N08I, Manish Ramiah ‘07, Kinko Kaitō, Family friend, 1929, Tōkyō, Niigata
On Saturday, October 29, 2005, I interviewed Mrs Kinko Kaikō, a survivor of World War II about her personal experiences during the war. She lives near our house, and my mother often meets her on the way to Nishi-Nippori Station, where they chat a while whenever they meet. Kaitō-san has three children, one daughter (the eldest, who is presently living in the U.S.) and two sons (both living in Tōkyō). Her husband passed away three years ago, and now she lives alone in the house they built 50 years ago. It was very educational listening to the tough experiences people had during the war.
I prepared a set of questions as follows. With my mother’s help, I recorded the answers. Following are my questions and Kaitō-san’s answers after translation in English.
Q: How old were you during World War II? Where did you live during the time when Tōkyō was bombed?
A: Mrs Kaitō was 16 years old and lived with her parents in Senju in Adachi-ku, northeastern Tōkyō. It was Shōwa 16 (1941) when the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor was announced in her residential area. People were called to assemble on December 8, 1941. She clearly remembered that she had done well in her exams that day. However, Tōkyō was bombed on March 9 and on April 13, 1945.
Q: How was transportation disrupted during the war?
A: She told me that the warplanes would drop incendiary bombs to burn up the area, and then drop the explosive bombs on areas not previously destroyed. After her house was burnt down, she and her father went to her father’s hometown, Nagaoka, in the interior of Niigata. She could not say how she reached there. She wondered how “we reached Niigata, with no transportation, no proper facilities, everyone jumping through the windows, and it was not possible to even go to the toilet.” For many years, her family stayed in Niigata. Her mother and brother had left for Niigata before the bombing started, and she and her father joined them after Tōkyō was bombed and their house was completely burned down.
Q: How did the war affect your family members and others in the area?
A: Her house was burned down in the second bombing. There was a river next to her house. When the bombing took place, everyone was ordered to jump into the river, but it was very cold, and many people who jumped into the river died. She did not jump, because she could not swim, and the water was very cold. Instead, she decided to stay on land, but it was difficult to keep her eyes open because of the chemical vapors around. Her father prevented her from taking refuge in the barracks, and fortunately she was saved. Many who took shelter there were killed as the barracks were bombed. No one had expected the bombing would take place in the residential area.
As people were busy during the day earning their livelihood, the Japanese Army came in the night and called people out for emergency drills (bōkū kunren).They were expecting fire breakouts and tried to train the people to deal with fire. All that training was futile as there were no facilities for people to take refuge. Their house and many others in the area got burnt.
Dead bodies were loaded onto trucks and carried away quite swiftly, not allowing the living ones to see or respect the dead. Luckily for her, her family and friends survived, but many in the area were killed.
Q: Did you face any shortage of basic needs during the war?
A: Food was in great shortage. People survived on pumpkins. The number of orphans increased and since people were not able to take baths, many were affected by shirami (lice). She lived in Niigata, and was very blessed. People in Tōkyō had to buy fresh water, they were not able to take baths, and when they would go to the sentō (public baths), their belongings might be stolen. She wondered what was the point in having emergency drills that did not help them to protect themselves from the bombing, but then no one imagined the residential areas would be bombed, and perhaps the Army had not given a serious thought about the possibilities of a war.
Even after the war, the medical facilities were very poor, as many hospitals were also burned down. There was no medicine, and many people were infected by shirami. The American soldiers sprayed them with DDT. It was a horrible lawless situation: people could not even take baths, the bathhouses would open only rarely, and people had to bribe them to be able to take a bath.
After two or three years, she came back to Tōkyō and lived in Horikiri, in Katsushika-ku in northeastern Tōkyō, where her first child was born. Financially, everyone was in a difficult situation and had no time to think of anything else but surviving. Although most lived in poor conditions and took many years to recover, there were some who made money through illegal activities during that critical period.
Her parents and her family stayed there for nearly ten years after that. When she came back to Tōkyō, she could not meet her friends as everyone was spread out. The area continued to be in the same state as it was after the bombing. Some people tried to repair the burned houses and lived there, but there was a lot of looting, and people tried to steal and occupy other’s houses by force. For survival, some women would sell their kimono to buy grain, but on their way back, the grain would be looted.
Her husband was working in the administration section of the Army. After the war, he worked for a coal company, and although they did not have a lavish lifestyle, they suffered much less. A few years later in 1955, they built their present house.
Q: Were many in your neighborhood directly affected by the bombing?
A: Kōtō-ku in eastern Tōkyō was the worst affected. There were no refuge places, and no provisions were made for helping people. They had to find their own shelter. Fortunately for her, her family were able to evacuate to Nagaoka city in Niigata prefecture, far away from the areas experiencing war, and they did not even feel that other parts of the country were in such a critical situation. Her father’s family in Niigata had rice farms, and food was not a problem. They could not believe that people in Tōkyō were facing such a problem.
Q: How did your family members and friends recover after the war?
A: Her family was well protected and better off. Her husband worked for a coal company. Fortunately for her, she got married, and then returned to Tōkyō. Her parents and siblings continued to live in Niigata. It was not possible to find a job, as no jobs were available.
After the war, the American soldiers confiscated valuable property, so people buried their valuables underground, but the U.S. Army metal detectors could detect them, and their belongings would be taken away.
Q: How was employment affected during the war?
A: Healthy adults and some high school and university students were employed. The elderly and sick were left out. All the men were taken to the war front; hence, many women remained unmarried. No one had time to even lament over their personal losses. The government collected items from the people, saying that it would be used for the war. But most of these items would be kept and sold; thus they made money for themselves. After the war the schools had no facilities, as the structures were burned down, and her kids could not go to school as the conditions were really unhygienic.
Q: What is your personal message to the present world?
A: It’s difficult to give any message, but definitely there should not be any repetition of that war. I feel extremely surprised that present-day children have no knowledge and are ignorant of the hardships their ancestors went through during the war period, nor do they value their experiences. I feel pained to hear of the illegal incidents that some present-day teenagers are involved in, and I expect that these children will be more responsible and aware of their duties. Some in Japanese society feel that it was good Japan lost in the war, as it taught them a very important lesson. Some others feel that, had they not experienced the loss, the Army would have become very arrogant. But above all, there should never be any war anywhere.