叔父さんの｢World War 2 Chronicle of My August 15 Escape｣

今も、アメリカにいる叔父さんに、叔父さんの記事を note に乗せさていただいたことをメールで連絡したところ、返信をいただきました。
返信には、叔父さんの子供が、叔父さんの｢8月15日脱出記｣を英訳したものと、メッセージが添えられていました。
英訳は、叔父さんの子供が、自分の子供、つまり、叔父さんの孫に伝えるために英訳したものです。

今回は、その叔父さんからメッセージと、英訳版を記載します。
日本語で書かれた叔父さんの｢8月15日脱出記｣は、以下の note をご覧ください。

叔父さんからいただいたメッセージ

叔父さんから届いた、メールの返信には、以下のメッセージが添えられていました。
私自身、あらためて、戦争と言うものが、どれだけ叔父さんの心に深く残っているかを感じました。

過去の事は忘れるように努めていますが、良い思い出はすぐに忘れれるのに、悪い方はいつまでも残っています。
戦時戦後のことも　例の書き物をもって終わりにしたいと思っています。
いまの平穏に感謝。

また、｢8月15日脱出記｣に書ききれなかったことも添えてありました。
ご紹介させていただきます(一部、追記しております)。
私の知っているあの明治堅気の優しい祖父が、44歳で終戦を知ったその時、どんな気持ちで家族を守ろうとしたかと考えると、やはり、涙が出てきます。
そして、私も祖父/祖母を自慢に思っています。
ありがとう。

数人の見知らぬ韓国人は 敗戦を知らせに来たのではなく、親父が軍部と繋がりがないか調べに来たそうです。
関係なしとして帰っていったようです。
でも、なぜ翌朝小学校の一室に連行され、拘束されたのかはわかりません。

父は 猟銃を持っていたし、鉱山だから、ダイナマイトもありました。
だから、自決することはできたのです。
夜は決心がにぶり、翌朝小学校に連行されたから機会を失ったわけで、何が幸いするか分かりません。

村は 父の鉱山で裕福だったようですし、無医村だったので、日本製の医薬品を従業員だけでなく、村人にもあげていたようです。
それで 敗戦後も好意的で拘束されている間も、家を守ってくたのでしょう。
韓国で 日本が搾取したという例もあったでしょうが、両親はそうではなかったとは、このことをもって自信をもっていえますし、両親を自慢に思っています。

敗戦後ただちに日本陸軍は解散していたはずです。
どうして軍隊がしかも軍用車を持ってくるような組織的な救援をしてくれたのか分かりません。
これはとうとう確かめずに終わりました。

8月15日とその後の生活は辛い思い出ばかりで、もう忘れたいとおもいますが、なかなかできません。
いまの平穏に感謝。

World War 2 Chronicle of My August 15 Escape

Translated from Orange Network Japanese Community Magazine, May 2017
Featured Series: My August 15th – My Experience from the End of World War II　No. 23

By Dr. Motomichi Inoue

World War 2 Chronicle of My August 15 Escape

Some memories from childhood are stored as fragments of images.
By asking parents about each fragment and piecing together the images from their answers to each question, a story is generated.
My memory of my “August 15th” is one of those types of memories, because I was five years old at the time.

It began on August 16th just after noon, when several Korean men I had never seen before appeared at our front door.
This, for our family, was the first news that Japan had been defeated in the war.
At the time, Korea was under Japanese rule, and my father operated a mine deep in the mountains of Southern Korea.
In this tiny commune, where there were only three Japanese families – that of the principal of the elementary school, the police chief, and ours - the news that the war had ended arrived a day late.
I was told afterwards that my mother took out a futon and covered my 8-year-old sister and me, and I was just trembling in fear as I hid.

After our “guests” left, my father’s Korean employees and villagers came by to check on us, but their stories were all horrible - along the lines of “the police chief has already fled!” and “rioting in other villages!”
What I remember from that night are images of my parents carrying on brief conversations under the light of a dim lamp, and of my sister crying.
According to my mother’s tale decades later, my father had apparently considered family suicide, and my sister had overheard and that was when she started crying.
The port city where there was a Japanese community and where my older brother lived with our grandparents to attend a Japanese high school was over 100 km (62 miles) away.
It would have been too dangerous to travel by foot with young children through unsafe land.
The humiliation we would have suffered if we were caught was probably more unbearable than death for my father, who came of age in the Meiji period when the samurai ethos was still highly valued.
My father owned a gun, and he had explosives for use in mining, so he had the means to carry it out.
In the end, however, he stopped short of death that night, because my sister’s cry led to hesitation (according to my mother).

In the morning, we were taken to a classroom in the elementary school, which was being used as a temporary holding place.
The windows were boarded up and we couldn’t see outside.
The silence was only interrupted by footsteps in the corridors, which were terrifying.

Suddenly, we were liberated.
A small band of the Japanese Army came to rescue us.
The Japanese Army must have been disbanded immediately upon defeat, so I do not know why soldiers came to rescue us, especially in an organized rescue operation with a military truck.
My grandfather who lived in the port city knew many military officials stationed there, so it is likely that he had asked them for a favor.
I was never able to ascertain this….

In any case, the soldiers took us back to our house, which had not suffered any damage.
It seemed the Korean villagers had protected our house from looting and pillaging.
The village was prosperous because of my father’s mining business, and my father treated the villagers well.
While there were known examples of the Japanese taking advantage of local Korean citizens, my parents were definitely not like that, and of that fact I am very proud.

My parents immediately began to go through our possessions.
They packed the tiny amount of belongings we were allowed to bring with us.
They burned letters, photos, etc. in the backyard.
I still have in my possession today three photographs my parents managed to save for me that day.
I was watching the burning flames with anxiety and worry, when a young soldier armed with a sword led me to a sugarcane field.
We sat side by side on a wooden box chewing on sugar canes and gazing at the blue sky.
That was the one and only happy memory from these events.

At dawn, we departed for the port city in a military truck.
The way was a narrow mountain road, and we could be attacked at any moment.
Our family sat in the truck bed.
About 10 soldiers surrounded us, all of them with their guns aimed outward in the event of an ambush.
I have no memory of arriving at the port city.
I was probably asleep from fatigue.
I wish I could have thanked the men who risked their own lives to come rescue us….

At the port city, there were no ships going to Japan.
We had one chance to get on a repatriation ship, but we were unable because my mother had come down with a high fever and couldn’t be moved to the larger harbor, about 50 km (30 miles) away, where the ship was anchored.
Finally, in September, when it was becoming unsafe even in the Japanese neighborhood of town, we were able to arrange to travel back with an acquaintance whose relatives had come from Japan by boat to retrieve his family.
There were eight families all together on this journey.
My mother told me afterward that it was a 46-ton cargo boat.
Each family carved out their territory in the narrow hull.
We had no partitions, but this was no time to complain about privacy.
We were lucky to be able to get on a boat!

Once in open sea, the coastal cruising cargo boat – not meant for open sea - swayed like crazy, and to add to that, as the night fell, it began to storm.
We must have hit the Makurazaki Typhoon (known internationally as Typhoon Ida), one of the most destructive typhoons in history of Japan, which landed on the city of Makurazaki, Kagoshima Prefecture on September 17, 1945.
The engine was charging along, but then began to sputter in despair and stopped, and we were at the mercy of the wind and the waves.
This happened several times, and we braced for sinking and death.
To this day, I can hear the roar of the waves slamming into the ship….

Eventually, we arrived in Tsushima, an island roughly halfway between South Korea and Japan, where we were able to moor at a fishing port and wait for the typhoon to pass, and then traveled on to Kokura Port in Kita-Kyushu.
We were lucky.
Actually, I learned later that the repatriation ship we previously missed because of my mother’s illness had come in contact with a floating mine and exploded….

Disembarking the ship, I’ll never forget the expression on the men and women staring at the gloomy port – it was a mix of relief having survived the journey and worry about their future.
My father, 44-years-old at the time, had lost everything he had built over half of his life and had to eke out a place to shelter from the night fog.
I’m sure every family was in a similar situation.

My father never spoke of these events afterwards.
I was afraid to ask, so I asked my mother secretly, but she was not very forthcoming either.
Thus, my August 15th documentary is incomplete.
Since it is incomplete, and given that it is such a painful episode in my life, it is probably best that I keep it to myself.
Yet, I penned it because I thought it may honor my late mother and father.

August 15th and the post-war life are nothing but painful memories I want to forget, but I can’t.
I am thankful for the peace we have today.

Author’s Profile:

Motomichi Inoue, Ph.D.
Born Kita-Kyushu, Japan, December, 1939
B.S., Chemistry, Nagoya University, Japan, 1962
Ph.D., Chemistry, Nagoya University, Japan, 1967
Associate Professor, Chemistry, Nagoya University, Japan
Founding Professor/Department Director, Materials Science, University of Sonora, Mexico
Visiting Professor, Chemistry, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida
Visiting Professor, Chemistry, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona