E11C, Judy Lam ‘94 , Lam Jin Sung, Grandmother, 1923, Gunma, Yokohama: Naka-ku, Nishi-ku
I interviewed my grandmother on December 1, 1992. She is my father’s mother and is 69 years old.
Q: How old were you during World War II?
A: I was 16 when it started [in Europe] and 22 when it ended. I got married at the age of 18 and gave birth to two sons. [The younger son is my father.]
Q: Where were you living then?
A: Our family had a Chinese restaurant in Yokohama, and I lived in Tsuruya-chō, near Yokohama Station. In the beginning, there was no reason to evacuate (sokai) to a more rural area, since the bombing was not yet that severe, but later on in 1944 I was forced to escape to Takasaki in Gunma prefecture with my two sons, because the situation was getting worse. Then the Yokohama Daikūshū (Fire-Bombing Air Raid) happened in May 1945, but fortunately my husband survived. He joined us in Takasaki after that incident.
Q: Did you experience worry and fear during the separation from your husband?
A: Oh, yes, of course. We were separated for about half a year, and just couldn’t bear those long hours trying to picture him in Yokohama alone, attending to his business. There was an expectation that men could not escape during bombings because they were supposed to protect their properties while the women and children ran away. Well, anyway, when I heard of the Yokohama Air Raid, every second I dreaded hearing about the death of my husband and brother, since he was also in Yokohama at the time. I could not get any sleep from worrying about them. At that time, there was a popular fortune-teller in Takasaki, so I decided to ask her about my family. I can still remember every single word she said to me, because I was so anxious. According to her, my husband was safe and ran away in time, but my poor brother was injured. He went back into his house to get something that he had forgotten, so when he came out he had no choice but to go into the bōkūgō (air raid shelter, a kind of hole in the ground). Luckily he only got a burn on his cheek and no other major injury. Now that I think about it, I wonder how the fortune-teller knew exactly what happened, but at the time all I could feel was relief and comfort.
Q: What was daily life like during the bombing?
A: It was something that I would never want to experience again. Every day was just hell, full of hunger, fear, and worry. There wasn’t even one tiny bit of a pleasant memory. The bombings (kūshū) happened every night while I was still in Yokohama and only a little less frequently in Takasaki. During the daytime, I had to work in my restaurant, but there was never enough food to feed ourselves. Then we retired late in the evening, and just as we dozed off, the air raid siren would go off, and we had to get up immediately and run for our lives. The siren was a symbol of danger, when the enemy was coming, and terror, and despair. I saw those bombs being dropped from a distance, like a shining star falling on the ground, only that it wasn’t romantic at all. Then the enormous noise that the explosions caused was unbearable. Meanwhile, planes were flying overhead, but I never got a chance to look up because I was too busy trying to stay alive. During the Yokohama Daikūshū, I saw people dying by jumping into the boiling hot river and those who were shot by machine guns [from the P-51 fighter planes]. It was a terrifying sight.
Q: What was the situation in Takasaki like compared to Yokohama?
A: It was better because of the protection of the Gunma Kannon-sama [a statue of Kannon, the Buddhist deity of mercy], which was so huge that the American planes couldn’t get through. Therefore there weren’t as many bombings. I remember a time when my younger son had a fever, and on the night the siren went off, so we had to turn off our lights and escape to the park, where I put a blanket over him. After the bombings, he no longer had the fever, because he sweated so much.
Q: How did you feel at the end of the war?
A: I had never been so happy and relieved in my life when I heard the announcement of the end of the war, even though the Japanese were grieving because they had lost!