F06, Wako Osada ‘97, Kayoko Tadokoro, Grandmother, 1924, Yokohama: Minami-ku, Kanagawa: Hakone-machi, Shizuoka
In December 1995, I interviewed my maternal grandmother, Kayoko Tadokoro, about her experiences during World War II. She is currently 71 years old.
Q: How old were you during the war? Where were you living?
A: I was 21 years old, when the war ended. I lived in Idogaya, in Minami-ku, Yokohama
Q: What was it like in Yokohama?
A: It was scary. Whenever the B-29 bombers came, we ran into the bōkūgō (air raid shelter), a hole or ditch in our yard where our whole family hid to protect ourselves from the bombs. I could see the bombs falling. It was as though it was raining, because there were so many.
Q: Did you stay in Yokohama throughout the war?
A: No, my sisters and I escaped to Gotemba, near Hakone-machi. My parents stayed behind to protect our house. I was really worried.
Q: What were the conditions like in Gotemba?
A: There were fewer people because it was an inaka, a rural area in the countryside. So we felt safer there than we did in Yokohama. But we were still scared. I could see the B-29 bombers flying over us, and I could hear the air raid siren. Whenever that happened, I worried about my parents.
Q: What kind of food did you eat?
A: In Yokohama, we were lucky enough to have white rice that my father was able to get from his friend. But in Gotemba, all we could eat was potatoes and pumpkins. We used to eat tempura made with potato leaves, but we soon started to run out of oil.
Q: What are your personal memories of life in Gotemba?
A: It was hard work. Because I was the oldest of six sisters and brothers, I had to take care of them in place of my mother. Etsuko, my youngest sister, was still only several months old, and whenever I took her out for a walk, people thought that I was her mother. I was about 20 years old then.
Q: Did any of your relatives die?
A: Fortunately, no.
Q: When you went back to Yokohama, how had it changed compared to before the war?
A: Our house was still in Idogaya in good condition, and so were some of the other houses in the area. I was lucky, I guess.
Q: Was it hard to return to your normal lifestyle right after the war?
A: Yes, because the whole country was suffering from lack of food and everything else. But it wasn’t that hard. Your mother was born only four years after the war.
Q: How do you feel about the war?
A: War is such a horrible thing. But you have to experience it in order to understand it fully. So the best thing that we survivors can do is to tell our experiences to young people. It is scary that many government leaders were born after the war.