<Begin Segment 26>

TI: Before that, so you stayed a whole week, from Christmas Eve to New Year's Eve. It must have been nice for you to stay so long, for a whole week.

HH: Oh yes, because I was able to meet the rest of the family and also I've been there when I was young, on my mother's side, and I was able to visit the other side, on my father's side. And I was very fortunate that I met all my uncles, all seven of them, I guess, every one of them in a place called Agenosho, which is now called Tachibana-cho, Tachibana city. And so I had done more than just visiting my mother's family side, but I was able to visit all my father's side.

TI: How had the war affected the family? Was it hard for the family, what was the effect of the war?

HH: Well, on my mother's side, I found out that they had four of my uncles had already served in the first world war. And also, the one that I was staying with, that uncle was... no, my mother's uncle called Isamu, my aunt, the youngest aunt was married to this Isamu, he was still not listed as returning from, he was in the navy somewhere in the Philippines, so it was, at the time, he was the only one out of the four that had not been heard or reported that he was captured or whatever. So my thought was maybe probably his ship was torpedoed and all that. And actually, that's what happened, she was a widow with I think about six children.

TI: Was there any, what were their feelings towards you as, coming back as an American soldier?

HH: I thought that maybe they might be really afraid, and I don't know about the others, but not the other people that saw me, because they never had... just at the very beginning, the U.S. soldiers were on that island, too, I mean, just came, but they didn't stay there. And so I'm the only one, and being in uniform, but I think they probably thought that maybe I came to investigate or something, but my uncle, I think, assured them that no, I'm just visiting because I was in Hiroshima.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.