Densho Digital Archive - Nobuko Miyake-Stoner Interview (denshovh-mnobuko-01-0003)

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MA: I wanted to ask you about, you mentioned your father. And if you would tell me a little bit about his story and about during the war, what you were telling me about views about the emperor and what he went through during the war and then a little bit after the war, and how he dealt with the sort of changes you were talking about.

NM: Uh-huh. My father was in his late... probably eighteen or nineteen years old when the war is coming to the end. And Japan did not have any resources, material resources or even human resources, to continue the war. And only way to put the fortress was to send young men as a kamikaze pilot. And my father was trained to be a kamikaze pilot. And he really found that as a lifelong mission, to die for his country and die for the emperor. And being such a conscientious young man, he was... he was really putting his soul into it. He was a very loyal Japanese. But very, very unfortunately, the war ended before his turn came. So many of his brother-like colleagues died, and then here he was, still living. And he, you know, lived in his self-made prison, and he lived with a tremendous sense of resentment. Resentment against new Japan, changing so rapidly. And becoming like, almost like a... I don't know how I can describe it, but just adhere to whatever U.S.A. ordered Japan to do, no spine. That was just too much for my father, yeah. So it was a very difficult transition. So in a way, he was not able to make transition at all. So anything that has a smell, taste of America, he rejected. So Christianity or any, you know, anything that has American influence, he just hated.

MA: Do you think among his generation, that was a common feeling? About new Japan, about the U.S.

NM: It's hard to say. My father was probably exceptional. So hard-headed, just like me, you know. [Laughs] So he was not able to make a transition. He was so stubborn. Because he really gave his life to his nation and to his god, the emperor. So, you know, all of a sudden, on August the 15th of 1945, emperor declared that he was a human, he just couldn't take what's happening before his eyes. Yeah, so my heart goes out to him.