<Begin Segment 18>

MU: Well, now, let's move on. You remember the time that the atom bomb was dropped?

MM: Oh gee, that was devastating. It was a shock. It was a shocking news for everybody at Fort Snelling.

MU: How did you, how did you hear about it? That was a Sunday... no, no, it wasn't a Sunday, I'm thinking about Pearl Harbor. But how did you hear about the bomb?

MM: Let's see, this bomb, I must've been at home by then. I probably wasn't working 'cause I was pregnant. I was at home, see.

MU: Did you have a radio?

MM: So all I could hear was all this racket outside, the war's end and the bells were ringing, you name it, anything that you could ring or bang, I heard it.

MU: The surrender came a little, few days later, but...

MM: Yeah, the atom bomb itself, I had never known that they were creating such a devastating weapon and it really shocked me.

MU: Now, you knew they dropped it on Hiroshima?

MM: Yes, exactly. That's where my folks come from. And I knew then and there that some of my relatives had perished, and they did, they did actually. And I thought there was no need for that. I felt that there was no need for that because things were getting pretty, rather bad in Japan already. And what weapons that they were rounding up were bamboo spears in case the forces landed, things like that, and the food was scarce. It was just terrible.

MU: Now amongst your relatives, are there still some that are suffering from the radiation of the bomb?

MM: No, most of them are gone now, the ones that suffered. And I know in one instance and I heard this later on, one of my cousins was living in the middle of town -- Enomachi -- and they had sent their child to (the) outskirts of Hiroshima city, where they took in children. It could have been a temple or wherever, because I guess they felt things were getting pretty bad.

MU: For bomb shelter?

MM: Well, they were sent out to temples or wherever, outskirts, because I suppose they felt that things were getting pretty bad. And so this one, the son came, walked home a distance to his home, day before the atom bomb and the mother said, "My goodness, you shouldn't, you shouldn't come all that distance. You should be out there." So the next morning, early in the morning, she walked him out of town, out of the city. And on the outskirts of the city, that's when the bomb fell.

MU: So he survived?

MM: So she was spared, he was spared. But her sister who was living there had other children, not hers, 'cause she was single. She got out -- she crawled out from wherever and carried one on her back and the other one was able to walk, so they walked out of Hiroshima city and came to Koibashi, if you know where that is. And crossed the bridge and the bridge went down and went to my uncle's place up the river. But she eventually passed away. So there's one.

And then there was another uncle that had come in from Osaka for some reason. And he started out for the Hiroshima station. They never found him. And then one of my dear cousins -- just as cute as she could be, their only child -- she was clearing a certain area with her high school students, and the last person that saw her said, "She said, 'I want to see my mother,'" but she perished. So quite a few of my relatives have perished and I felt real bad about that. I did -- now we're going into occupation -- but to make the long story short, when I arrived in Japan, I told my husband, "I've got to go see them, I just have to see what's going on." And so Tak says, "No, I don't want to go. You go by yourself." Well, I don't want to go by myself with my little one. So he decided, "Okay, we'll go." So then I wrote a letter saying, "Please find accommodation outside the city," 'cause I knew there was nothing in the city. But as it turned out, my doctor cousin was living in housing that they had temporarily set up. So we met, he said the next day, "I want to take you to the Red Cross hospital," 'cause that was still standing, although the glasses were broken, it was still standing. So he took me upstairs and I actually saw with my own eyes the victims. And there was one person in bed with his hands like that, you know, burnt, and my cousin said, "Well, I'm gonna operate on him, so it would be back in position." His back was all burned and I said, "I've seen enough, you'll have to excuse me, I want to go home." So I've actually seen the victims of the A-bomb.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.