Densho Digital Archive - Minoru Yamaguchi Interview (denshovh-yminoru

<Begin Segment 9>

KL: So this, I think, we're up to about the time when your older brother and sister were thinking about maybe going back to the United States.

MY: Yeah, it was 1948. That was the year that I started my first year.

KL: I did want to ask you, though, and I know you don't have a lot of firsthand memories of it, but I did want to ask you about your memories of the atomic bombs and the Japanese surrender, too. Let's back up to that. Forgot about that.

MY: Yes. Of course, I told you that my dad had that radio, the one and only in the village. And I believe that was 1946? Yeah, I think it was 1946. It was... let's see, Hiroshima, the, when the atomic bomb was dropped it was August, right? August 1941?

KL: The war started in '41.

MY: Okay, then '45, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, '45.

KL: That's okay.

MY: I think it was 1946 when, I don't remember, I was just, I have a faint memory that I saw some villagers sitting around the radio, and some of 'em kind of bending down like this [bows head], some of 'em, their expression of, some of 'em was almost in tears and some of 'em were just bending down and then listening to the radio. I didn't know what it was, but that was the message that they were, from Emperor Hirohito, announcing that he wanted to unconditionally surrender, so that's why after that, I guess, some of those people felt anger or sadness, and that's why they were almost in tears. Now, I kind of realize that later on, much later on. So I guess that was the end of the war. But I don't remember at all about the, when the atomic bombs dropped. I didn't know, 'cause we were about four hundred miles south of Nagasaki. Well, Nagasaki's in Kyushu, the same island that we live. Kagoshima is southern tip and Nagasaki is on the Japan Sea side, on the west side, which is about, Hiroshima is the mainland of Japan, so a little bit further, further northwest -- northeast, I'm sorry. But Nagasaki is probably about two hundred and fifty miles, three hundred miles maybe northwest of us. And I didn't know anything about it until when I was a little bit older, later, that some of those workers, some of those younger people that were in the area working in a coal mine, I think... yeah, in that area, like Fukuoka, Nagasaki, in the same area, Fukuoka's pretty well-known for coal mine, there was a lot of coal miners those days. And some of those people got affected by that, and they came home and then have the problem with leukemia or... so I didn't really know anything about it until much later, even after I came back here. I had a chance to visit Japan, so I wanted to see Hiroshima, and that, once I, of course I had to pay, I don't know how much, but I got into interpretive center where they keep all the materials, and start reading all those things, materials that was on display. That's when I really realized that it was, really was something. So other than that I, before that I didn't know. I didn't know anything about it. And another interpretive center, the local one that I had visited was, all the... zero airplane pilot, okay, zero airplane pilot is, the zero airplane was just a small airplane that carried just bomb, attack airplane, and they were given one way of fuel, the suicide bomber, so called suicide bomber. So you just fly the airplane and then just target the U.S. warship, and then they just go in like a suicide. Then there's no way of, even if they survive the attack, couldn't come back because there's only fuel that is one way. And those pilots, before, the day before they left, they left a note, little short note, and I saw that, some of those collection of notes. It was so sad. It was incredible.

KL: I imagine.

MY: And those notes were mainly left to their mothers. Most, ninety percent of the notes was written to mothers. Because I read Japanese, so I understood one hundred percent what they were saying. So sad. And that really hit me, more than what I've heard about the A-bomb or other things. But those letters to their mothers was something. Never, never can forget it. That was something that's, something sad. But just, those young boys, about eighteen to twenty years old, had to go through that for Imperial Navy, talking about the courage. It was incredible.