Interviews
Escape from Hiroshima
Now, I always tell people that I think I had three traumatic event[s] in my life. Certainly, this was one of them, the first one. When we got to the road, there were, I don’t know, 50, 100, lots of people, many people severely injured with injuries that you could not believe, broken limbs. Okay there were people with such terrible burn[s] that their skin would be dripping from their body. Some people, or at least one person I saw had guts hanging out from their tummy, holding on. Some of them had already fallen on the ground begging for water. They say that usually just before you die you get extremely thirsty. So people said, “Don’t give them water because they will die,” but they would have died anyway. By that time, the streets were already linedwith corpses.
So we went through the sea of carnage and finally, I don't know how long it took, it may have been 30 minutes, it may have been an hour, it might have been hours. But I don't know how long it took, but we finally got away from the city that was burning, and away from many of the people with severe injuries, and we got to a train station that was functional. I remember riding on the train and going to a relative who lived in the area called Kabe—they're distant relatives there. We stayed there until the end of the war.
Date: September 3, 2019
Location: California, US
Interviewer: Masako Miki
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
Explore More Videos
Conditions of assembly centers
(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.
Visit to assembly centers by E. Stanley Jones
(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.
Postcards to Nisei soldiers
(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.
Hiding what happened in camp
(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.
Camp as a positive thing
(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.
Mr. Finch, godfather of the 442nd
(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.
Rounding up Issei and Nikkei
(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.
Kibei schoolchildren in Hiroshima, Japan
(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.
Difficulties understanding different Japanese dialects
(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.
Mixed emotions after declaration of war on Japan
(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.
Finding work in the assembly center
(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.
Train ride to Jerome Relocation Center
(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.
Atmosphere in his Merrill’s Marauders unit when surrounded by Japanese soldiers
(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.
Finding his relative among Japanese prisoners
(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.