<Begin Segment 15>

MN: Now, you were telling me the draft age in Japan was twenty, but you were drafted at the age of nineteen. How did that happen?

FH: Because, you know, there were fewer men in the army and so forth, and so they had to recruit more. The only thing that they could do, there was two things that was possible. One is to lower the drafting age, and so I was drafted at age nineteen. Another thing that happened, even by the age alone, it's now going to solve the whole problem. And so for the draft criterion, there was three criterion: kou, otsu, and hei, by the ranking. Kou is perfect; perfect eyesight, perfect body and so forth. And otsu may be lacking somewhere, a little bit, but not bad. It's good enough to be drafted. And hei is completely out. And here, because of my eyesight alone, I was wearing eyeglasses when I was seven in the United States. It was so bad that I did not qualify, I was in the hei. However, they (created) another category: (otsu was called the first otsu and hei was called the second otsu), and then that's a passing grade. That's how I was drafted into the Japanese army with my nationality that I obtained when I went into middle school through adoption process.

MN: And you said you were planning to take the Officer Candidate School exam?

FH: Uh-huh.

MN: But before you took that exam, you were ordered to go out into the countryside. What happened out in the countryside?

FH: Well, we were digging holes. Because when the U.S. Army landed in Japan, we have to keep, hide goods, and we had to defend our country by living in the country cave. And so I was digging, and when I was carrying wood, I got a sliver in my finger, and I got blood poisoning. And it swelled up to here and here and then they say if it go to the arm, that's it. And so they had to amputate this at the army hospital. [Holds up finger]

MN: And then you were in the hospital, is it, was it run by the Red Cross?

FH: Well, yes, at first it was the army hospital, but you know, all those wounded soldier and so forth coming back from the battlefront, there was not enough. And so the Red Cross hospital was converted into an army hospital, and I was there. On June the 30th, it was airbombed by the U.S. And, you know, at nighttime, I was in the bed and almost being hit on the bed with a big stick. And woke up, and there, things were, it was flaming out there. And so the first thing I, the only thing I grabbed, I recall, was my eyeglass. Because wherever I go, I can't anywhere without my eyeglasses. I grabbed that. Nowadays, I have the cataract surgery, I don't use the eyeglasses, but the first thing I grabbed. And then with that, just ran downstairs to the basement. And basement, there was no way to go, so one of the older soldier who came back from the warfront, that guided us, and went outside from the basement. And there I saw the ladder, and so we escaped from there. And we got the blanket, and so we were all told to soak that blanket into the water tank, and then put it over us. That's how we ran through the town to go to the riverbed. But before we reached the riverbed, you know, we go in the cul de sac. And those guys who were guiding us said that, "Thank you so much. This is all we can do. We cannot help you any longer." And so he got some maybe wines and some cigarette and gave to us, "Here, you're on your own, and escape from here." And immediately after that, clang, the building crashed. But we barely escaped. Went out into the broader street, because broader street, even if there's a fire going on, still, there's room to escape. And then, there, we found a, one of the fire, what you call that, the hole, dug in the hole and so forth. Air raid shelter. And so went in there. And the guys who were there before us had some rice, and so we feeded on that and so forth. And it became dawn. Soldiers on the bicycles came around to round us up, and we were rounded together, put on the train, went into the countryside called the Yunoho Onsen. It's a hot springs way out in the mountainside. It was there that the inn was confiscated and turned into the army training there, we met the, December 15th, end of the war.

And there, we heard some rumors about the Hiroshima, a new kind of bomb was dropped and so forth, and some of the soldiers who was, who lost their eyesight and so forth was escaping, and so we heard about that. We didn't know exactly about the A-bomb and so forth, that was later on that we heard about that, but we heard those kind of rumors. And then say, "Everybody get together," we had to hear the voice of the Emperor. And the Emperor never spoke. Nobody had heard the Emperor's voice except those who are surrounding him. But it was announced that Japan is going to accept the declaration and surrender to the armed forces.

TI: I just wanted to -- when you heard that, what did you feel when you heard the Emperor?

FH: Yes. Maybe some guys were weeping, but some were saying that, "Oh, what a great relief. Now we can go home," yes.

TI: And how did you feel?

FH: I felt that, oh, boy, great. Now we can go back home.

MN: Did you cry?

FH: I don't recall. I don't recall. I was so happy, because all of a sudden, I feel like I've been bounded up by ropes and so forth.

TI: And I wanted to also follow up, going back to the Red Cross hospital. Tell me a little bit about that. Who staffed the hospital? Who was the doctors and nurses in the Red Cross hospital?

FH: All the, I think, all the military staff, I think, headed by the military staff. I don't know about the civilians, whether they were there or not.

TI: This was more military-run.

FH: Yeah, completely military-run, yes.

MN: And I just wanted to make sure, that was June 30, 1945, when the hospital burned.

FH: Yes, correct.

MN: And you mentioned the Tennoheika went on the radio on August 15, 1945, although in America, we think of the end of the war as August 14, 1945.

FH: That's right. Because the International Date time, that's right.

MN: At this time, did you have any idea what was going on in the United States? Did you know that the Nikkei community was put into camps?

FH: I had no knowledge at all, nothing.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.