My grandmother told me about life in Nagasaki for the first time *English
This article is translated by the Japanese version below ↓
Ever since I was a child, I asked my grandmother to tell me stories from the past. She occasionally told me stories, especially about the WW2.
Grandma was born in Nagasaki in 1928 and grew up in Nagasaki as well. Isn't it amazing that she's the same age as Mickey Mouse and Osamu Tezuka? lol
In 2024, my 95-year-old grandmother is really healthy and like to have meat and wine lol. I haven't seen her for a while since I came to Canada, but I heard she was very happy and said she was taken to a Japanese restaurant at the nursing home the other day, so I think she is doing well hehe. I feel she will live to be 100 years old.
Now, when you hear "A story of war, Nagasaki," many people probably think of that event and feel a sense of fear.
To be honest, the reason I decided to write this is because I felt strongly that it is necessary to preserve grandma's memory of the atomic bomb that she taught me.
So, of course, there are some violent expressions in this note. I will write them here exactly as my grandmother taught them, so if you are uncomfortable with that, please read with caution.
But it's NOT something from "history"... from "textbooks"... from "the news".. it's the memory of daily lifes that my grandma experienced about 80 years ago.
I try to write not only the scary experience of that day, but also the daily life and lifestyle of my grandmother, who was a high school girl (what we would call today) working at a rice ration center*, in a way like "In This Corner of the World."
*Foods such as rice, sugar, salt and oil were rationed during the war.
The story behind asking her about "the day"
At the beginning of this note, I wrote that " When I was a child, grandma told me stories about the WW2," but she always laughed and covered up the atomic bomb for years. "It made a really loud bang and it was scary lol!" …that was it.
I thought it would be not good to force her to tell me, so I didn't ask for long time. But time passed quickly, and I, who was an elementary school student at the time, am now in my mid-twenties.
As the voices of people who were alive at that time (especially those who were already adults at that time) are getting fewer and fewer, I thought that if I wouldn't listen any of her stories, one memory would disappear from the world… and thought that was not good.
So, in the summer of 2022, I asked my grandma for about an hour to tell me the story.
I found out later that she had never told my father, her son, about the atomic bomb. I think it was the first time she told me about her memory. I truly felt that I was glad that I had the courage to ask her.
By the way, the reason why I translate this note into Japanese to English is considering the lack of English-language notes of experiences with the atomic bomb, I would like as many people as possible to listen about my grandmother's memories in the English I have learned.
Please note that this is a transcription of my grandmother's story, and that I am not particularly knowledgeable about the time, so some information may be unclear or incorrect.
Life at that time
When the Pacific War started in 1941, my grandmother was 13 years old and lived in Nagasaki.
She heard the broadcast of the attack on Pearl Harbor on the radio. There was an air raid shelter in her grandmother's house same as common house at the time in Japan.
I watched some documentaries, and they showed that during the war, there was strong propaganda in Japan. However, some ordinary people secretly said, "Japan couldn't defeat such big countries like the US and the UK….".
After that, my grandmother, who was a junior high school student, was mobilized as a student and worked every day buttoning up military uniforms. That's why she hardly studied anything above junior high school level.
Student labor mobilization, or student mobilization, or labor mobilization was the mobilization of secondary school and above students to work in the military industry and food production in order to make up for the serious labor shortage that occurred after 1943 (Showa 18) at the end of World War II.
She went on to a girls high school, but due to the times she couldn't go to school. Instead of studying, she worked as an office worker for the Food Distribution Corporation through an introduction from a rice shop where her father's acquaintance worked.
Since it was an office job, she needed to use an abacus, but my grandmother didn't know how to use it (she was still in high school, obviously), so she learnt how to use the abacus from a senior (apparently named Yasuko) every night. That must have been tough...that's why she's still so good at it even now.
My grandmother was in charge of distributing rice in the town. Even though it was rationed, towards the end of the war, they were only given one day's worth of rice every 20 days (I'd heard about it in movies, but I thought it was really true...), so she often went to Saga prefecture to barter. She mainly exchanged kimonos for potatoes. The sweet potatoes were big at first, but they gradually got smaller.
Since she used to work at a rice shop, when she went to the public bath (onsen), people in the town always asked her, "When is the next distribution?" and she felt it was stressful. She couldn't take a bath peacefully, and eventually she couldn't go to the public bath anymore. (I thought this was very human lol)
Also, when it was her group's (neighborhood group) turn to receive their rations, everyone would look at the measurement lol. They were constantly checking to make sure there was no cheating. It's scary….
The Neighborhood Association (隣組, Tonarigumi) was the smallest unit of the national mobilization program established by the Japanese government in World War II. It consisted of units consisting of 10-15 households organized for fire fighting, civil defense and internal security.
From junior high school to high school, and even after that (maybe), she worked at various distribution centers in Nagasaki for about eight years (Inasa Distribution Center, Akunoura Distribution Center, Tategami Distribution Center, Takenokubo Distribution Center, etc.).
She walked to the distribution center which was about an hour wearing geta* every day. The geta were relatively light, and she was already used to them, so it didn't seem like a big deal to her apparently.
August 9th, 1945
This was the day of rice distribution once 20 days. Many people flocked to the distribution center from the morning, and it was very crowded.
It was so sunny day, that is what she remember most.
It was just after 11am, and the distribution center was crowded with people wanting rice. Then, for a moment, there was a strongly flash of light, followed by a roaring noise. No one knowing what was going on, so she hid in the shadow of something suddenly.
After that, she stepped on the people lying on the floor and went outside. For some reason, she bursts out laughing at this point when she talks. It's a little scary, does she found it funny to step on people...? I feel like there might be another reason.
I'm not sure which distribution center my grandmother was working at that day, but she said she saw a mushroom cloud from the other side of Mount Inasa (I'm not 100% sure if it was Inasa mountain specifically, but she said somewhere mountain). She said her home was near the current Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Nagasaki Shipyard, so I think it was within 5km (3.1miles) of the ground zero. I was surprised to learn that her house was only a 14-minute drive from the ground zero.
It's really strange that if my grandmother was in the center of town close to ground zero for shopping or something, I might not have existed in this world.
After that, she returned home, but the house was a totally mess and the windows were so shattered that it was no longer to live in, so they spent the night in the air-raid shelter of someone who worked with them at the distribution center.
For a while after that, it became a common scenery to see trucks piled up with many corpses arriving in front of the distribution center where she worked, and the bodies were burned in front of the center.
My grandmother also suffered from diarrhea and nausea at first after the bombing.
Her older sister was working at the post office at the time, and was working by a window when the bomb went off, so she was seriously injured by glass cutting her left wrist and causing it to hang down.
However, the hospital said that "that doesn't count even as an injury" and didn't treat her. A neighbor's grandmother applied a kind of herbal medicine (?) to the wound every day, and it finally healed.
This may be well known, grandmothers called the atomic bomb "pikadon" because it made a flash and then a bang.
My Grandfather's Story
My grandfather (who passed away about 15 years ago) were also in Nagasaki city at the time, and I heard that he walked through the Urakami area (about 500m (0.3miles) from the ground zero) on the very day of the atomic bomb, and that he probably witnessed the famous "black rain."
Therefore, both my grandfather and grandmother had an Atomic Bomb Survivor's Certificate ( Atomic Bomb Survivor's Health Certificate ). I remember this even as an elementary school student.
The Atomic Bomb Victims' Health Booklet is a booklet issued to people who were exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb dropped in 1945 under the Law Concerning Assistance for Atomic Bomb Victims (commonly known as the Atomic Bomb Victims Assistance Law). Those who meet certain requirements can receive support for medical expenses and other expenses. On July 3, 2023, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare announced that the number of people holding the Atomic Bomb Victims' Health Booklet was 113,649 at the end of March, down 5,286 from the previous year. The average age was 85.01 years old, up 0.48 years from the previous year.
I wish I could have talked to my grandfather…
He walked 500 meters from the hypocenter, and must have witnessed horrific scenes.
But he never showed anything like that. He was a very calm, gentle and sweet grandfather who was always in his room and rarely come out. lol
End of the war
The war ended about a week later, but the burning of corpses in front of the distribution center continued for a while.
In the confusion of the end of the war, there were wired rumors that "foreigners (probably US militaries or someone) are coming, so run away" was spread out. So grandma some time slept in the mountains.
After a while, American soldiers and delinquent-looking Japanese girls started hanging out in front of the rationing centre.
Conclusion
After this, she told me for about two hours about how my grandparents got married and moved to Tokyo by train from Nagasaki. That's a different story. She talked a lot about it with a very happy look on her face lol.
Anyway, what impressed me the most was the way grandma looked as she was gazing off into space as she recalled those days. I imagined that the scenes from those days were clearly lingering in her mind.
"War is no good, that's not good," she said.
It was the first time I'd heard my grandmother say these words, as she shared memories that she had been glossing over until then.
I do think that Japan did bad things at the time. However, ordinary citizens, including my grandmother, were simply trying their best to live their normal lives.
She didn't say "specific country is bad", just said "WAR is bad".
Even now, wars are continuing around the world, and it is truly unforgivable for ordinary citizens to become victims.
To be honest, at first I didn't really want to say that my grandparents experienced the atomic bomb. I felt a bit hesitant...
But gradually I began to think that maybe this was a kind of responsibility on me, so I decided to write this article. I thought that if there are people close to me who experienced it directly, it is my role to listen carefully and pass it on to them.
I'd be grateful if my grandmother's memories could help people understand that this isn't just something from a textbook, but something that really happened.
I'll treat her to something when I get back to Japan lol.
Thank you for telling me the story, grandma!