Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan From: ewsres15@pc.usl.edu (Gerard Vignes) Subject: Diary Date: 21 Nov 90 22:09:34 GMT I have found another interesting book, the published diary of Michihiko Hachiya, a Japanese physician who lived through the Hiroshima disaster. Though it may not be admissable as scientific evidence, it does afford us a wonderful insight into what Japan went through at the close of war. Gerard Vignes From "Hiroshima Diary: The Journal of a Japanese Physician August 6-- September 30, 1945" by Michihiko Hachiya, M.D., Director Hiroshima Communications Hospital; translated and edited by Warner Wells, M.D., University of North Carolina School of Medicine; pub. University of North Carolina Press, 1955. (begin quote, pg. 190) 15 September 1945 Cloudy with occasional rain. After breakfast, some of the Kure Post Office staff came to visit and I learned for the first time that occupation forces had landed. Even the term "shinchu-gun", which in general means an occupation force, was as strange and foreign to me as the forces themselves. It saddened me to think of the great naval port of Kure being occupied by the Allied forces. Since childhood, I had known of Kure as the last and the greatest stronghold of the Imperial Navy. Now it was in foreign hands and no one could say whether it would be an open port or a restricted area. My friends informed me that the port of Hiroshima in Ujina would soon be occupied. In anticipation, people were building fences around their houses and putting locks on doors and windows because they had heard that the Allied soldiers would not break locks or windows or tear down fences. The Allied soldiers, they told me, were exceedingly fond of women and very kind to them. Before long occupation forces would appear at our hospital. Already, they were seen more and more frequently around Hiroshima station. Mail had been coming since the first of September, so I was surprised today to receive twenty-four or twenty-five letters. I read each letter carefully and examined the envelopes. Some, dating from September the twelfth, came from friends who read my article in the "Sangyo Keizai". They praised the article and congratulated me on being alive. Other letters, dated around the tenth of August, were from friends inquiring for my safety. Wondering why I should receive letters with so widely different post dates, I went to the Bureau and asked the reason. A post office employee informed me that the Hiroshima Post Office was completely destroyed and unable to resume function until the first of September. With the opening of temporary offices in the Postal Saving Bureau, Hiroshima station, and a railway post office near the Bureau, mail distribution was resumed. Until these branches were opened all the mail bags marked Hiroshima were stored at various post offices along the Hiroshima train route. THe earlier letters being at the bottom of the pile and the later ones on top accounted for their being delivered together. The hospital census was steadily decreasing. Only those too sick to move remained; the others fled as their fears of the occupation mounted. Many of our occupants were orphaned children and they continued to live with us since they had no fear of the occupation. I encountered a group playing happily on the hospital steps. The toys were anything they could find: bits of grass, pieces of wood, and odd-shaped stones. One group had a picture of the Emperor Meiji over which they had plastered a large mud pie. "Where did you get this picture?" I asked the children. "Do you know it is a picture of the Emperor Meiji?" "Sensi, there are lots of them at the old general headquaters!" they exclaimed, innocent of having committed any indignity. "You must be respectful of the Emperor's picture," I remonstrated. "Otherwise you may be punished. Perhaps you had better let me take it." The children gave me the picture and their faces registered suprise and hurt pride for having unwittingly done something wrong. I knew they had no intention of misbehaving and by the time I got back to my room I was ashamed of the way I had handled the situation. After lunch, I was told that occupation forces could be seen if one went to the station, so in spite of the rain I went down to have a look. On the way I experienced a strange feeling when I encountered some young boys with long hair and bare heads, walking around proudly. Nearer the station I encountered more boys with long hair and was told this was the latest style. Lose the war and win long hair, I thought to myself. During my student days, if our school lost a game with another school, we paid the additional forfeit of having our heads shaved. Short hair was in vogue during the war, but now, no one wished to be mistaken for a demobilized soldier for fear of occupation reprisal. The station, or what was left of it, was packed with people milling about in confusion, but I saw no soldiers. On the streets around the station were little booths or stalls no larger than a "tatami", often smaller, and so closely jammed together one could hardly get around. In these tiny places of business people were selling all kinds of things. Small shacks had sprung up and bore the dubious titles of eating places. One would specialize in "somen", a form of small, noodle-like vermicelli served with seaweed; another in "kantoni", bits of meat, fish, or fishcake spitted with vegetables or thin strips of bamboo and charcoal broiled over a "shichirin"; and another in "yomogi", a form of of rice-cake. These little eating places looked dirty, but business was good. Most of the men I saw wore army uniforms, and I saw a few girls wearing them too. I saw very few in navy uniforms. Those who wore the brown aviator's uniform with the short boots looked the smartest. To tell the truth, I wished I had an aviator's uniform. One poor woman I saw startled me because she was wearing her wedding kimono and carried a sack of sweet potatoes across her back. She had probably lost all of her everyday kimonos and was reduced to wearing the one kimono she had treasured enough to evacuate before the bombing. An improvised ticket window had been constructed in the gutted station and there was a small area that had been roofed over where people could sit while waiting for trains. I stopped here to watch the people coming and going. Demobilized soldiers with big bags on their backs mingled with the civilian war victims. I saw a little child, naked except for dirty pants, begging food from those who crouched eating their "bento", and he would not move until someone gave him a scrap of food. The sight of this little child was pitifully sad and reminded me of children I had seen in war-torn defeated Manchuria and Korea seventeen or eighteen years ago. They, too, had begged for scraps from our "bento". Nothing could more graphically symbolize defeat than these poor waifs of humanity. Unable to endure any longer the wretched sights I witnessed around the station I returned to the hospital. On the way back, I detoured through the Western Command and Cavalry Corps headquaters. In the quiet of these ruins, with no sound but the falling rain, I became sentimental and thought of the officers who had once been the objects of our admiration. What future did they have now? They were still part of the nation. I learned a lot by looking at the situation in front of the station. There was an old officer with long, matted hair, squatting in a corner with waifs around him begging for food. A panorama spread before me: tired war victims, demobilized soldiers, old people leaning against the burnt pillars, people walking aimlessly, heedless of all around them, and beggars. They were the real conquerors! After supper, my thoughts again reverted to scenes at the Hiroshima station. How selfishly everyone acted. What an unhappy society was coming to life. While some wandered around poverty-stricken, others appeared to come to life, as though suddenly they had come into their own. People with evil faces and foul tongues were wearing the best clothes. Those who wore the aviator uniforms looked like gangsters or cheap politicians. These fellows would enter the little shacks near the station, boldly and obscenely fondle the uncouth girls, and otherwise behave outrageously. THe country was in the clutches of the mean and unintelligent. I felt hate in my heart for them and gritted my teeth to think they had come to power. How conditions had changed. What did the future hold for the old officer? (end quote) .