Chapter 4 War

War (senso)

In the war

you tried to find food

for your friends

and died on the battleground.

You are a servant of life.

sen’yu no
kate o motomete

senjyo ni

chirishi sonomi wa

bosatsu narubeshi

When I was young I studied various arts, not seriously but as enjoyable pastimes. When the war started circumstances greatly changed. We were no longer allowed to play. We could not wear fine or expensive silk kimono, only cheap kimono made of cotton. And we had to wear monpe, light pants with a baggy crotch, with the kimono tucked inside. If we had to run quickly and the kimono flapped open, the pants would cover our legs. This brought about a big cultural change because the young women did not like wearing the kimono bunched up under the monpe, so they gradually started wearing western slacks. Now, most women wear yōfuku, western-style clothing. Even kimono are generally worn only for special occasions. However, even now in rural areas some old women still wear monpe.

I married in 1942. I was twenty-one and my husband, Goto Yoshiji, was ten years older. It was shortly after the start of Daitoa Senso, the Great Asian War. My marriage was miai-kekkon, an arranged marriage. I do not want to talk about it. If you had a sweetheart during the war, there was a chance he might die. It is a very sad story. Young people in the old times were so different from the young people these days. They have no idea what it was like. It was a more pure time. There were many romantic stories in my days, which we do not seem to have anymore. Many young men, age fifteen to twenty-three, died during the war. They were forced to grow up faster because of the war. Children were like adults because they had lots of responsibility.

We were married in a Shinto ritual during a small ceremony at a hotel. During the war the government banned furisode, colorful kimono with very long sleeves, worn only by young girls and at weddings. But it was the only time I would ever get to wear a traditional wedding kimono, so mine was colorful with long sleeves, but not too long.

Nothing special happened in my married life. We lived with my husband’s family in Tōkyō. He taught Japanese history in high school until he was conscripted into the military at the end of the war. After the war he saw that there was a need for Japanese to learn English so he switched to teaching English. We were married for fifty-two years.

My first son was born in January 1944. I went to hospital to have my baby. During the war, immediately after a baby was born doctors advised the women to get used to walking and going up and down stairs in case they had to run during an air raid. After my son was born, I walked from the delivery room and up the stairs to get back to my room. Everyone had to make an effort for the war. They were training everyone. Luckily, at the time my son was born there were no air raids, so I stayed in hospital a week. The hospital was close to my house, in the same neighborhood. I breast fed my baby, of course. There was no milk around. Some women could not produce enough milk so they gave the babies watery rice gruel instead and those children had thin faces.

During the war we had sweet potatoes, white potatoes, soy beans and wheat bran but very little sugar or rice. Because we had so little rice, we could not make a pot of rice, only gruel. You did not hear the lovely sound of grains of rice falling into the pot, only the rattle of soy beans being roasted. We could not grow many vegetables in our small garden because the soil was covered with coke ash and there was no fertilizer. I had to bring in good soil from my neighbor and then I could only grow some pumpkins. The coastal area of Tōkyō used to be a swamp, so in order to build on it they brought in soil from other areas. On the west side of Tōkyō the soil was good so they could grow rice.

The best land was confiscated by the government for the military. The military had almost everything. The government focused all their energy on the military, giving them good food. Everything was regulated by rations. No one had more than anyone else. It evened things out between people. More value was placed on morals, how you treated each other, because we all had the same things.

My husband was conscripted into the navy toward the end of the war, after our son was born. He worked at the naval base but they did not have any ships at the end of the war. They could not get to the war zone so they dug bomb shelters in Yokosuka, near Tōkyō. At the end of the war there was a great fear that we would be invaded by the Americans. We were so short on all kinds of materials, such as metal, that people made spears out of bamboo. It looked silly but that is all they had.

The bombing of Tōkyō continued off and on during the last years of the war. When we heard the bombers coming, everyone ran to the nearest bomb shelter. There were different kinds of bomb shelters. Many people dug a big hole in the ground behind their house and covered it with boards and dirt. Some were only big enough for one person, others could hold several people. I did not like these shelters. I was afraid that the roof would collapse on the people inside. Sometimes, when I heard the sound of the bombers, I would crawl inside the futon cupboard, where I felt safe with the thick futons piled on the shelf above me. One of the nicest bomb shelters in the area had been constructed by the army in a small hill about five minutes away from our house. There were many small caves built into the side of the hill. About half a dozen people could squeeze inside each one.

On the night of 9 March 1945, we had the fire-bombing of Tōkyō. I was in Tōkyō when the big bakugeki happened. I remember the sound of the B29 bombers. I ran away from the machine gun going bang, bang, bang right in front of me. Just before running into the bomb shelter with my baby, I saw many people shot. One person was shot in the back and fell down in front of me. That made a deep impression on me, seeing that person shot dead. Inside the small cave it was completely dark. We sat in silence, listening to the sound of bombers flying over, dropping bombs and many bakuhatsu exploding. The bombing started many fires. The whole city burned. A lot of people were burned by the fire. Some of my friends were killed. As many as 100,000 people died during the big bombing.

I experienced the death of friends, neighbors and relatives, the bombing and the emperor’s surrender speech, but I did not die. When the war was over I felt extremely fortunate to be alive. It was such a miracle that I was still living. It was for this reason that I decided I had to do volunteer work to promote peace. I also feel it is my duty to explain about the war to the next generation.

After the fire bombing we had to escape Tōkyō. The government sent all the women and children to the countryside. My husband knew that we were being evacuated but we could not see each other to say sayōnara. In June 1945 I went with my son to Nagano prefecture, two hundred kilometers west of Tōkyō. We stayed there at my friend’s place about two months.

As a city woman I was very unhappy in Nagano. I decided to go back to Tōkyō. On 6 and 9 August we had the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I thought if I have to die I would rather die at home. On 15 August, two days after my twenty-fourth birthday, I went to the train station to buy a ticket to Tōkyō. Someone said there was going to be an important announcement, so I stood inside the station in a crowd of people, waiting. Finally we heard the voice of the emperor over the loudspeaker. Hirohito Tennō, the divine emperor himself announced the surrender. There was muchitsujo, total chaos, the day the war ended. The trains were not running. No one was giving orders and no one knew what to do. The government was completely destroyed. People gathered in front of the palace, crying, and some of them committed suicide. Everything had become nothing.

When I decided to leave Nagano, it was the peak of the crisis. No one knew what was going on. I had no idea what would happen to me. All kinds of rumors were flying around. Some people said if you go to Tōkyō the Americans will kill you, do not go. In Okinawa, Iwo Jima and many other places in the Pacific, Japanese soldiers fought to the last man. In some places the American army cornered Japanese soldiers. The Americans were saying, “Surrender and we will help you.” But rather than be captured by the enemy, they killed themselves with their own weapons or jumped off a cliff. On Okinawa and the Pacific islands, the Americans were dropping fake paper money with a message that said, “Do not be afraid of Americans.” Some people fled to the forests, living off insects and mice. Some families were preparing to kill their children and each other rather than give in to the enemy. On the main islands of Japan, people dreaded an invasion. They were afraid that American soldiers would treat them badly, because the Japanese government had educated them during the war that the American and the British were ogres or beasts.

The day after the emperor announced unconditional surrender, I went back to the station in Nagano. I got on the train with my young son but the train did not move. We waited in the train about six hours. Suddenly it moved. Then it stopped, moved again, stopped and then moved slowly. I did not know where this train was going. It took three or four times longer than usual but it finally arrived in Tōkyō.

When we stepped off the train there was nothing left of Tōkyō. It was all burned. My husband’s family lived at Ueno, way in the north of Tōkyō, so I walked there. The only people we saw were some men, mostly old but a few young ones, left to guard the city but there was nothing left. Fortunately, our family house had not burned because it had been protected by a big pond on the land. I climbed a little hill and I could see the Sumida River. Usually you could not see it because of the buildings. Everything was completely burned down. The temple of Kannon in Asakusa was burned, though fortunately the statue of Kannon was carried away before the bombing. I came back to Tōkyō by myself with my young son and experienced all that confusion.