Densho Digital Archive - Tamiko Honda Interview (denshovh-htamiko-01-0022)

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KP: Can I ask one question? It sounds like your father and your family were pretty well-informed before the war. You had radio, listened to radio, you received the San Francisco Chronicle, kind of stayed up on world events. When you came back, this was before the war ended, correct? When you came back to Redwood City?

TH: Yes, yes.

KP: And so... did your family, did your father still follow the world events and the course of the war at that time?

TH: Of course, yes. We read the newspaper daily, listened to the radio. So I would say my father was well-informed.

KP: And another thing that happened at that time... when did that happen? When FDR died?

TH: Oh, when FDR died, that was in about February of... of 1944. I think it was in the spring. And FDR was responsible for putting us behind barbed wires.

KP: So what did you and your family think?

TH: Well, he was getting old, he was sick.

KP: So also following world events, by the time we got into late summer of 1945, they dropped the atomic bombs. Was there any discussion in your family about that?

TH: Yes, of course. Fortunately, we didn't have any family relatives in Hiroshima. But I guess that in a lot of the Isseis' eyes was akin to Pearl Harbor to the Americans.

KP: And your brother was in what part of...

TH: Okay, my brother was in Japan in Kyushu, in the southern island. He was attending the university in Fukuoka.

RP: When did he officially return back to the United States?

TH: He came back in 1946.

RP: And did he share his experiences with you?

TH: Oh, yes.

RP: And what did he have to say about it? What was his life like during the war in Japan?

TH: Yes, it's interesting, he himself wrote a memo -- I mean, not a memo -- a memorial... I can't think of the word.

RP: A journal or diary?

TH: Yeah, yeah. He wrote one several years ago about his experiences during the war, and it was quite interesting. We didn't know what had happened to him, of course. My mother and father were worried about him, and without funds he was left in Japan. But fortunately, things worked out well for him.