B10, Miki Ōshima ‘86, Mrs Nagata, Grandmother, c 1920, Kyōto
In May 1985, I interviewed my maternal grandmother, Mrs Nagata, about Kyōto during the war. She was born around 1920 and was already married with young children during the worst years of the war.
Q: What was the experience that made the strongest impression on you?
A: I clearly remember that, when the air raid siren went off, we turned off all of the lights of our house, and we hid quietly in the air raid shelter (bōkūgō) until the sound of the enemy planes had faded away.
Q: What started the war?
A: It was a chain of wars, first against China (the Manshū-jihen, the Shanghai-jihen, and the Shina-jihen), and then against America (the Dai-Tō-A Sensō).
Q: When did these occur?
A: The Manchurian Incident (Manshū-Jihen) began on September 18 in Shōwa 6-nen (1931), and it led to the other events. Then the Greater East Asia War (Dai-Tō-A Sensō) started in Shōwa 16-nen (1941). This whole war lasted for 14 years. The war finally ended on August 15 in Shōwa 20-nen (1945).
Q: What was your daily life like?
A: Our major problems were food, clothing, and shelter. Living in the city, we lacked rice and vegetables, so everyone had to travel into the countryside with knapsacks to buy provisions for storage. I had relatives in Shiga prefecture, so that was an advantage for me. I could stay there with my relatives.
Q: What happened to the city of Kyōto?
A: The houses in the middle of the city were torn down, so that there would be less fire and damage if the enemy dropped bombs on the city. Therefore the number of people living in the city decreased.
Q: Where did all of them go?
A: Children were sent to the countryside for safety, in a shūdan sokai (group evacuation). They were separated from their parents so that they could continue their education. They couldn’t go to school during the war, so they lived as a group in a Buddhist temple and studied together. Their lives were not easy. They starved, and there were fleas everywhere.
Q: Why didn’t you send your children to the shūdan sokai?
A: I was a non-conformist on that point. I wanted to stay with my children, since we might die anyway. Your mother was too young to go to school, and I didn’t send my older son or daughter to the countryside either. I took all of my children with me to my relatives’ house in Shiga. When we moved, we took as little luggage as possible, and we safely reached our destination.
We were never short of food, because our area produced rice. We often bartered rice for o-chawan (rice bowl) and chopsticks, with our neighbours back in Kyōto. This was kept secret, since there was a shortage of rice in the city. People had to line up to buy a limited amount, because there wasn’t enough to feed everyone. There was a black market business which sold rice to people at a very high price. They bought it because they were starving. The black market delivered the rice by hiding it in their pockets and haramaki (stomach band), but if they were caught by the police, they were treated violently.
Q: How did you feel?
A: I felt sorry for the small children who lacked food and had to live so far away from their parents.
Q: How did you get along with your neighbors?
A: All of our neighbors helped each other to get through the worst conditions. We practiced drills in case of disasters from enemy attacks.
Q: How did you get through this?
A: I did not lose my hope for victory, no matter what. My determination to prevent the worst results kept me strong and eager to fight back against my fears.
Q: What was the result of the war for you?
A: So many people were killed. I am one of the women who lost their husbands in the war. Wars should never ever happen again.