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MN: When did they start to move students from classrooms to factories to work?

YA: It depends on the region, but we started about one year prior to the end of the war.

MN: 1944 to '45.

YA: Yes, yes.

MN: Did you have morning assembly at the factory?

YA: Yes. At the factory. We went to a factory instead of going to school. We brought lunch with us. They took attendance at morning assembly. The factory manager -- the factory workers came to work earlier, and we showed up at the time our school would start. We arrived around eight o'clock and had morning assembly. We had the factory manager there instead of the principal we had at school. The principal took the military style salute at school. We turned our head to the right at the command of the principal and said good morning. He also said, "Good Morning." The factory manager also took the salute. We turned our head to the right on the command to salute. We commanded, no, saluted rather, to the manager on the command. We turned our head on "Head Right," to the manager at salute, just like in the military. And we said "Good morning" after salute, and the manager wished us another productive day. Then we all went to our assigned area. The teachers were there, too. They were walking around to check on the students. And --

MN: What type of work did you do?

YA: It was not a big factory, and the main office was looking for a couple of students to help there. My friend and I happened to be picked to work at the office. We didn't do anything important like creating documents, but we were just runners. We made and served tea. We went to a post office to mail something for the office staff members and did other jobs that they asked us to do. They had typists, and they sometimes asked us to deliver documents to a manager of another department. Some little things like that. Making tea and so on.

MN: What did the other students do?

YA: They were making screws for airplanes with the factory workers, making a lot of connecting screws and packaged them, with their hands all blackened with grease. They were sharpening the screws too. Some students put screws on pipes, and others made screws. It was detailed work like that. They all had their hands totally black. It looked a bit dangerous with the iron sharpener sending sparks all over.

MN: Did you still have raw materials in Japan then?

YA: We thought we did back then. That was when we started to donate our pots and pans from homes. It was banned to privately own metal household items, gold, silver and jewelry, and they were all confiscated including pots, pans and kitchen knives. That tells us that we were running out of raw materials, doesn't it?

MN: When you were working at the factory and heard an air-raid alarm, you --

YA: Oh, yes, yes.

MN: What did you do?

YA: We stopped what we were doing when an alarm went off. We turned off our lights and our machinery. We had air-raid shelters. We had trenches that we could run into, but they were not quite big enough for everyone to go in. We didn't have big enough land. The factory manager gave us students priority because he felt responsible for the young children under his supervision. So the students were allowed to go into the shelters first. But bombs were falling everywhere. Smoke came into the shelters, and we couldn't stay in there. We were told to go out, the airplanes left and things settled down. One time, that's how it happened. Smoke was everywhere. It wasn't going away, and we were coughing with smoke coming into the shelters. They were just small trenches. We didn't have sophisticated structure with a ventilation system and so on. It was suffocating. We were forced out when the smoke came in, because it was dangerous. We were lucky if the bombers were already all gone. That is how it was. We survived. We didn't have a lot of injuries reported. It was usually a short raid. I understand other areas suffered more intense attacks. Our region was just like that. The bombers came back several times.

MN: Was it dangerous to commute to the factory from home every day?

YA: Well, there were no air-raids in the mornings. Usually it was during the day and often at nights. It was more frequent after we went home. When we had air-raids at night, we needed to run out. The lights -- after we had our air-raids alarm system established, we organized groups to help the elders living alone in the neighborhood. My father was too old to serve, and he went out and called out with a megaphone when the alarm went off. The siren went off, and he warned everyone to evacuate. We had a precautionary alarm system for nighttime, and everyone knew the drill. One siren meant precautionary warning, and we were supposed to turn off our lights. We were instructed to have air-raid evacuation packages ready including protective caps to wear. We had essential items to take with us all packed and ready to go. Bagful of food and so on. And caps to wear. We couldn't carry a lot, and that was just the minimum. We were trained to follow the procedures. Young men were all gone to the war, and elderly people were left behind. Relatively younger and fit male community members were in charge of the rest. They looked after the elderly and children. That's how it worked. We didn't have any young men left. That's why my father was walking around to warn people when an air-raid alarm went off. People sometimes forgot to turn off the lights when the siren went off. His job was to make sure that everyone was following the manual. People assume a certain role in the community. Mothers also organized a group called Women's Organization for National Security. It was a patriotic organization of mothers, and they worked with other people and conducted fire drills with buckets. We all had wooden houses, and they conducted bucket relay trainings to put out a fire. Those mothers were wearing a sash across the chest. We were always instructed to keep our buckets and bathtub filled with water. We were told not to drain water in case of fire and organized fire drills to be prepared.

MN: As you lived near a port --

YA: Yes.

MN: When an American fleet came close --

YA: Yes, that's right. That was just about one month before the war was over. Bombs, large-scale bombardment by warships were concerns. My father was working for the post office, and the building was pretty big because it was the regional headquarters. It was four stories high. It was a target because that was a large structure. Cannons were fired, and bombs went through. We suffered bombardment from the warships. It made a thundering noise. It took a bicycle or train to go to his office from our house. It was about a 30-minute bicycle trip away, but bombardment in the area created such a thundering noise it shook the entire ground. It felt like everything would crumble down. Such a blast. Window panes were vibrating, but they were all covered with paper pasted all over. Bombing took place pretty often. It looked like the window panes were about to crack. That was very powerful. We stayed in the house and didn't go out. That was at night. We were under the covers in our bed and waited until it went away. It was pitch dark. We were holding on to each other. That is how it was. After a while, the news started to come in about a fire here and a fire there. All news was about damages we suffered. More bad news followed. Newspapers also reported local damages, but they described the overall war situation as still hopeful. After a while, the Japanese forces were defeated in the Attu Island, and the entire fleet was killed there. That was one of the bad news items that came in. But the media was still reporting that we were generally winning the war and praising the dead soldiers as gods. They supported war to the very end and told us that we would win. We were told to fight for victory, and we were pushed all the way to the end. Our sleep was disturbed with air-raids every day, and people started to experience some health issues. Some people had their mental health affected, but we were all encouraged to endure. We did the best we could do, even as a child. Each day, we were aware of the possibility of being killed, even children.

MN: Did you ever consider committing suicide?

YA: No. Our situation was not as severe as it was in Okinawa. That didn't occur to me during the war. I was very positive. Everything was over when the war ended, and we were under a shock. We were just so shocked and lost our motivation to do anything. American forces were flooding in, so did bad news. Young women and children were instructed to wear pants for fear of becoming a rape victim by American soldiers. They were told not to wear skirts, and they all were wearing loose trousers. Families with young women were instructed to send the girls somewhere in the countryside for safety. I was still a young child, but my mother sent my elder sister to the countryside to live deep in a mountainous area. She sent my sister away to live with her relatives. All the young ladies in the neighborhood were sent away. We didn't have a lot of American soldiers coming in our area though. Their ships were at the port, and they went to bars in the area when they disembarked. That was a distance from our neighborhood. We heard about them but didn't actually see many American soldiers. I saw them driving through in a Jeep. They didn't step out of their car and come to us. I heard they were hanging around in the port area. We were told that the area was dangerous and we needed to be careful. On the other hand, a special comfort zone was created there with professional women to entertain the soldiers and to protect the general population. Do you know what I am talking about? They were comforting the soldiers and keeping them around the port. Professional women were there. Some were orphans who lost their parents and siblings, and they volunteered to be there to make money. They didn't have a lot of hopes for their lives, and I suppose some of them became professional women to make money off those white guys, Americans. The entertaining business expanded into ports and military bases. It was just like Okinawa. We also had illegal markets set up in town. The food distribution system was still enforced. People created different distribution systems and established illegal markets to buy things. They were quite developed, and things were just so chaotic.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.