<Begin Segment 11>

MN: Now, in Japan, what sort of news were you getting about the war?

FH: Well, when I was going to school, I think it was on the city car or something, we heard that the war has broken out, and Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, yes. That was the kind of news that went out. I didn't have television, it was only the, the radio, from mouth-to-mouth, that kind of news we heard. And so at school, on the date that we all assembled in the courtyard, and then there the announcement was made.

MN: About Pearl Harbor?

FH: Yes, correct.

MN: In Japan, Pearl Harbor is considered December 8th.

FH: Yes, correct. It was seventh, huh?

MN: Yes.

FH: Right.

MN: And then during the course of after Pearl Harbor, what sort of news were you getting about the status of the war?

FH: "Japan is winning, Japan is winning, Japan is winning." Not only Pearl Harbor, but succeeding in all the news. Never Japan was defeated, like even in Guadalcanal and so forth, you know, it was all "Japan is winning."

MN: But when you went to go take your middle school entrance exam, you went to Osaka.

FH: Well, that was not the middle school, that was the higher school.

MN: Higher school.

FH: Next level, I went to Osaka and stayed at my friend's uncle's house. And he was the head of the [inaudible] at Osaka Sakai. But he was with the Asahi newspaper. And so being a newspaper reporter, he heard the words from his colleagues who were sent out into the battlefield all over, you know, Southeast Asia and China and all over. And so he said that what has been announced publicly cannot this openly, but it's not the fact. Japan is beaten pretty badly, that's what we heard in those days.

MN: Why couldn't you talk about this openly?

FH: Oh, the MP, you know, Military Police. If anything like that, you know, the sources, grasped, and immediately he would be put into the jail. And once, my uncle, who lived in this country, came very closely to being apprehended by the MP, Military Police. But he did not. It was a dangerous thing to do. There was two dangerous things. One is to speak bad about the imperial family, next is about the warfare, how it's going on, the truth.

TI: So I wanted to... I'm curious. So you're a young man, you're young. What was, what did you believe? I mean, you heard these conflicting information, one side, Japan was winning, winning, the other side, that Japan may be losing. So what did you, what did you think? What did you believe?

FH: Well, I was between twelve and nineteen when I went to the middle school. The middle school is from grade seven through grade, I think, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. But when I was there, these kind of things I heard and I faced. But he impounded into our head that Japan has never been defeated, Japan will never be defeated again. So I was a firm believer of "Japan is winning." "Japan cannot be, cannot lose the war." Battle, I mean.

TI: Did people ever ask you about America? Because you had lived there in the early part of your life, did people ask you what America was like and how they would beat them or anything like that in terms of how we could beat America?

FH: I don't recall. Nothing, nothing.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.