Kenichi Sato

I was drafted in Hawaii and served in the United States Army from June 1945 to March 1947. Highest grade held was PFC. After basic training at Camp Wolters, Texas, I was sent to the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS), Fort Snelling, Minnesota. I was in the last MISLS class to graduate from Ft. Snelling in June 1946. Following graduation, I was shipped to Japan to serve in the Occupation of Japan and was stationed at Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS) in the Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) Building in Tokyo. My stay in the occupation was very brief, about two months, and I was assigned to Manila, Philippines, to work with the war crimes trials. I remained in Manila for six months and returned to Japan where I was discharged from the U.S. Army.

Immediately after my discharge, I took a U.S. Civil Service job and remained in Japan until August 1950, whereupon I returned to Hawaii to enroll at the University of Hawaii.

"Candies Falling from the Sky"

The fighting in World War II was just over when I was sent to the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS) at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. We studied very hard in school, but the school did not prepare us emotionally or psychologically for the devastation of the landscape that we were to witness upon our arriving in Japan.

As we boarded the train headed for Tokyo in the summer of 1946, the guys were relatively quiet during the trip as we looked out the windows to see the houses and larger buildings that were leveled by our bombers. It was not a pretty sight. Solemn-looking children and tired-looking women began to appear alongside the tracks as the train rolled along. Then, all of a sudden, spontaneously without any orders or signals, the guys began to dig into their bags and started to toss out the windows, candies, soaps, gums and what have you to the youngsters and women below. The sky was literally filled with goodies and it was a sight to behold. Candies were falling from the sky.

As we neared out destination, all the guys on board sat quietly on their seats thinking perhaps that we had just performed our first act of goodwill and human kindness toward the people of Japan. This act would be repeated many folds as we performed our duties quietly and orderly during the occupation.

After we arrived in Tokyo, we, MIS soldiers, were all billeted at the Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) Building and placed in the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS) of General Headquarters (GHQ). After office hours, we walked around downtown Tokyo and I was amazed to see among the ruins that the railroad system was working and the infrastructure was mostly in place.

I communicated with my parents in Hawaii and made arrangements to visit relatives in Tokyo and my sisters in Fukushima prefecture. When I was about 4 years old, my parents took the whole family from Maui to visit their roots in Japan. Then they decided to leave my sisters with his parents in Fukushima. For one reason or another, at that time, it was not unusual for Issei parents to leave their children with their parents in Japan.

Since I had not seen my two sisters for over 15 years, I had to prepare myself on how I was going to meet them. I packed some gifts, candies and sugar for my grandparents also. I wrote to them as to the day I was going to meet them. Since I wanted to spend as much time as possible with them, on the Friday before the first opportune weekend, I walked over from ATIS to Tokyo RR Station, rode to Ueno Eki (station) and took the night express train north to Sapporo and headed south to Fukushima City. After reaching Fukushima City, I had to catch a streetcar to Hobara town. I drew a lot of polite and curious stares in the town since they weren't accustomed to seeing GIs especially a Nisei in uniform. To reach my grandparents' house which was located in a small farming village called Tominari, I had to either walk many, many miles or hire a taxi from Hobara. Since I had too much baggage to carry, I opt for a taxi, but had to wait while the taxi driver stoked the boiler on the back of the cab with wood and coal to generate power to get going. Finally, I got in the cab and headed towards Tominari. Even so, I had to walk the last 1,000 yards or so because the road came to an end and the taxi could not traverse the narrow trail and grassy mounds to reach my destination. As I prodded along with my baggage, I could see two people standing on the hillside along the skyline and waving as I got closer to them. They had tears in their eyes. They were my sisters! I dropped my baggage and bowed and hugged them both together. The three of us were standing and crying together for what seemed like an eternity thinking of the years that we grew up separately, they in Japan and me in Hawaii. I kept thinking why did my parents leave them in Japan when we could have grown up together as a whole family. However, this was a happy reunion and they helped me with my bags as we continued the walk to meet our grandparents.

My grandparents were very happy to see me. Grandfather was waiting at the entrance while grandmother had lunch prepared for us. We had much to talk about and laughed and cried as they related their hardship during the war. We walked about the neighborhood and even took some sugar to the priest at the temple. He was so thankful since sugar was a scarce commodity at that time. The neighborhood turned out to be full of Sato families. I had a hard time keeping track of them so we identified them by the location of their homes, such as "Ue no Sato" and "Shita on Sato."

As I watched my grandparents, I began to understand why my father left his two daughters with them. Grandmother was blind in one eye and slightly hunched, but she managed to move about very fast. Grandfather worked alone on the farm. He loved to soak himself in the furo (bathtub), so later on I hired a contractor to build a new furo with a cast iron tub that grandpa could heat up with firewood in about 15 minutes. It was the best thing I could have done for him since he would tie a hachimaki (headband) and soak himself two or three times a day in the tub, as though he was at a hot spring. However, the separation was a heavy sacrifice for my two sisters.

My stay at ATIS lasted about two months when I was re-assigned to the Philippines to work with the war crimes trials. I stayed in Manila for 6 months and was discharged at Camp Zama, Japan. Following my discharge, I took a U.S. civil service job as a Department of Army Civilian (DAC) in the Legal Section in Tokyo. Being in Japan gave me numerous opportunities to visit my sisters in Fukushima. I very happily attended my older sister's wedding and later sadly attended her funeral. She died shortly after giving birth to a daughter who died shortly after being born. My younger sister now lives in Los Angeles within driving distance to her two married daughters and enjoys watching her grandchildren grow.

Life is short, but separation cuts happiness in life even shorter.