Chieko Kiriake

Waiting for Peace Doesn’t Make It Come

3. The Pacific War Started

On December 8, 1941, we were informed that an important announcement would be broadcast on the radio at 7 a.m.  Radios were rare in those days, but we had one, and all our family and many neighbors were sitting in front of the radio in our house.  Then, the announcer’s voice sounded repeatedly, “Breaking news!  Breaking news!  Today, in the early morning of the 8th, the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy entered a state of war with the United States and the United Kingdom forces in the West Pacific.”  That was the Imperial proclamation of war.  Every adult around there shouted in excitement, “Beat them down!” Banzai!” but my father didn’t.  He looked gloomy.  Seeing him turn pale, I was strongly convinced that he was unpatriotic.

My father was born in Hawaii but grew up in Japan after returning with his parents when he was very young.  After he got a job in the shipyard, he visited the west coast of the U.S. mainland several times on business, so he was aware of how rich and superior in resources the U.S. was compared to Japan.  He probably had complex feelings about the war against the country of his birth. 

Until then, soldiers had been seen off by children waving small flags, but not anymore.  After the war started, ships carrying soldiers left the Ujina Port secretly at night.    Sometimes we saw women tightly holding a small box wrapped with white cloth close to their chests.  Sometimes freight trains with no windows ran on the Ujina Line carrying soldiers.  Unauthorized people’s entry to the vicinity of the port was prohibited, and anyone getting close to the port would be arrested on suspicion of spying.

In 1942, I entered Hiroshima Prefectural Second Girls’ Secondary School.  In the first year, we had English classes, but in the second year, English was abolished because it was the enemy’s language.  One day, we were told to bring our English textbooks and grammar books to school.  They were collected and thrown into the incinerator, and the ashes were spread on the school vegetable garden as fertilizer.  Seeing that, I teared up.  Our English teacher, who was Japanese American, had to teach the agriculture course instead.  He had always worn neatly pressed trousers and well-polished shoes in class, and I felt very sorry seeing him working in the muddy farming field. 

In 1943, when I was in my second year, due to the severe labor shortage, the mobilization of secondary school girls started.  In the beginning, we alternated around the three army depots.  In the fall of my third year, a year-round mobilization started, and students were required to work at the same place through the year.  We were a little disappointed when we were told to work in the tobacco factory of Hiroshima Monopoly Bureau (present Minami-machi, Minami-ku,).  We had been working at army depots, where we could directly support our soldiers, and we didn’t think that we would be able to make such a contribution in a tobacco factory.  So, several of us went to Principal Saburo Tsuyama and told him that we would like to work in a place where we could contribute more to our soldiers.  However, he told us, “Tobacco is necessary and helpful for weary soldiers to cheer up.”  After the war, I heard that he had actually chosen a workplace for us less likely to become a target of an air attack.

Former Army Clothing Depot

About 80-90 fourth-year girls of our school were all mobilized to work in this tobacco factory where we made three cigarette products—Kinshi for general customers, Homare for the Army and Houyoku for the Navy.  As mobilized girls, we were allowed to buy some packages of cigarettes each week, and my father often asked me to bring some home for him.  I heard that soldiers bought those cigarettes at the base exchanges of the war front.  I think the sale of tobacco was a means to finance the war effort. 

In the factory, I was assigned to mix a flavoring agent and sugar into tobacco leaves rolling on a conveyor belt.  Arriving at the factory before seven every morning, we changed clothes into work uniforms and attended a morning assembly together with the other factory workers.  The assembly began with making a deep bow toward the Emperor’s palace, then we received our work instructions of the day.  I still remember Dvorak’s Humoresque was played as BGM of the assembly every morning.  We had to take our positions before 8 a.m. and worked all day standing.  Probably because of that, I hurt my ankle.  In the factory’s infirmary, I was told that perhaps I had rheumatoid arthritis.  I was referred to Kubota Clinic located in Takara-machi and went to the clinic every Monday after the morning assembly.  The worst problem of working there was inhaling the tobacco dust floating inside the factory.  Even wearing masks didn’t work well enough to block the dust.  Every day I wiped my nasal passages clean with a towel when I got home.

Around the end of 1944, full-scale air attacks on Japan’s mainland began.  As my father was working in the shipyard in Ujina, I sometimes heard him talking about the tragedy of the ships carrying soldiers.  Some ships were sunk by American bombers inside the Seto Inland Sea, not making it to the Pacific.  Some other ships hit mines or got sunk by submarines just before going out into the open sea.  At that time, Japan had lost the mastery of the air, and I often saw American reconnaissance planes flying low.  After the war, my father said, “I think very few of those ships that left Ujina got to the war front successfully.”  Japanese people knew nothing about these unfortunate ships.

At the beginning of 1945, cities throughout Japan began to be subjected to air-raids.  About 200 cities are said to have been bombed by the end of the war; however, since Hiroshima City had had no major air attacks, the Japanese government decided to evacuate children in urban areas to rural areas.  Children who had relatives in the countryside were sent to them, and children who didn’t have relatives were evacuated to temples and other facilities under their teachers’ charge.  In Hiroshima, children’s evacuation started in April.  My sister Junko and Yoko were sent to evacuation facilities in groups.

We went to the tobacco factory every morning, worked there and went home after work, so we hardly went to school.  Occasionally, there was a no-electricity day.  On that day, as the factory was closed due to the power shortage, we went to school.  But we had no classes to study.  Instead, we had training to use bamboo spears, to throw wooden models of hand grenades, to signal with flags and to send Morse code.  Our entire lives were devoted to the war effort.

Every neighborhood association had an air-raid shelter made in preparation for air attacks.  Although we called it an air-raid shelter, it was made simply with several erect straight logs, wood panels placed as a roof on top of them.  About 30cm thick soil covered them, and grass and weeds were planted in that soil.  Once an air-raid siren sounded, people rushed into their individual air-raid shelters.  However, we school girls were required to meet at our school in order to keep our school buildings from burning. Round badges with a kanji character meaning “car” were distributed to students commuting a long way to school to wear when taking public transportation.  Only students wearing those badges were allowed to take public transportation to school.  When students were found taking public transportation without wearing one and were reported to their schools, PE teachers would give them a slap on the cheek.  When an air-raid siren sounded, students with no badges had to run to their schools, however far away they were.

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