<Begin Segment 6>

MN: Now, when you were born, do you know if your father had already been drafted?

AT: Yes, definitely.

MN: Where was your father stationed and what were his responsibilities?

AT: He was stationed in Okinawa, and he was part of the med corps. And we don't know exactly where, but we assume that he was in the southern part of the med corps, because that's, of course, that's where the hardest hit was. So in Haebaru, that area, more of the southern part of the island where he was. That's where all the medical group, many of high school girls acted as a nurse, and that's where they were all... I think they had a two or three station medical unit, one, two three, I don't know if there were more than that, but they were all scattered around that area. And he was one of those.

MN: When was the last time your family saw your father?

AT: That was when, apparently when he came to see me, so that was in the very beginning... or I was born in September, so it was probably around the winter of '44, something like that. So around that time in '44, 1944.

MN: '44. But you were born in '43.

AT: Yes.

MN: Do you remember your father at all?

AT: No, not at all. Not at all.

MN: What does your family know about your father's death?

AT: My father's death, very little. Because everybody died together at that time. But some, there were one or two high school or junior high students, boys that survived, said, "Oh, he was at this place the last time I saw him." So from there, that he was being very helpful to Okinawan students, kids, and always trying to help the Okinawan injured, but he was being quite reprimanded by the Japanese soldier that he should, his duty is to take care of them. So, but he would try to help them or ask, because of his status as going to the villages to help the injured, that he would have access to the certain villages. So he would ask, "Where are you from?" "Can I check your family?" and things like that. So those are the things that we heard about him, his last moment from survive, the student. So of course students are probably all in their seventies, eighties by now. So I don't know where they are or we've never found out any more detail. Of course, we never found the body or remains. Southern part, when they had a severe land bombing from the air, they hit all these sugar cane field area. That's where the southern part of the island, they had a big sugar cane field. And they found a lot of body remains there, and my mother was told, "You can try and go find the body there." She said she tried, but she said she got so sick of looking, but she said she couldn't really find any remains.

MN: Do you think... you were mentioning how your father were, he was supposed to help the Japanese soldiers, but he was helping the civilians, Okinawan civilians also. Was it possible that he might have, that might have angered the Japanese military and that he was sent to the front?

AT: Right. That's what one student said that. He said, "The last time we saw him," he saw him, was that he was talking to the students in Uchinaguchi, Okinawan dialect, trying to ask about them. And the Japanese soldier didn't like that, and told him to get out and go to the front. And he said he saw my father leaving and the back, the back of him, "That was the last time," he said, "I saw him." So we don't know whether he was being shot by a Japanese or if he was actually killed by U.S. bombs. That's a very unknown fact that we never cleared.

MN: And you also thought perhaps he may have died with the Himeyuri Butai. And can you share a little bit about who the Himeyuri girls were?

AT: The Himeyuri girls were Japanese -- not Japanese, Okinawa Girls High School, they call, they had Dai Ichi Koujou. Ichi Koujou was located in Naha Shuri area, and Nikoujou was next town or like that. So those girls who were in school at that time, they had, what, three years, right, in high school? Three years. They were all drafted as a nurse. And their symbol is Himeyuri, the lily maiden. And they were all trained or used as nurse at that time, so that's... and they were always with these medical corps group. And, of course, the young boys, students from, at the end, from junior high on, they were all taken as soldiers. So, you know, you can be twelve, thirteen, to seventy, eighty year old men, they were all taken as soldiers to fight with whatever they had with the bamboo sword. So Himeyuri, the nursing corps, were the high school students.

MN: And did a lot of these girls die?

AT: They all did. Most of them. And also, they were given grenades, each one, instead of, "If there's a time that you're gonna be captured by U.S., just kill yourselves." And a lot of them either jumped off the cliff... because they were brainwashed that, "If you were being captured by U.S. military, they will rape you and they will, you'll be tortured." So there were a lot of them just killed themselves, used the grenades. So if there's any... there are some survivors who are acting as docents at the museum, memorial museum in Okinawa, but most, very few remain.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.