<Begin Segment 11>

MN: Was Japan's growing militarism pretty obvious in '41?

JM: Oh yeah. Their, especially the navy, when they come around you had to get off the road to let 'em pass. They were kingpin.

MN: What happened if you didn't get out of their way?

JM: You get knocked off. It's just natural. Everybody just get off.

MN: Were there a lot of Kempeitai in your area?

JM: Huh?

MN: Kempeitai?

JM: Oh, there were some but in the village, no.

MN: Now, so you were living in the village, did you have to work on the farm or any that kind of labor?

JM: No. In fact, we used to eat, my brother and I used to eat five bowls of rice. And it's white rice, it's not mixed 'cause Grandfather had rice paddies, so he used to tear his hair out. "Don't eat so much rice." [Laughs] So I told him, "There's nothing to eat," so we used to put miso shiru in the rice. And ham, we had a big ham, dried one, so we used to carve it out and eat it with the rice.

MN: I'm actually surprised there was meat available in '41.

JM: No, we took it from the States. It's the dry one.

MN: So that must've been pretty precious, to have that kind of meat out there.

JM: I guess so.

MN: Now you shared about your father's family, how your father had been sending money to your grandfather and he was able to build a nice house. What about your mother's side?

JM: My mother's folks previously, they were very wealthy. They had a (large ship), and they got caught in a big storm and all of the fishermen died, so they sold all the properties they had to help the families survive. So that's when they lost all their money.

MN: Now, when you were in Japan, did you hear that there might be war between the United States and Japan?

JM: Every day. They said, "Don't go to United States 'cause they're gonna be at war and U.S. gonna lose, so you better stay in Japan." I said, "I don't want to stay in Japan." Then in fact, three times we went from Kobe to Yokohama. The first two times they stopped the boat. In fact, before that, one boat went to the States and they went back and forth and they couldn't get in. I guess they didn't have any permit or something, I don't know, so they had to turn around and come back to Japan, and a lot of people died of food poisoning 'cause they couldn't get the supplies in the States.

MN: Now, if your family couldn't go back to the United States, what were your parents planning to do, leave you in Japan?

JM: They were (planning to) go to China from there. So I told them, "You're not gonna leave us in Japan," and then they found out that a boat was gonna be available, so we went to Yokohama. You should've seen the people there. They all wanted to get back, but they only had one boat. They could only take so many people. So two time we had to go back, third time they finally got an agreement. Then my dad knew somebody at NYK building and he was able to get us on the boat, so our family, and they had three girls, my dad's friend's (daughters) he was responsible for them, so he got them on the boat, too. So we all came back (in the same boat).

MN: So that's a total of ten people? Five children and then two of, your mom and dad, and then three other... what month are we talking about?

JM: When we came back I think it was in September.

MN: September 1941?

JM: Uh-huh.

MN: So this is right before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.