<Begin Segment 20>

TI: Okay, so let's go to the survey next, and why don't you talk about who you talked with to do the survey.

HH: Okay. This is the time that we had to take... we were not going to take a train or anything like that for some reason. The survey, they had assigned a captain for the group, and a driver and myself, so only three of us will be traveling. And we had a jeep and a weapons carrier, which is a truck, which we had to haul gasoline and oil and whatever supplies and everything else. We left Tokyo, and on the way, we had to go to Utsunomiya, which is a little town. And we're going to Sendai, which is north of Tokyo. So somehow they decided to do that way, so we traveled up through there. And on the way, we could only see the children maybe playing around on the side of the road, which is all, not concrete pavement or anything like that, it was a dirt road. And people would be walking, if you're walking, they would be walking on that road because there was hardly any jeep or anything like that using that. But we saw the carts and horses and such along the way. And then...

TI: And what were you thinking when you saw all this? What were your impressions of Japan?

HH: Well, there was no... as we go past some of the little villages, as we drove up, we didn't see any adults, except kids, children would be playing around, but we didn't see any adults. I don't know, because we weren't a big caravan or anything like that, you know, but as we drove up, we didn't see any.

TI: So, why do you think that is? Why didn't you see adults?

HH: I don't know. They were not working in the fields because it was winter. I was kind of interested in seeing the children, and even the babies that these children had to take care of. They'd be playing around, but they'll have them strung up in the back, you know, and playing just like normally.

TI: Okay, so let's keep going. So then what happened?

HH: Okay. So on the way after Utsunomiya, we were going to Sendai. It took about three days, I think. Anyway, we had to find lodging, and so they had, I think they had a voucher that we could stop at the inns. And of course, at the inns, they always have a meal, but during the wartime and everything else, we were given whatever ration, I guess, that they had, rice and things. But mostly it was like Japanese sukiyaki, like, but not with meat or anything like that, vegetables, especially green onion, Japanese green onions. And the other two didn't like that meal too much, so they eat the ration that we had, canned deal. But I enjoyed the meal, and also taking a bath and living in an inn instead of the army base, because there was no army base all the way up. And some of the interesting things I found out, that some of the people, Japanese people did not know which way... this is supposed to be the National Highway, they called it kokudou, country or federal or whatever, like a highway. But it's more like a rural dirt type of roads, and so from there, we had to go stay on this National Highway. And so every once in a while, when it comes to a junction or something like that, we didn't know which way to go. So I would ask people there, they don't know where Sendai is. I said, you know, it's up north, but the only thing I could say is that Tokyo is the capital, and the emperor's palace is there. So I would ask for kyuujou. Kyuujou is the palace, emperor's palace, which way. They knew exactly, "This way," but then on my map, I said, okay, we're on the right one or, road I should be taking.

TI: So they would all know the way to Tokyo, but you were coming from there, so you would just go in the opposite direction?

HH: Yes. I was gradually going north, but there's a lot of villages and fields and everything else, rice fields, so it's very hard to cross. And one of the interesting things that we had, the jeep always went first, but the National Highway would be, in these villages, it was just between the houses. And the roof, thatched roof would be hanging down, we had to worry about, not the jeep, but the canopy over the truck, because you could hit these. So we had to stop and find out how else we could get back to the... the National Highway was right between rice paddies, and one place we had to keep going on that road, or we thought we had to, the jeep got, all four wheels were dropped between the two rice paddies. And there's no tow truck or anything else, so finally they said they could get a bus. At least it would be big enough that they can tow us out. We found out that this bus that they had was a charcoal-burning bus. All your vehicles, if they had any in the Tokyo area and everything, they were all charcoal burning, not gasoline.

TI: So they were able to change the engine so that it could be charcoal?

HH: Yes, in the back. They had a separate kind of place where they can make steam, charcoal.

TI: So it was steam-heated.

HH: Steam-run.

TI: So the charcoal would create steam, and so steam-driven vehicles.

HH: Yes, yes.

TI: Okay, got it.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.