Interviews
His parents had little hope that he had survived the atomic bomb
My parents were in Poston, Arizona as I mentioned. When the A Bomb was dropped, evidently they got hold of a newspaper, which had the aerial view of…totality of [the] Hiroshima area. And within that aerial view, there were rings of destruction. Like the center painted in red would be the area of total destruction. Then maybe...quarter miles later it would be 75%. I'm kind of making up the percentage, then it kind of expands out. But the problem was that we were in the first ring of total destruction. And they could pinpoint where we were exactly, because it’s a junction of two major rivers. And they'd say whoa, that's where we were living, so they had little hope that we had survived.
However, they did initiate a search through various organization to find us. And it was through the American Red Cross, several months later, it wasn’t immediate, they told us that it took them quite a bit of time. I never found out exactly what quite a bit of time is, but I would think it’s measured in months, before they found out that we have survived.
Date: September 3, 2019
Location: California, US
Interviewer: Masako Miki
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
