N07, Yuuka Nakasone ‘07, Kayoko Nakasone, Grandmother, 1935, Nagano
My grandmother, Kayoko Nakasone, was ten years old when World War II ended. She was born in 1935 in Nagano. Because World War II occurred such a long time ago, her memory is not clear. However, she has a general idea of the hardships that she endured, which were the shortage of food, poverty, fear of bombings, and malnutrition.
My grandmother and her family suffered the most from a shortage of food. Rice was very precious, and there was not enough rice for every family. Therefore, her mother used to mix potatoes with rice or add more water to increase the amount. There were vegetables, but most of them were potatoes or sweet potatoes. Because of this situation, there were many people who could not get proper nutrition, and it led to malnutrition and tuberculosis, which made this situation worse. The people who had tuberculosis were isolated so as not to spread the disease to others. Medicine such as penicillin was expensive, so people could not afford it. If they got tuberculosis, they had almost no hope of recovery.
What my grandmother’s family feared most were the attacks from B-29 bombers. They used only one bare light bulb for the house to reduce the amount of light. Whenever the air-raid alarm went off, they used to cover the light bulb with a cloth so the light would not be seen from the sky. Her neighbors also painted white walls with black paint so they would not stand out and be seen by the B-29s. There were shelters for every family in order to hide and protect themselves from attack. Her house had a shelter underground. The space used for the shelter had originally been used to raise silkworms. The entrance to the shelter was covered by the branches of a mulberry bush. When an air-raid alarm went off during school hours, all the students were taken by the teacher to a forest behind the school to hide from the bombers. Since bamboo has strong roots deep in the ground, it was a great place to protect themselves. All students had to have their own padded headgear to protect their heads. She wore it around her neck most of the time, so she could pull it over her head whenever necessary.
During World War II, everything was valuable. The government needed metal to make weapons to provide to the Army. Therefore, materials that were made of metal were taken and delivered to the government. White paper, erasers, and pencils were also very precious. Whenever my grandmother had Shodō (calligraphy) class at school, she had to use newspapers to write and practice. There was not even toilet paper, so everyone had to use newspapers instead. Teachers used to cut tennis balls into small pieces and provided them to students to use as erasers. Everyone had to use pencils as long as there was lead. They could not waste anything, since everything was valuable. She remembers that most of her pencils were about one centimeter long, but there were no other pencils to replace them. My grandmother’s family could not get clothes if they did not have the ration tickets which were distributed by the government. My grandmother’s clothes were made from her mother’s kimonos. She used to wear geta (wooden clogs) since there were no other shoes to wear, even in the winter. In winter, it was difficult to walk in the snow with geta, because snow got stuck into the soles.
There were some children from Tōkyō who were evacuated to Nagano, because Tōkyō was dangerous and the conditions had become worse. They lived in temples and attended school. After the war ended, they were able to go back to their homes in Tōkyō. However, there were some children who could not go back, because their houses were burned down or their parents had died. Those children had to stay in a temple where the monks would look after them, or they had to go and live with their relatives. She knows some people who had stayed there until they became twenty and independent.
They are the memories my grandmother has from her experience during World War II. She does not remember clearly all the details, but she knows that she had strong feelings of fear because of the bombers, she suffered from the shortage of food, and she felt the poverty during that time. It is hard to imagine now what it would have been like at that time. However, people were filled with fear and spent many miserable days suffering. She will never forget those who suffered and died. She believes that war must never happen again.