S06U, Lynn Stevenson Hatayama ‘18, Seiichi Hatayama, Grandfather, 1941, Terue Hatayama, Grandmother, 1942, Nagano, Kanagawa-ken: Odawara
I interviewed both of my maternal grandparents separately on October 30, 2016, at their house.
Seiichi Hatayama, 75 years old, is my grandfather. First I asked him how old he was during World War II and the U.S. Occupation, and where he lived. He said that he was born on December 9, 1941, one day before war between the U.S. and Japan was officially declared, so he was still a child during the war. Thus was also the reason for his name, Seiichi 征一. He commented on how the kanji for his name was particularly reflective of the mood of the people at that time. The first kanji 征 has meanings such as to “conquer” or “subjugate”, and the second kanji 一 (“one”) suggested that there was one path or truth. He also mentioned a friend who had the name of 加都子(Katsuko), the first two kanji roughly meaning “to add or increase a metropolis,” reflecting the expansionist attitude of Japan at the time.
As to where he lived, my grandfather grew up in a small village called Iiyama in Nagano Prefecture, which affected how his life went during the war and Occupation. He said his family was in the gasoline business as well as salt, and he would trade those for rice during the war. Generally there wasn’t a lot of food, but no one was starving, as it was a completely rural area where people grew their own food. He mentioned that it was a place where many people from large cities came to evacuate, and he remembers them building their own places to live. About four of them actually stayed on even after the war ended. Living in a small village, my grandfather did not experience any air strikes. He only saw planes flying overhead and saw bombing in the far distance, and so he didn’t really feel the imminence of the war in that aspect. When I asked about family, he said that no one of his family participated in the war and that his father was part of the small village guard but not much more.
However, he did remember a shortage of clothing that was much dire than his food situation. He remembers having only one set of his uniform and nothing much to change into, and that his uniform sleeve got worn down from his wiping his nose on the sleeve so often, but that there was no way to replace it. In the winter, he commented, it was cold, but there was no way they could acquire an overcoat, so they actually fixed up one of his grandfather’s old army jackets to wear. Additionally, he remembers always wearing geta (wooden clogs), sometimes making them out of rubber (from tires) and that, unless you were quite wealthy, no one had proper shoes during the war.
When asked about school, he responded that there were a lot of female teachers, as the men had all gone off to war, and many of them did not come back. He described that during the war, the children from the buraku [a separate area of the village for the hereditary outcastes] brought soba (buckwheat noodles) for their lunches. He said that, in that time period, soba was technically less valued than rice and seen as a lesser substitute. He and the other village children were at first envious of the children with soba lunches, but later realized that they were simply too poor to bring rice and remembers those children as being rather embarrassed at having to bring soba.
Additionally, during the Occupation, he remembers how the U.S., wanting Japanese children to get proper nutrition, gave all of the schools skimmed milk, but the children hated it. He also mentioned that troops would sometimes come to his village in their Jeeps and apply DDT to the children to help treat their lice. It helped the itching but smelled quite bad. In the end, he reflected on how his location really affected how he was able to live. Although he met many people who had lost family to the war, he never really had gone through it himself because the war didn’t really ever feel that imminent, living in the countryside.
Terue Hatavama, aged 74, is my grandmother. She was born after the war started, and so her experiences were also those of as a child, but she lived in Odawara, quite different from my grandfather and much closer to major cities during the war. She remembers there being a lot of fervor about the victories of the Army and propaganda everywhere, in music and posters. She also mentioned that there was a lot of thought control, with the radio always crowing about supposed news of victories.
One event she remembered quite clearly, even as a child, was one of many trips to Tōkyō to a hospital, as she was a somewhat sickly young girl. She remembers that suddenly, while in the hospital, there was an air strike, and that they had to hide within a safe area in the hospital as the sirens wailed. She wasn’t hurt that time, but she still remembers the fear that ran through her as a child. Additionally, she had even closer encounters with air strikes back in her home area ofOdawara, mentioning that her family always sheltered in a bunker at a temple, carrying their zukin (a quilted head covering) for protection as the air strikes went on. She also described her mother bringing rationed food such as peanuts in aluminum cans and simmered soy beans. She admitted that as a child, she actually looked forward to the air strikes as she loved the soy beans so much. After one to two hours, they would emerge, and my grandmother recalled that she very clearly remembered that once, coming out of the bunker, she could see a part of the city bright red, blazing with fire. The reason Odawara was hit by bombs despite not being a really major city was that the U.S. bombers flew over the area using Mt. Fuji as a landmark, and then they flew onto Tōkyō from there, dropping bombs along the way. She added that her mother also mentioned an instance where the head of a mother, carrying her baby, was knocked off by a bomb, but that the child had survived and further felt the losses of war. She said that it was quite a shock as a young child, seeing how the airstrikes were so destructive and painful.
On the subject of food, my grandmother and her family had quite a hard time with it, often making trips on foot with her mother to the countryside to get vegetables because there were simply no people to even bring it into the cities. She remembers having to walk along the railroad tracks to the nearest villages. It was quite scary, especially in tunnels, when a train would suddenly pass through and she would have to jump to the side and press herself against the tunnel wall as the train sped past.
The food that my grandmother’s family traded for necessities was fish. My grandmother’s hometown was a fishing village, so she remembers that there was never a shortage of fish, as opposed to other food. With this surplus of fish, my grandmother’s family traded it for vegetables in the aforementioned villages, or her father would go to the black market in Shimbashi and trade it for extremely good rates with restaurant owners, who were desperate for good fish. She added that on the way back from one of these trips, her father told her that he had encountered a freight car that was laden with sugar and that everyone was stealing sugar from it, because it was such a rare luxury during and immediately after the war.
On the subject of sugar, my grandmother remembers going to Hakone (after the war) with her family and seeing the U.S. Army officers who had come for vacation barbecuing nearby while she ate simple rice balls with her family. My grandmother remembers the soldiers giving her canned white peaches, and she emphasized how delicious and amazing they were to her. She had never had anything so sweet, and it was her first time eating anything like it.
Finally, she mentioned how her uncle had actually joined the military and died at the Battle of Iwō-jima. She remembers it being quite a shock to her family, and quite sorrowful, especially as her grandfather had only two sons. My grandmother’s father himself had almost gone to war, assigned to numerous training camps within the country for a while (thanks to the influence of their neighbor and friend, a high-ranking officer of the Kenpeitai, or military police). He had avoided actually fighting, because the war had ended while he was still in the camps.
However, he had received a Yose-gaki Hinomaru, or a Japanese flag signed by all of his male friends and family when he was sent off to training. My great-grandfather never took it to war but returned home with it. The actual flag, with the phrase praying for the “everlasting military fortune” of my great-grandfather as he set off to the military along the top. The phrase along the bottom of the red circle was quite interesting too, reading “Pax Anglo-Americano Contra.” The meaning that I gleaned from it was somewhere along the lines of “Anti-Anglo-American Peace.”
My grandmother reflected on how the war crippled the Japanese industry, as most of the skilled craftsmen of any field had all died and left the next generation of entrepreneurs with barely any guidance, and how futile it was for Japan to try and win over the U.S.A., with such a difference in natural resources.