Wartime Memories

Prefecture: Hiroshima

  • Kaori Mayama

    B06, Kaori Mayama ‘86, Mr Imasaka, Neighbor, 1943, Burma [Myanmar], Hiroshima In May 1985, I interviewed my neighbor, Mr Imasaka, who passed on many interesting stories about the war. I was born in 1943, right here in Yokohama. I was too young to remember anything clearly about the war. But my relatives and friends had…

  • Umi Kobayashi

    S02, Umi Kobayashi ‘18, Naohisa Takata, Hibakusha, 1934, Hiroshima During the October school vacation, I went to Hiroshima and visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in front of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, with the Atomic Bomb Dome straight ahead of it. I had the perfect opportunity to listen to the experience of a Hibakusha,…

  • Miyu Kojima

    S03, Miyu Kojima ‘18, Tomō Sugisaka, Family friend, 1926, Hiroshima On November 15, 2016, I interviewed a family friend, Mr Tomō Sugisaka. He is about 90 years old. Q: What were you doing during the Second World War? A: One year before the end of the war, at around the beginning of October 1944, I…

  • Princess Okada

    T02F, Princess Okada ‘19, Sakae Okada, Grandmother, 1932, Hiroshima On October 26, 2017, I interviewed my paternal grandmother, Sakae Okada. She was born in 1932 and is 85 years old. She was only nine years old when the Pacific War between Japan and the U.S. broke out in 1941. She was born in a poor…

  • Zion Ikesue

    W01, Zion Ikesue ‘22, Masako Ōmori, Grandmother, 1944, Yamaguchi, Hiroshima I conducted this interview on October 4, 2020, by telephone (because we live over four hours away by Shinkansen from my grandmother). I’ve also tried to stick to the original language used by the interviewees before my translation into English, as it is more authentic…

  • Asako Kanzaki

    H12, Asako Kanzaki ‘00, Toshinori Kurata, 1928, Korea, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi Q: When and where were you born? A: I was born on February 18 in 1928, in Pyong’an-Pukdo (in Japanese called Heian-Kokudō), which is now North Korea. Q: Tell me about your family. A: There were 10 members in my family including myself. I had…

  • Ichitarō Ōmura

    J06, Ichitarō Ōmura ‘01, Mr Inoue, Grandfather, 1928, Kyōto, Hiroshima I interviewed Mr Inoue, who is my maternal grandfather, to learn about World War II. I heard that he was in the Naval Academy, but I didn’t hear exactly what he was doing or why he joined the Naval Academy. I rang him on Saturday…