W02, Mayu Kaneko ‘22, Masako Kaneko, Grandmother, 1937, Ōsaka
I interviewed my grandmother over the phone on Saturday, November 7th, 2020, at around 9 pm. She is currently 83 years old, and she was in Grade 3 at the end of the Second World War.
Grandmother (G): It’s been decades since the end of World War II, right? At the end of the war, we were told that the Japanese lost. But the opponents were America and England and Russia and China and almost everyone. In those circumstances, they said “we lost.” Then the other side said okay, and since then it has been 60 years, no, 70 years, no, even more.
Interviewer (I): Since the end of the war in 1945, so 75 years.
G: 75 years … oh, it was that long ago. Over half of Japan was crushed. Bombs were dropped when I was in Grade 3. After you asked to interview me, I was thinking for a bit. Adult experiences and the experiences of children were all different, as well as their thoughts. I was young, when they were fighting. So many American and British planes flew over Japan, and they had maps, so they aimed for factories and where people lived. They dropped bombs and then flew away. The Japanese Army on the ground tried with all their might to shoot them down they missed. Even if they did manage to shoot one or two planes down, there were dozens more. I’ve seen them.They came in huge numbers with a deafening roar, and they almost darkened the sky with their noise. Since children couldn’t escape alone, the elementary schools decided that those with relatives in the countryside should go there.
I: Where did you live at the beginning of the war?
G: I was living in Ōsaka, near Tennōji. People with relatives would arrange with them that their children would go live in the countryside, because adults had to work in factories. But because there were people who didn’t have relatives, and since circumstances differed from one household to another, there were children who wouldn’t be able to go to the countryside. Because the government said that Japan’s children were important, the elementary schools collected children with no relatives in the countryside and other children who couldn’t go, and they all went to the countryside together, like a field trip. On a field trip, usually you would gather at a specific place and time and come back afterwards, but because it was the middle of a war, you couldn’t say how long you would stay away from your family. Teachers also went with the children. Even if they didn’t know when they could return, children listened to the school authorities, because their lives depended on it. The teachers took them to temples in mountains, not like hotels, because of the time period. This was called shūdan sokai (mass evacuation), from the middle of the city to the countryside. The others stayed with relatives or somewhere similar, completely separated from their parents. But then food became more and more scarce. The fields were all burnt, and there would be fewer and fewer farmers, so was less and less food.
Sokai meant leaving your house and moving away to a place that you were told was safe. I had no choice but to experience it, because it was the middle of the war. And since I was just a kid, I would have been a hindrance while everyone was working, especially during the bombing.
I: Where did you go from Ōsaka?
G: I didn’t go to my elementary school’s shūdan sokai. Even though we didn’t have relatives in the countryside, one of our family friends was living in the countryside. They said it used to be an old golf course. The person whom we stayed with lived on the far edge of the golf course. So we rented that place for my parents and siblings and me. The men went to work, including my older brother, the two girls, and my mother—your parents’ grandparents, your great-grandmother.
In order to go to an elementary school, we had to transfer schools and study, even if we went to the countryside, even if it was the middle of a war. I heard later that in shūdan sokai, the temples where they stayed were turned into classrooms, and they studied there. But I went to a nearby elementary school and transferred there. Since it was in the countryside, it was very far. I trudged on and on and on, back and forth. Since there wasn’t a single town on the way, I walked all the way to school, studied there, and then went back home. There were no sports days or any other special events, because not all teachers could go, and we were all separated.
Wars should never happen. Japan lost, and even when the children returned, their houses were broken and burned down, burnt to a crisp by bombs. Some kids’ parents died. Everyone had different experiences. Wars are really terrible, so I think you should never participate in wars. Because once you experience it and see it . . . we were told that we shouldn’t say this or do that, and we had to obey the government and not ask for too much during wartime. Even after the adults started working again, it took a really long time for everything to go back to normal.
I learned that humans are animals too. There were greedy people. If everyone had thought for themselves, it would have been quite different. So I think war is the number one thing you shouldn’t do. Because humans kill each other. They should just negotiate instead. Individuals are greedy, so if countries are greedy, there will be conflict. That’s why I think war should never happen again. But there’s still conflict all around. There’s conflict with China, and North Korea is showcasing their nuclear missiles, saying “look, we have these weapons.” I think those things are meaningless.
Unlike now in Japan, there was less food because of the war. Even in gardens like the one in my house where I dry the laundry today, we grew potatoes and yams. Because the shops couldn’t sell anything. You couldn’t hand over money and buy food. At the beginning of the war, there were shops, of course—no supermarkets then, but small shops. There were yaoya-san which sold vegetables and fruits, and butchers who sold meat, and sakanaya-san where they sold fish. In the past, they were all separated. But now, after the war, maybe because of the American influence, supermarkets began to appear where you could buy everything in one place because it was convenient.
That’s what’s called the flow of time. People grow old and die, and new babies are born and grow. That’s what you call the pattern of life. But that’s more peaceful without any conflict. [Long pause] They’re all dead, but there were people older than me who experienced war, like people who lost their fathers to the war. When they turned 80 or 90, they began to die.
You’ve heard of nuclear warfare, right. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were bombed by atomic bombs, and I’ve seen people on television who say they actually saw the bomb fall from the plane. Apparently it glowed bright red as it fell. The blast was a hundred times stronger than regular bombs. Two of those bombs were dropped, and the government realised that they shouldn’t fight anymore. It was August 15, 1945, when the authorities of Japan said that they would quit the war. They should have stopped the war earlier. But apparently negotiations between two countries didn’t work. I hope that Japan becomes a place where people can say “I’m glad I’m alive during this time period”.
I was only a child when I experienced the war. I remember switching schools, similar to you transferring schools now, walking to school and going into a place where I’d never been before. I probably was very lonely. I don’t really remember the small details, I don’t think I hated moving though, because I would have remembered. I remember standing at the front of the classroom and bowing. But I’ve even forgotten the names of my teachers. I remember reading the textbooks. The curriculum was different from today. I remember doing an awful lot of taisō (exercise), though, like walking and running around the gymnasium, and reading books. There was no English class, and because it was in the middle of the war, in History class, they didn’t teach us about America. They only taught about Japan. We also didn’t draw a lot. Maybe because we didn’t have crayons or paints.
I: Did the government hand out food and living supplies?
G: Yes, yes. The schools gave us the textbooks, for example. The upperclassmen gave everything to the grade below, once they had finished using it, like textbooks. If they weren’t that damaged, there was this mentality of reusing. But the teachers would decide if they could be reused or not.
I: What about clothes?
G: If you had siblings, you would get your older siblings’ clothes once they grew out of them. There were schools which had uniforms and some schools without. Public schools didn’t have uniforms. If you had siblings, you would trim off their clothes if they were too big and adjust them to your size before you wore them. Everyone shared.
I: Did you have any terrifying experiences?
G: I was never in the middle of a bombing, but I remember if you went outside the house, you could see cities being bombed. When the planes were dropping bombs, you could see the flames like pretty fireworks. You could see the bombs falling, even though the cities were far away. Since Americans were quite advanced in that area, they already knew where to bomb. In those terms, Japan was definitely behind.
But Japan was the one that started all those wars. They should have talked it through and not started the wars. Because the whole country was at war, they couldn’t just quit. As much as you hated it, you alone couldn’t just say “I quit the war.”
I: At that time, what were your impressions of America?
G: In newspapers and books, they all described America as bad, and that our race and language were different. They didn’t teach English. But after the war we slowly realized that that was wrong, after being educated. The government banned books and information about America, England, and Russia. They only taught everyone that the other side was bad. That was education back then. That’s another reason why war is bad. Because it’s full of lies. Countries all have their faults and strengths. When I was a kid, adults said that I should simply accept everything they said, because as a child you don’t know everything. By growing up and learning, you start to understand. That’s why knowledge and learning are so important. You would realize after even a little bit of thought that that thinking was mistaken. Because even if the Americans burned people’s homes with bombs from planes, that’s just part of war, and that’s why I think war is bad. So you have to learn not just the good things, but the twisted parts of history too.
But it’s nice that Japan is now at peace.