<Begin Segment 32>

AI: So what happened when the ship arrived in Japan?

AO: The ship arrived in Japan, everyone disembarked and...

AI: Oh, excuse me. What port was that where, that you came into?

AO: I believe it's Kurihama. See, there's different centers, military centers and I remember Kurihama, and there were military barracks there. So we were housed in rooms in the compound. And since I was able-bodied, I had to stay back to unload the cargo ship with all of our belongings. And so I had to go out with the landing craft and then with a crew we would unload the ship and load the landing craft and then bring 'em to the compound and put 'em in the warehouse. And we, and I had, I was requested to stay until they were loaded into freight cars to the destination where they were going. And I was in charge. There was all the belongings going to Fukuoka and so I had to stay and make sure all the baggage and the belongings of all the people were loaded in the boxcar. And as you know, all the freight cars, they just have a piece of wire to hold it shut. And that I didn't, I knew that anyone, as the train is stopped at a siding, that someone could come and cut the wire. So I had two padlocks of my own. So I locked 'em with the padlock and kept the key. And fortunately, my father's relative worked at the freight yard at Fukuoka. And he notified us when that particular car arrived. So I went down and unlocked it and notified all the recipients of their belongings to go to the Fukuoka station and claim their belongings.

AI: So, while you were doing this, this labor, what was happening to your parents, your sister and brother?

AO: My mother and sister and younger brother went on to my father's place. And my mother knew how to find the way to there. And my older sister and her husband and the baby went on to Kumamoto. And actually, after all the goods were loaded on the train, then they gave us a third-class ticket to get on board the train to go to Fukuoka. And so we walked to the train station and waited for the train to come by but we didn't know what train it was. It was a chaos. And so finally a train came and we boarded it. No one else boarded it, just a very few people. Then it went to next station and a few more people got in. And then as it went down it was packed later on. And when the train stopped, it stopped at the port of Fukuoka and Fukuoka didn't have a port so they called it Hakata, see, Hakata is the business section of Fukuoka and so all the train station and port is called Hakata. And so we got off the train at the very end. We heard later that it was the train to transport the Korean evacuees. See, they were transporting all the Koreans back to Korea and that's the train that we were on. And everyone is surprised that it ended in the port of Hakata. So, from there my father and I walked to a trolley stop and then he was asking different people how to get over to Ropponmatsu. That's where he knew how to walk from Ropponmatsu because the trolley, trolley stop section. And we arrived there and then we went along this, there was a river, and the river's named Hikawa, and he knew how to go on the river bank. There's a road and go to Nagao, which was a little village, and from there we go east to his birthplace, Hibaru. And we walked and we walked and he hadn't been to Japan for forty years and so he had to inquire from different people how to get to Hibaru. And we made a... I was carrying my suitcase; I was tired. [Laughs] Then we finally arrived at his home and my mother and my sister was already there. And it was, no bus. See, lot of the transportation were, were destroyed. And I can tell you something about the transportation: they had a shortage of fuel so they're running cars on charcoal. And, this is quite an experience. And I can explain a little bit later on how they run on charcoal.

<End Segment 32> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.