<Begin Segment 3>

[Translated from Japanese]

NM: I would like to ask you about when the war started. You were going to elementary school. How old were you when the Pearl Harbor bombing took place?

TF: I wonder how old I was. I'm not sure. [Laughs]

NM: It was in 1941.

TF: I was ten years old then.

NM: You were still in elementary school, right?

TF: That's right. I didn't understand what this war was all about. I was growing up in a small village.

NM: Do you remember when you heard the news?

TF: I remember that.

NM: But you didn't think something big was happening?

TF: I didn't.

NM: Do you remember how the adults around you reacted to the news?

TF: I don't think they talked about it a lot. I don't remember much.

NM: You didn't notice any sudden changes in your life right after the war started?

TF: I didn't notice any difference during the war either. We did not get a lot of meat, but people didn't eat a lot of meat anyway in rural areas. The war didn't really affect our lives. We used to have someone delivering fish to us on a bicycle every day. He didn't come as frequently after the war started. That's all I noticed.

NM: I see. You didn't suffer food shortages right after the war...

TF: Not right after, not all the way to the end of the war either. We had rice and vegetables from our farm and bought dried fish, like dried cod, and stored them in a special room. I remember we had it hanging. We also bought big bags of dried sardines. We stored them in hanging baskets.

NM: So you didn't experience any food shortages...

TF: Not any difficulties...

NM: ...during the war.

TF: Not at all.

NM: Your family owned farmland and was able to be self-sustaining.

TF: That's right.

NM: I heard people in cities experienced food shortages and visited farmers for some produce. Do you remember anyone coming to your family farm?

TF: It was after the war, probably two years after it ended. I think that was a middle school teacher. My father was already gone, and my mother was managing the household. We were still young and didn't know what was going on with the farm. The teacher came for help because they heard my mother was a chairperson of a women's club and known as a caring person. I remember my mother shared what we had and gave it to the teacher.

NM: That was about two years after the war.

TF: I think it was.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2016 Densho. All Rights Reserved.