J03, Shōta Miyazaki ‘01, Ikeu Mihashi, Grandmother, 1927, Yokohama: Naka-ku, Indonesia
I interviewed my grandmother for this project on November 11, 1999, at my house, because we live together. Her name is Ikue Mihashi, and she is 71 years old. She was born in 1927, in present-day Ueno-machi in Naka-ku, Yokohama
She lived with her parents, an older brother, an older sister, and a younger brother. She mainly explained to me about her memories and her experiences during World War II.
On December 8, 1941, the Dai-Tō-A Sensō (Greater East Asia War, or World War II) broke out. By 1942, the war was getting worse and worse, and Japan was starting to lose. All healthy men above age 20 were required to become soldiers. In that year, the akagami (recruitment summons) were sent by the Imperial Army. When you get this, you must become a soldier. This came to my grandmother’s older brother. Everybody in the family was shocked, but they couldn’t cry. If somebody cried, that person would be treated as hikokumin (traitor). All Japanese were supposed to fight for their country.
My grandmother and other family members sent him off by shouting “Okuni no tame ni! (For the country!)” and “Banzai.” She said she was very worried about him, and wanted to cry, but they couldn’t. Her brother joined the Konoetai regiment and was sent to Shibuya for training for six months, and then he went to Sumatra Island in Indonesia by a warship. He stayed in that area for two years and nine months, and while he was on the warship, the enemy ship attacked them. Many of his fellow soldiers died, and he too was shot in his back. But miraculously he survived and was sent to the military hospital, so he returned to Japan after the war. My grandmother said she was very happy. When her brother was on Sumatra Island, many events were happening in Japan, where she lived.
Evacuation (sokai) of young children began. All small kids were moved to safer areas in rural parts of Japan. The older students who went to school had to work in factories. My grandmother was 14 when the war began, and she entered Nihon Sekiyu oil refinery, which was located in present day Kanagawa-ku. But on May 29, 1945, Yokohama was bombed. One man in the company kindly took her home, and they had to walk back. While she was walking, she was shocked by the view. There had been buildings and trees a few hours earlier, but they had all disappeared. It was a yakenohara, or a burnt field. There were many bodies of people lying on the ground. Some were black and burned completely, and some were still alive and asking for help. She had to step over those bodies to go home—that was how many bodies there were. She was crying, but she tried to believe that her house was safe. But when she came close to the house, she had no words to speak. The whole area had been flattened. All that was left was the broken pieces of dishes and pots and the wreckage of the houses. Several people, the owners of the houses, were standing there, without saying a word.
But she found out that everybody in her family was alive. They went to Motomachi Elementary School for safety. She found her family, and they all had to live in the school, with many other people from the same street. She said it was just like the people who stayed in schools after the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995. But even though nobody in her family died during the war, my grandmother’s mother was in a dangerous situation. When the U.S. B-29 bomber planes came, around present-day Ueno-machi, she was running towards the present-day Futaba Gakuen sports field, with other people. While she was running behind a person, about one meter away, one of the incendiary bombs fell right on that person, and burned that person completely. Miraculously, she was safe.
The largest problem during the war, she said, was food. They received only a small amount of wheat flour and sweet potatoes. Sometimes, her family had to walk to farming areas in the countryside to get food. Everybody had a hard time, with no food. Some people who were living in the school died of malnutrition.
But the war ended on August 15, 1945 and the people’s lives slowly started to recover. My grandmother’s father, supported by other relatives, built a small cottage in the place where their house had been, and they lived there. Right after the war, many American soldiers came to Japan, and many came near Ueno-machi. Some lived in the Honmoku area and near present-day Yamate Station. My grandmother’s parents said that it was dangerous for young females to stay near the American soldiers, so my grandmother went to live with her relatives in Gifu. But a month after, she came back, and there weren’t any problems. She started to work, and met a man, who later became my grandfather. They got married in 1949, four years after the war, and my mother was born the next year.
My grandmother said she was glad that nobody in her family died during the war. But she had many scary and horrible experiences during the war. She said war is something that is very awful and frightful, and it should never occur again.