It took three days to reach Osaka. The entire journey was a series of farewells. I was proud of the young cadets I had gotten to know and, as each left the group, was happy knowing that he would soon be home with his family. When the train finally pulled into Osaka Station, only six of my charges were left. We regrouped and changed trains. When we reached Okayama, the group was down to three. We changed trains there again, and at Uno caught the ferry across the Inland Sea, headed for Shikoku. I exulted in the sky and the island-dotted sea. I was on my way home! I’m sure the cadets felt the same way. One was from Takamatsu, so we parted ways at the ferry terminal, and the last cadet, Ishimitsu, and I took the next train. We reached Kita-Iyo, outside Matsuyama, on the fourth day after we left Chitose. Cadet Ishimitsu was headed farther down the line. He carried my wicker trunk to the platform. We shook hands, saluted, and parted ways.
I allowed myself to feel only the exhaustion of the journey as I walked to our Ishii Village country home. No one was on the road; the late summer sun slanted on the familiar rice paddies and fields and the orchard behind the house. My steps, one after another, crunching on the country paths, were the only sounds I heard.
I took off my hat and shoes and stepped up into the dim front room. Mother and Father looked up.
I bowed. “I’m back. I’m sorry I—”
“I know you’re disappointed that we didn’t win, but we are so happy you’re home safe,” said Father. “Come sit with us.”
Mother said, “We have been so proud of you, and now we have you back.”
Father was the first to cry. My parents sat across from each other. I stood rooted at the edge of the genkan, unable to cross the room to join them.
14. SAM
Matsuyama, 1945–1948
“Lollipop,” I repeated, too shocked to do anything but comply with the order, not really processing how casually it had been delivered. What am I supposed to do? Two weeks ago, I was Lieutenant Senior Grade Imagawa of the Imperial Japanese Navy. And here I am standing in front of an American officer—a superior officer.
“Fine,” said the Colonel, “report for work tomorrow morning at eight a.m.” He turned around to talk to the sergeant who was standing behind him holding papers.
As I began to sputter, “But,” Yamamura-sensei elbowed me. “Yes, Sir,” I said as my teacher turned and led me back into the hallway.
“Let’s go,” said Yamamura-sensei. “We’ll stop at my house before I take you home.”
Sensei had shown up late that morning on his motorcycle, as positive as ever. I heard the engine sputtering and grinding long before I could see who it was. I went and stood outside the house, wondering if it could be him and was very pleased when he rolled up.
“Imagawa, welcome back! I’m so glad you’re home alive. I asked around in Yanai-machi, and some of your neighbors there said your family was out here at Ishii again. I’m lucky today to have enough fuel to come out here.”
“Welcome, Sensei,” said Mother, who had come to the entrance from the kitchen, “it is wonderful to see you again. It’s certainly been quite some time, hasn’t it?”
“Ah, Mrs. Imagawa, you’re fortunate to have your son back,” said Yamamura-sensei.
Where was talk of the war, talk of Japan’s failure, and talk of how I was back only because I somehow hadn’t been able to do my duty? Why weren’t my elders and those near and dear to me saying anything about what had kept me awake at night and fretting through the beautiful autumn days?
“When I heard you were here, Mrs. Imagawa, I of course wanted to see Isamu,” he said, “but I must also confess that I thought that coming out here would give me a chance to ask if you or your neighbors have any extra food. It’s quite difficult finding much in the city. My wife has been doing a tremendous job making do, but.…”
“Oh, Sensei,” said Mother, “I’m afraid we don’t have anything to spare ourselves, but let me go ask some of the neighbors.” As she ran off, she called over her shoulder, “Isamu, don’t forget your manners. Ask Sensei in and make him comfortable. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Yamamura-sensei and I did just that, sitting at the table, drinking tea. We hadn’t seen each other for two years. He had news of my Matsuchu classmates. I heard with sorrow the names of my classmates who were dead: Suzuki, Mitsui, Yanagibachi, as well as Sakuragi, who was the bugler in the class behind mine.
“Yes,” he said, “there has been much too much death, Isamu, and we are going to have to live with this sorrow for the rest of our lives. For the young ones like you who were lucky enough to survive, there’s a great deal of work to be done to assure a different future.”
I was wondering how to say that the future was the one thing I couldn’t imagine when we heard the door open and Mother’s wooden sandals clattering in the genkan. She rushed into the room where we were sitting, her face flushed, and her apron filled with wrinkled sweet potatoes.
“Our neighbor, Farmer Morita had these extras, Sensei,” she said. “I brought as many as I could carry for you. It’s not much, but.…”
“Mrs. Imagawa, that’s not at all the case. It’s sheer delight to see such abundance. I’m sure that my wife can feed the family for weeks. My deepest thanks.”
As Mother knelt and began wrapping the sweet potatoes in a furoshiki, Yamamura-sensei said, “Mrs. Imagawa, can I impose on your further and borrow Isamu for the afternoon?”
“Of course, Sensei,” said Mother. “If there’s anything he can do to help you, please—”
“Well, I’d like him to come into the city with me. He can hold the sweet potatoes. I want to be sure to get this precious cargo back in good order. And I’ll take him to Yanai-machi. He hasn’t seen the changes in the neighborhood.”
Mother insisted that Yamamura-sensei stay for lunch. She had prepared my lunch and hers when she packed Father’s lunch box early in the morning. I’m not sure how she stretched what she had for the two of us, but we had a good lunch. Yamamura-sensei told Mother stories about his Matsuchu music students. It was fascinating to hear the familiar stories from the teacher’s point of view.
“Well, Mrs. Imagawa, I’m sure you never suspected how much behind-the-scenes comedy there was as we prepared for those glorious parades of the troops to the station,” he said, as he finished the last of his rice.
“I still remember the first parade we saw when we arrived home from San Francisco,” said Mother, “and how proud I was the first time Isamu marched as a musician in one himself.”
“And I will always remember how heavy my heart was last year when we accompanied the last group to the station. I thought of how many of my students I had seen off. Of course, we didn’t know at the time that it was the last group, but everything did get smaller and smaller and harder and harder, didn’t it?”
Mother smiled and bowed. Sensei suddenly became his energetic self again. Jumping up, he said, “Well, off we go. I’ll get him back before nightfall, Mrs. Imagawa. Thank you again for your hospitality and for these wonderful sweet potatoes.”
I had been on Sensei’s old scooter years before, but his new motorcycle was bigger and much older; the fifteen-minute ride into the city on the rackety bike was harrowing. While I was wondering if the sweet potatoes and I would survive, I was also steeling myself for the sad sight of the wide street and the empty space where the Yanai-machi house had stood. I had thought about it often in the last year and remembered staring at the dull gray of the Japan Sea on the long train trip from the north, wondering what home would be like with Yanai-machi obliterated.
When Yamamura-sensei stopped and I stepped off the motorcycle, it was worse, much worse than I had imagined. The house was gone; the street was unnaturally wide—about three or four times what it had been, and the new ugly street slashed diagonally through the neighborhood. It wasn’t just our house that was gone—all our neighbors’ houses were gone too. My eleven years there had vanished without a trace. The past was gone, the future still unimaginable.
&nb
sp; “Had enough of this?” asked Yamamura-sensei. “Let’s go. I have one more place I need to take you.”
Rather than heading for his house, he turned the bike and headed in the opposite direction. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” he yelled over his shoulder. I soon concluded that we were headed for Bancho Elementary School, but he stopped in front of the Ehime Prefectural Library building opposite the school and down the street from the house where the Grahams had lived.
With his usual confident walk, Sensei started toward the Library. “Sensei,” I called, wondering if he didn’t see the big sign in English and Japanese that now hung above the entrance, HEADQUARTERS, ADVANCE PARTY, 24TH INFANTRY.
“Come on, come on, don’t dawdle, Isamu,” he called. “They won’t hurt you.”
He was my teacher. I had to do as he said.
Once we were inside, Yamamura-sensei headed straight for the first room with an open door. I was scrambling to keep up with him. There was a uniformed American sitting behind the desk.
“Good afternoon, Colonel,” said Yamamura-sensei in his lovely, precise English. “This young man was born in San Francisco and can speak English. His name is Isamu Imagawa.”
The officer looked from Yamamura-sensei to me. I stumbled sideways and took a step back. The scrutiny was excruciating. Time stretched as he sized me up. I was shocked when all he did was tell me to repeat the English word for a treat I remembered from San Francisco.
I entered the building with great trepidation. There was no Sensei to push me along. Only my sense of duty, my obligation of obedience. But I was obeying reluctantly. Why should I work for people I had fought against only a month before? What could Yamamura-sensei possibly have been thinking?
My fear was almost immediately replaced with surprise and then, eventually, with curiosity about what my future could hold.
And it was that morning that my future began. Those who survived the kamikaze corps and wrote their memoirs all focused on their wartime experiences—as well they should. The Great Pacific War, as it is called in Japanese, was the defining event for those my age—on both sides of the Pacific as well as in Europe. We came of age with our military service and what we experienced during the war shaped our characters for the rest of our lives, even if most of us rarely, if ever, talked about it. But for me, my dual background, my roots in both my Mother and Father Countries, and my English language abilities also changed and shaped my life after the war. I had joy and sorrow, satisfaction and disappointment, struggle and triumph, with the good always outweighing the bad. To complete my story I have to and want to write about my life after the war—the life that began that day—a life that gave me the chance to do some good, and, even though this is a rather grandiose sentiment that I’d never express aloud, a chance to promote international understanding and peace. It has also been a life I’ve shared with my beloved wife. It is a story I want to write. I’ve known for almost two decades that I should tell my story. And now I’m finally fulfilling that promise to myself.
It was in Ohio that I first decided I had to put pen to paper.
I think there was so much press fuss because the student reporter’s article about the “Kamikaze Professor” was published in December 1978 just a few weeks after the news of the mass suicide in Guyana. I don’t know who was more surprised, me or the young girl my colleague Lloyd had sent over from the journalism school for a practice interview. With the camera crews and the wire service reports, we both had our full fifteen minutes. Interesting, and even a bit entertaining.
Memories of the war were already sketchy then, so now in 1994, almost another twenty years later, I’m glad I’m putting the whole story of “the American Kamikaze” down on paper. Americans have never had any clue about these kinds of things, and now, having been back in Japan for so many years, I see knowledge of the war fading away here. The young people are now like the Americans I taught for twenty years. It’s not just a matter of knowing more about computers and anime than abacuses and shamisen. They don’t understand how we let ourselves be led into a ruinous and doomed misadventure, nor do they remember or mourn the dead or regret the folly that took so many young lives.
My dearest Akiko thinks that I don’t realize it, but I know time is short. I keep up my part of our charade by demanding the second glass of scotch and pestering her for fried chicken as if I didn’t know what the doctors think—and what I’m sure they’ve told her. One of the sweet secrets of a long-married couple: what we pretend we don’t know. Like how relieved she is that we ended up here in this small city with the beautiful castle rather than “home” in Matsuyama. I still can’t help myself—sometimes I still talk about it—all those places of my childhood still call me, just as the even earlier places in San Francisco’s Japantown still call too.
I started writing in English because the Mother Country tongue comes easier, especially because I started at the beginning, with San Francisco. Next year the Father Country will take over and I’ll translate into Japanese.
I haven’t done any serious research—it’s been enough to look through my own materials and leaf through a few books over the last months. I’m sure I’ll misremember some of the details and horrify any historian who may read my memoir. But I have my photographs—from San Francisco, from Matsuyama, and even the ones from the bases at Mie, Izumi, Wonson, Haneda, and Chitose that we were supposed to burn. The pictures have helped me remember so much that what I’ve forgotten won’t matter.
I only have one goal. It is my hope that my story will help others realize that what they strongly believe in at one point in life, even to the point that they’re willing to sacrifice their lives for it, may ring completely hollow in later life. No disagreements, no differences of opinion—political, economic, social, religious, or otherwise—are worth the sacrifice of human life, including one’s own. If this message gets through, I will have succeeded. Writing my story will be worth it.
The Colonel was in the center hallway outside his office and saw me as soon as I came through the front entrance. He was obviously on his way somewhere, but stopped and said, “Good morning, Mr. Imagawa.” Turning back to his office, he called, “Sergeant, take this gentleman to the Translation Section and introduce him to Lieutenant Elmenhall.” Turning again and looking at me, he said, “Good luck. Do well,” and went off down the hall.
The sergeant I had seen the day before came into the hall and said, “Come with me.” I climbed the steps behind him. Gentleman? The enemy is referring to me as a gentleman? How can that be?
The sergeant led me into a high-ceilinged room, where I saw a tall man with sandy hair, a sprinkling of freckles, and greenish-blue eyes. At first glance he reminded me of Morgan, and I realized that I hadn’t thought of my friend for years. Had he lived to have post-war experiences as strange as what I was experiencing that morning?
“Sir, here’s the new translator,” said the sergeant, saluting before he turned to go back downstairs. The tall fellow looked me over and smiled.
“I understand you’ve passed the Colonel’s famous English proficiency test,” he said. “So you can obviously manage my name. I’m Lieutenant Gregory Elmenhall, and I run this section.”
“Yes, Sir,” I said. The office was reassuring. It looked orderly and the four Japanese working at the desks looked fine. Okay. This tall American is going to be my boss.
With great kindness Lieutenant Elmenhall explained that I was to join four others and work at translating Japanese newspaper articles into English. Lieutenant Elmenhall told me we would sometimes have to work as interpreters as well. The others were American-born nisei just like me, but I had never met any of them before. The two I remember best were the Sawada twins—Carol and Louise.
The Americans were serious about their work, but very casual in their interactions. Almost immediately I was Sam again to everyone. After the first week, I lost both my impulse to salute and my horror that I was inclined to salute Americans, the enemy.
Every so often I still bristled inwardly at taking orders from an enlisted man younger than myself, but slowly, slowly I recovered a civilian mentality.
I came to realize that the Americans were the people I remembered from my childhood, not the devilish barbarians that had been the staples of the wartime propaganda. All that rhetoric, all that ugliness, had vanished like spring snow. It disappeared, of course, because of the Occupation. But it wasn’t just me—my colleagues had come to terms with the Americans, and slowly, and sometimes in small bursts of joy, people began to relax. But there were long-term effects of the rhetoric of the war—we weren’t left with memories of beautiful spring snow. No, even as we began to rediscover joy, we Japanese were left with shame and confusion and having to live with the knowledge that we had wholeheartedly participated in the folly of the war.
I plunged into the work. It was good to have something to do, and I enjoyed it a great deal. Like the others, I found the official documents troublesome. We often pored over our dictionaries. I was shocked at how rusty my English had become. For the two years I was in the military, I neither spoke nor read a word of English. And my command of English had always been colloquial, the language of a kid in San Francisco. I did a lot of studying in my hours away from the office, teaching myself the terminology for civil engineering, plant pathology, and medicine. It took a while, but eventually I mastered the bureaucratic jargon and was happy to learn a bit of substance in a number of different areas.
In October, the entire 24th Infantry moved into Matsuyama. Its nickname, the Taro Leaf Division, was a tribute to its home base of Hawaii. The U.S. soldiers camped on the grounds of the former Matsuyama Naval Air Base, set up checkpoints, and dispatched patrols all over Shikoku Island. All the activity caused a fair amount of local consternation, but it didn’t take long for everyone to reach the same conclusion that Yamamura-sensei had known, instinctively, was correct and that I had come to in my month of working for the Occupation—they were not going to do us any harm.
A Thousand Stitches Page 19