- Preface in Retrospect
- Yumi Goto
For the first time in 48 years I visited the town of Muramatsu
last month to refresh my memories. I had heard that the town
had a big fire in 1946, but it was virtually an entirely different
town from the one I where I spent three months in the fall of
1945 as an interpreter at the railway station.
The streets today are broader with cars passing busily, houses
modernized, and no clear rivulet running in the ditch in front
of the houses. It is only a small portion of the town that retains
the old image with the roof over the sidewalks to provide winter
passage through the snow.
When I saw it, I stood still and closed my eyes. Then, the whole
scene was revived in my mind. American soldiers in olive drab
uniforms, jeeps, trucks, women in kimono, children hailing the
passing jeeps with "Goodbye! Hello!"….
When I began work as an interpreter, I thought that it was a
rare opportunity that not everyone could have, that I would be
witnessing the encounter of East and West at a grassroots level,
and that, if I wrote a memoir, it would some day become a historic
document.
From the beginning, I thought I would write it in English for
two reasons. For one thing, I felt that the Japanese people,
once the Occupation would be over in the future, would not want
to recall the memories of the period when the nation was humiliated
but that Americans would like to read how their young men behaved
in Japan. There was the language question, too. I was not familiar
with the dialect of the Niigata district and could not reproduce
conversations correctly. Moreover, since Japanese personal pronouns
are so numerous, I would have great difficulty in choosing which
one to use when translating plain "I" and "you"
in English.
For all these years, my manuscript mostly slept in my drawer,
although I mentioned it to several of my American friends and
had copies made for them privately. They all said it must be
published, and actually two of them, Mrs. Katie Wenban of Merrimac,
Wis. And Mr. Peter Thomas of the University of Wisconsin's Public
Relations Office, kindly tried unsuccessfully to find a publisher
for it.
So I have not touched the manuscript at all, and it contains,
I am sure, many awkward expressions and grammatical errors, and
there are portions I would write differently if I were to write
them now almost half a century later. But I thought I would leave
them as they are since they were the thoughts and sentiments
of a 26-year-old girl in war-devastated Japan.
During my recent visit to Muramatsu I had a chance to look through
the "History of the Town of Muramatsu" complied by
the town office, and I was very gratified to find that it reinforced
what I wrote about the American troops in Muramatsu. They were
part of the 27th Division and the number of men stationed in
Muramatsu totaled 1,843 with the rest of the division stationed
in the cities of Niigata, Takada, Sanjo, Kashiwazaki and Shibata
in Niigata prefecture.
The local history read: "In the beginning, the townspeople
watched with tension how the Occupation troops would behave.
But soon they were relieved to find out that they were open-hearted
and humane (wartime propaganda said they were "devils and
beasts"), and the townspeople quickly reciprocated with
goodwill.
"The mayor of Muramatsu entertained the American officers
at his residence in an effort to encourage personal exchanges,
and the U.S. army side sponsored a goodwill basketball match
with the townspeople at the Muramatsu Elementary School ground.
Social and recreational facilities for the American soldiers
were provided, and some townspeople were employed at the barracks'
kitchen.
"The Occupation troops began to go home on December 2, and
on December 13, the commander-in-chief of the regiment and the
majority of the troops left Gosen on their triumphant trip homeward
to New York. On this occasion the regiment expressed its appreciation
to the town of Muramatsu for the cordial hospitality given them,
and the soldiers waved their hands expressing regret at parting.
The remaining team of soldiers all left on December 25."
As I look back on those times, I cannot help thinking how ignorant
we were about the world outside and about our own selves. If
we had known better, we would have realized that Japan had no
chance of winning total war against the Allies. We had no idea
until the Nuremberg Tribunal what the Nazis were doing to the
Jewish people. Hitler's Mein Kampf was widely read in Japan,
but we did not know that the paragraphs containing his contemptuous
remarks about Japan were omitted from the Japanese translation.
When the coming of U.S. troops to Muramatsu was announced, the
townspeople were so depressed and fearful. I was naïve and
said, "Why, we are not at war any longer," Perhaps,
now I think, men were fearful remembering the atrocities they
had, or seen or heard, committed by Japanese soldiers in the
conquered lands.
Atrocities are committed in any war, even now, and even among
people of the same nation. But the Japanese army was involved
in the systematizing of "comfort women" and tortured
or killed innocent civilians, to the horror of our hearts.
Furthermore, we even forced the Koreans and Taiwanese to change
their names to Japanese ones, and told the people in Asia to
worship at the Japanese shrines which the military dared to erect
in the occupied areas. It is only in recent years that we in
Japan have come to understand how Asian people feel against us.
In comparison, the American soldiers in Muramatsu were simply
admirable. It is my great pleasure to have my story available,
though the good offices of Professor Grant K. Goodman, to American
people who are interested in promoting friendship between two
peoples across the Pacific Ocean.
Tokyo, Japan
May 1, 1993
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