<Begin Segment 27>

MN: So you get to Japan. Which port did you pull into?

MT: Yokohama. Actually, we got off at Uraga. It's a little bit further south, it's on the back side of Yokohama Bay.

MN: Now you have to share with us how you got off the ship.

MT: Well, they didn't have any docks for us to dock. We were in the middle of the bay, so you get off the ship, from the top deck, you got on a rope ladder and came down into the barge. Then from the barge is moved to a little porthole that's... oh, gee, it was higher than my head, anyway. They opened up that door and handed us all the suitcases and the half trunks, and some of them are full steamer trunks, handed down from there. We had to catch it and take it to the wharf and put it up on the wharf. That was the way we got off the ship. Even the ladies had to get off that same ladder into the barge and get off at the wharf. They couldn't get into the regular place because the American army was unloading there, and the soldiers are first, we were last.

MN: So if you didn't catch those luggage coming out from that little other door...

MT: The door, yeah.

MN: Did it just drop into the ocean?

MT: If you did miss. So we didn't miss. The guys up there were very careful hanging on, hanging on, "Don't drop it, don't drop it." We were very careful. We didn't lose not one.

MN: I imagine those were really heavy, too.

MT: Yeah. As a matter of fact, our steamer trunk is in the garage right now, yet. Still got it.

MN: Now, once you got onto shore, where did they take you?

MT: It was terrible there. People that came from the South Sea Islands, you know, those people from warm place, they only had shorts and short sleeved shirts. And here it is freezing cold, snow outside. There's a lot of people that froze to death over there. And what they were doing is just taking the bodies, stacking them in a room like wood, just stack it up in the room. They can't bury it, they didn't have enough people there, they didn't have no money either. So they just stacked 'em up in a room. I don't know what they did with the bodies, 'cause we were there just so long and then they shipped us to Hiroshima.

MN: Did you see these bodies?

MT: Oh, yeah, 'cause we were walking around all over the place. Oh, gee, stacked a few more bodies again. It didn't bother us.

MN: Now when you were there, were you able to go into Tokyo and see what had happened to Tokyo?

MT: Oh, yeah. You could go anywhere if you got the money to go.

MN: What did Tokyo look like in...

MT: Flat. Hiroshima was, too, flat.

MN: Now I think you mentioned this earlier, but when you were sent to Japan, how much money were you allowed to bring?

MT: Two hundred dollars a family.

MN: What happened to the rest of your family's money?

MT: Just stayed in the bank. I don't know how long ago after that, gee, it must have been about a couple of years before we could even get it. But we didn't have too much money there. Because, like I say, the money was all in the crop, and the war started, and when we sold the crop, it didn't pay for the seed and the fertilizer, not all of it. So the rest of it was whatever money we had in the bank was your loss.

MN: Now before the war, there weren't too many Japanese banks doing business in the U.S. Do you remember which bank your father did business with?

MT: Sumitomo. Yeah, Sumitomo was a big one there.

MN: And that's now California Bank and Trust today.

MT: Yeah, now.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.