J11, Naho Yamada ‘01, Masako Yamada, Grandmother, 1925,Yokohama: Naka-ku
I interviewed my paternal grandmother, Masako Yamada, who is 74 years old, at my house on Friday night, October 29, 1999.
Until 1942, the Japanese Army and Navy were conquering the Asia-Pacific area rapidly. But after the Battle of Midway took place in June 1942, when Japan lost four aircraft carriers, the military had to change its offensive operations to defensive operations, and the U.S. Army Air Force started to bomb Japan in 1944. The first bombing of Tōkyō took place on November 24, 1944, and bombing continued until August 15, 1945. Japanese cities were bombed over 110 times.
Q: What were you doing on December 7, 1941, the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor?
A: I was sixteen years old at that time. When I woke up, I heard the news that the Japanese Navy had attacked Pearl Harbor, and Japan was now at war with America, Britain, France, and Holland. I was very surprised to hear that. I learned about the war in school. The principal of my school, Yokohama Eiwa Jogakkō, was American, and we had a few American teachers. Everyone in school wondered what the teachers were going to do now that the war had started.
Q: What did the teachers say?
A: They said that they would probably go back to the United States. They were surprised too. They said that they wanted to stay in Japan. But the next year, in April 1942, they were sent back home. All the foreigners in Japan were sent back home.
Q: What happened to the school after the teachers left?
A: The number of lessons were reduced, and we had to go work in the military factories. We wrote letters and packed other things, like omamori (amulets for good fortune), into packages for the soldiers. Japan was not losing at that point, until the Battle of Midway, and many battles were occurring in other countries, so many schools were still teaching students. But from the end of 1943, the supply of rice and other food ran short, and everything was under the government distribution system. Everything was rationed: every month we only received a certain amount of food, and it was not enough. Every day, our family only shared one bowl (ochawan) of rice. Since it was not enough, we added potatoes to rice.
Q: Were potatoes distributed too?
A: That was only in the beginning, and later they stopped distributing potatoes, and gave us the kind of food that was fed to horses. They gave us sake lees and scum of potatoes, and we mixed them in food. We also put pumpkin vines into the rice. No meat, no fish. But my parents exchanged their kimono for meat and fish at the black market.
Q: When did the war get worse?
A: When I was seventeen [in 1942], Japan was not losing. It was when I was about 19 years old that Japan started to lose and were pressured by the U.S. Japan was not bombed until 1944.
Q: Then you must have graduated from school in April 1944.
A: Yes, and the next year the war ended. I really wanted the war to end, no matter what. I was really scared of the bombs, and I always hoped that the war would end.
Q: Did you dig air raid shelters?
A: We asked someone else to make a shelter for us. That was after I had graduated from school.
Q: Who made the shelters?
A: They were similar to carpenters. They built it in our yard.
Q: Wasn’t it too small?
A: But three or four people would fit in there. When it rained, it flooded, and everything that we stored in the shelter would come flowing out. It was useless, so we went to a shelter up in the mountains during bombing raids. The bombings around my neighborhood were after the Great Tōkyō Air Raid [on March 9-10, 1945]. Before that, the U.S. planes did not bomb residential areas; they only bombed military factories. It was very scary to walk home at night, especially on nights when there was no moonlight.
Q: Did the U.S. bomb Japan mostly at night?
A: I think they did in other places. Yokohama was bombed during the day on May 29, 1945.
Q: How did people survive the bombings?
A: Some people would go back to their houses in the countryside, to be somewhere safe where there was no bombing. Some people lived like beggars on the streets. Children were sent to temples or schools in the countryside to survive the bombings.
Q: What happened to your parents?
A: My father lost his job. He was a stockbroker.
Q: Then how did you get food?
A: We sold our valuable things to the rich people. In Takigashira [Isogo-ku], there were many American prisoners at a PoW camp. My father was asked to be one of the guards, but he quit this job after a day or two, because he couldn’t stand to see the prisoners starving to death. I heard a story from my father that one prisoner asked him for a cigarette. My father felt very sorry for him and gave one to that man. The prisoner thanked my father with tears in his eyes. My father had to hit the prisoners if they stopped working. How could they work when they were not given enough food? My father couldn’t do such cruel things, so he quit his new job.
Q: What were these prisoners working on?
A: They had to make taika renga, bricks that would not burn in fire.
Q: Would you please describe the bombing of Yokohama?
A: It was around noon when the B-29 bomber planes came to Yokohama. It seemed as if the black clouds had covered the sky. When they bombed, many people ran to the river. But then P-51 fighter planes came and shot everyone who escaped to the river. First the B-29s would bomb the buildings, and afterwards the P-51s followed, “cleaning up” the people. I did not actually see people getting shot at the river. I was hiding in a graveyard. I could hear those sounds of the machine guns, repeated many many times. When I came back home after the bombing, I found that our house had survived the bombing.
Near my house there was Aoki Hospital. Many people with severe injuries came to the hospital, screaming in pain. I was watching these people coming to the hospital. There were people without skin on their faces. There was a long line in front of the hospital. Many people were on trucks too. Many people were covered with blood. It was like a nightmare. I really wanted the war to end.
Three months after the great bombing of Yokohama, Japan surrendered and the war ended. The great bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led Japan to surrender. I heard that these great bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so we all thought that the war would end soon. On August 15, 1945, it was very hot that day. I heard Emperor Hirohito announcing on the radio that the war had ended.
Q: What happened after the war?
A: Many people believed that the U.S. would invade Japan. My father was very afraid that this would happen. A fleet of ships of the U.S. Navy came to Yokohama on August 31, and they took over Yokohama. We saw many American soldiers in the streets, and many Japanese children would go up to them and ask for chocolates. The next year, I found a job as an assistant in the U.S. military office in Yokohama. Since I worked there, I was able to buy cigarettes and wine at low prices.
Q: What do you think would have happened if the war had still continued?
A: If the war had continued a little longer, I would have been killed, which means that you would not have been born. I know I was very lucky to survive the war.