one step” was any bomb in the air raid, which could by chance hit them.
After a while, the family left the bōkūgō to escape.“While we were running away, I saw many, many people who were injured and crying,” Mrs Watanabe continued. She and her family then arrived at a house that had not burned, and they stayed there for some time. She then described more “bitter and painful experiences.” One of her painful experiences was when her friend was going home from school, but was shot by a machine gun from a fighter plane. Especially people who used the train daily (my grandmother didn’t) were in danger, since air raids would come at any time, and the train would be shot with machine guns from P-51 fighter planes. Many other people, including her relatives, also died in war.
Another factor that she talked about was her fears. For example, when she was staying at the house that was not burned by the attack with her family, food was scarce, and everyone was starving. Also, a deadly bomb could plunge into them any minute, and that was her greatest fear at the time. Therefore, the whole family went to Komagatake in Hakone, where Mr Yamamoto, my grandmother’s father, possessed a villa. There was no attack there, but still there was barely any food, and she and her family started to starve. Therefore, her father returned to Yokohama, where there was a distribution of food and other life supplies (such as sumi, or charcoal) called haikyū, and he brought back food to his family in Hakone. With his continuous travel, including walking up the mountains, carrying the precious food, he grew weaker and weaker.
So still, there were problems with food supply, and therefore they traveled to Sendai, in Miyagi prefecture, by train. Sendai was the complete contrast to Yokohama or Hakone, and it was much safer and peaceful, as there was plenty of food and no attacks. There were also other people from cities (the majority from Tōkyō ) who had escaped and come there.
However, there were more contrasts: “I went to a girls’ school there, but there was one problem,” she said. “Although children from the cities wore leather shoes, children there wore waraji, which were shoes made of straw. Therefore, children wearing leather shoes were bullied, and the Sendai children threw small stones at them.” However, in my grandmother’s case, she had a relative in Sendai, so he helped solve the problem for her by fighting against the bullies with her. She also bought waraji to wear, and therefore was able to socialize with them. She then mentioned that she also carried a kuwa (hoe, or plow) alongside the Sendai children to help with farming. And so, the problem here was solved. It might not have been such a serious problem as hunger or starvation due to lack of food, but still, I thought that friendship and socializing were very important factors in order to have some enjoyment, to keep hope during the frightening war.
“The war finally ended on August 15th of 1945,” Mrs Watanabe said. “What was your life like after the war?” was my next question. She answered that, first of all, she was so glad and relieved that the war had finally ended, and this feeling was most probably the same for everyone else, especially the Japanese. Japan was brought back to peace, but even after the surrender, haikyū continued. Mrs Yamamoto, my grandmother’s mother, also went to farmers to trade her kimono for food such as rice, and Mr Yamamoto returned to his work. So, on many days, there were only her brother and herself in the house. Since there was haikyū of charcoal almost every day, my grandmother, as a twelve- or thirteen-year-old girl, had to go to the market right after school, receive the charcoal, and climb a hill to reach home. She remembered how exhausting it was to climb up a long hill with the heavy charcoal.
My final question was “What were your feelings before, during, and after the war, and now, explaining it to me?” She said that, before the war had started, she was still a young child who had no idea of the disaster to come, and she played every day, having fun. During the war, she was in extreme fear and uneasiness, always thinking, “What would I do if my parents die? What would happen to me and my brother? What will happen tomorrow?’ After the war ended, she felt great relief and happiness, because the whole deadly disaster had come to an end. She did not have to fear the air raids and death of anyone in her family (or herself) any more. She and her family, as well as all of the Japanese citizens who were involved in the war, didn’t have to worry so much about food anymore.
Now, talking of her memories, Mrs Watanabe thinks that nowadays Japan is so peaceful, and that I am fortunate to have been born in this time period. Also, when I asked her if she felt hatred towards Japan’s opponents, she answered, “No, because it was war. War was a fight between the countries, and not a fight between the people.”
When I asked, she started to remember some things about the war, but still, she said that she had forgotten some as well. This is because she is not captured by the past, and believes that the present is the present, and the past is gone. “I think that it was right that America won and not Japan,” Mrs Watanabe said, “because if Japan did win, then probably this country would have become like North Korea is now, where the military has power.” I have never thought about this, because I thought that remembering about the loss of this disastrous war would have been a very bitter feeling. However, my grandmother felt the opposite, and I think she has a very mature way of thinking.