Ed’s Note: Gwen Harold Terasaki (1908-1990), was the American wife of a Japanese diplomat, Terasaki (Terry) Hidenari (1900-1951). Theirs was an unusual but not unique international marriage in the 1930s; generally, but not always, the wife in those days was Japanese and the husband European or American. A native of Johnson City, Tennessee, Gwen Harold met Terry, then private secretary to the Japanese Ambassador, at an Embassy reception while visiting her aunt in Washington, D.C., 1930. The two were married in the fall of 1931. His career in the foreign service in the 1930s took them to Shanghai, where their daughter Mariko was born in 1932, then to Havana and Peking. At the time of Pearl Harbor, December 1941, Terry had risen to first secretary at the Washington Embassy. His brother Tar? was head of the American Bureau in the Japanese Foreign Ministry. As documents at the National Archives and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library indicate, Terry, probably unknown to his wife, was also head of Japan’s intelligence service for Latin America. The FBI had been tapping his phone and those of other Embassy officials for several months, in addition to investigating their bank accounts. When the Embassy staff and other Japanese nationals were repatriated to Japan in the fall 1942, Gwen Terasaki chose to spend the wartime years in Japan with her husband and their ten-year old daughter, Mariko, nicknamed Mako.

In this excerpt from her autobiography, Gwen Terasaki remembers “Hunger in the Mountain,” in the days following her daughter’s slow but full recovery.

The weeks passed but we hardly noticed. We were continually busy and could never relax. We had to go down to the village for our rations twice a week and it took us at least an hour to climb back up our mountain with the heavy rice strapped on our backs. Charcoal was hard to get so we cooked our rice in the garden with twigs and leaves. A crude stove was all we had, and on rainy days cooking was a heartbreaking chore. I finally managed to cover a small tale, which we had on our tiny back porch, with tin by beating tin cans flat and tacking them down with my precious supply of tacks from Woolworth’s, bought so long ago in Washington, D.C. I put the stove on the table and was able to cook the rice on rainy days without getting soaking wet.

More and more the authorities called on the people to give time to the war effort. Someone had found that fuel for airplanes could be manufactured from the resin of pine trees, and each family in the countryside was required to extract a certain amount of it to be turned over the local ch?kai (town assembly) Terry and Mako were called to that duty but their efforts resulted in the smallest amount of resin collected by any family in our neighborhood association…

The air-raid sirens let us know that American Planes now flew over Nagano more frequently. One day we heard that Matsumoto, a city in our prefecture, had been bombed. We also heard by the grapevine that the Japanese army had planned its last stand in the foothills of Nagano. One discounted three-fourths of what one heard, as a fresh rumor skipped about every day. Our newspapers came irregularly and the static in our mountains made it almost impossible hear news broadcasts. But we knew that the cities of Japan were being bombed steadily and even in our remote village what at first was a trickle of refugees became a flood. . .

I was getting weaker steadily, and the symptoms of malnutrition were becoming more evident day by day. Mako was thin to the point of emaciation, and the ribs stood out pitifully on Terry’s once stocky chest. We had no energy beyond that needed to prepare our rice and keep our house and ourselves clean. My fingernails were almost gone, and I had to bandage my fingers to keep blood from getting on everything I touched.

By letter, by word of mouth, and by occasional accurate reports in the newspapers, the family learned of the Potsdam Declaration, the strange bomb that had destroyed Hiroshima, and the entry of the Soviet Union into the Pacific War. On the morning of August 15, 1945, Terry was summoned to the home of the chief of the neighborhood association to listen to a historic radio broadcast by the Emperor. As he later reported to Gwen, the group “sat and listened intently when the high-pitched and quavering voice began.” Terry, who knew court language, helped the villagers, many of them in tears, to understand that “bearing the unbearable” meant defeat and surrender.

The Emperor had told his people that he could not bear to see more of their suffering. He asked them to “bear the unbearable” and “suffer the insufferable,” and to go about their daily tasks quietly and obediently, without bitter recriminations among themselves. With their traditional respect for authority the Japanese were able to hold together and simply wait until they were told what to do.

For a few days, a strange calm seemed to envelop us. A preoccupation dulled the reality of the routine jobs we had to do; we felt an expectancy, waiting for we knew not what. Many people climbed up our mountain to see us, and one enterprising kunicho (village elder) asked me to talk to the women of his association on “Present Trends in America.” I decline, telling him that I had had no news of home since the war started and had read no publications or recent date. I knew no more of the trends in America than he did. I did tell him, however, that I was sure the Americans were as happy as the Japanese that the war was over. The request surprised me, and I was to continue to be surprised at the turn of events just after the war. All the bitterness I heard expressed was directed toward the military of Japan and those members of the civilian government who had actively helped the war party…

There was a stunned apathy on the faces of the people in the street. Everyone was starving; few had the physical stamina even to express their thoughts coherently. The people were shabby, hungry, and often physically unclean, being without fuel and soap for the bath that is the daily necessity and pleasure of every Japanese. There was sadness in every face and a kind of tired relief. They waited for what they had to face and seemed resigned to it.

One morning we heard a roar of planes and rushed out to our little veranda to see them. They were American planes. After they circled many times over the prisoner of war camp not many miles from our village, we say that they were dropping colored parachutes of food-stuffs and medicines for the prisoners. Guiltily we wondered if one might fall near us. We sat all day watching them with streaming, tear-drenched faces. Terry, gripping my hand, wept for his destroyed land, and Mako cried to see her father and mother together in tears for the first time in her troubled life. For several days the steady roar of the lanes continued as they dropped what looked to be veritable flower gardens of multicolored crates. So, it was final, the war was really over.

Mako’s thirteenth birthday was at hand and we had nothing to give her, although I knew that the following year things would be better. I opened two cans from our stock saved up for the winter. I had a kind of Japanese gelatin and, with a can of peaches, I made a molded dessert. Feeling very reckless, I opened a can of salmon. We were to have a feast. Mako’s principal gift was our promise that the hen, Henrietta, would live, and that if we moved back to Tokyo we would take her with us. In added celebration Henrietta proceeded to lay an egg. A beautiful, large, white egg, a luxurious, gladdening, remarkable thing. The first fresh egg for us in months. We three went out to bow formally to our hen for her bounty and it seemed to me there was a gleam of satisfaction in her henly eye. Now, we not only had a can of salmon but an egg to go with it. Mixing it all together, we had the means to cook salmon patties. Merrily I put on earrings. Mako wore a white dress, and Terry donned a red tie. The war was over. White clothing had been forbidden during the war because it was too easily seen from the air. When Mako put on white it was like a ship turning on lights again after running blacked-out since 1941. . .

As our train stopped at the many stations, I peered out the window to try to catch my first glimpse of American forces, but I did not see any occupation troops until our train neared Tokyo.

As far as my eyes could see there were signs of destruction. Great shells of buildings and burned trees were outlined against the sky. The vacant, bare patches one realized had been residential sections where incendiary bombs had erased the wood and paper houses. I saw people walking on sidewalks around a block devoid of buildings; now neatly the sidewalk skirted the emptiness! Many people had salvaged metal and stone to build rude shelters; some were living in dugouts. The shelters were placed where their former homes had been. Here and there were mounds covered with rusted metal that resembled nothing until one saw a gaily-patterned kimono drying in the wind and realized the mound was all that was left of home to someone.

Not having left my mountain top for six months, I was worn out by the time we reached Tokyo. So weak had I become that when we got to the station and I stepped off the train onto the platform I went down to my knees. Immediately a great crowd of curious people surrounded me, and Terry and Mako had to fight our way through to a place for me to sit down. We rested and had a drink of tea, and after awhile I was able to go on. We were all three burdened with rucksacks and suitcases, and Mako, of course, had her two birds. We had to stop to rest many times. Dust was thick on the sidewalks and the roadways were littered. Where was beautiful, sanitary Toyo with its clean streets? I had though the people in the mountains looked underfed, but they were in robust health compared to the hungry human beings I now beheld…

Finally they arrived at their destination (apparently in mid or late October), a small house, but too tired to do anything but fall asleep. Gwen recounts more of life in devastated Tokyo in the fall of 1945, including bands of robbers who took advantage of the absence of police and engaged in “pillaging, robbing, commiting barbaric crimes” She refers frequently to Communist propaganda. She also makes disparaging remarks about Koreans flooding into Japan and setting up smuggling and black market operations. Their dog, “Chubby,” was poisoned and, for Mako’s sake, given a Buddhist funeral. To get by, the family had to sell off many prized belongings. At this point, Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru chose Terry to goy?gakari, that is liaison with MacArthur’s headquarters and adviser to the Emperor. Apparently at this point Terry learned that his American wife, Gwen, was a distant cousin of General Bonner Fellers, military secretary to MacArthur. Fellers was the creator of what became the Civil Information and Education Section in General Headquarters and strongly urged MacArthur to protect the emperor as a person and the throne as an institution if we wished to keep the peace in Japan. The Terasaki family barely got by with the help of a hoarded supply of paper money.

Years before, I had been advised by a White Russian that it was a wise course to hoard small denominations of money against postwar inflation. Happily I had remembered this bit of information from one who had experienced the financial disaster that now was the lot of the Japanese. I had saved a trunkful of paper fifty-cent pieces and, since our investments in Japanese bonds and insurance companies had been lost, this helped a great deal—both financially and in my morale. The government called in the yen but as my adviser had told me, it did not bother with the small denominations and they retained their value. For several months we were able to pay all our expenses from the little trunkful of paper money.

When it was expended, we joined mot of the Japanese in the process of selling our remaining belongings for food—“onionskin living.” This mode of living was aptly named because the sale of each prized possession did indeed bring tears. We sold many of our things, regretting to part with all of them with one exception. Terry had purchased an accordion for Mako before the war, and I sold it for 35,000 yen. Terry felt that bargaining was mean and beneath respectable persons, and he had insisted I sell at the original offer the buyer made, 15,000 yen. This seemed reasonable enough, even with the inflation of the times, since we had only paid 1,500 for it, but the buyer wanted to accordion to play for the American soldiers and he had plenty of money with which to pay. He had made the mistake of bringing it in his pockets and I could see from bulges that he meant to have the instrument at any price. Terry was always a little ashamed of me for bargaining as I did; but I though my people in east Tennessee, a section where close trading was not unknown, would have felt otherwise. We used the money from the accordion for food of which my husband partook heartily.

By early 1946, material life had greatly improved for the Terasakis. Friends from the United States brought them goods from the Army PX. Gift boxes came from home. More food was available in Japanese markets. They were also fortunate that their Japanese style home, as Gwen hoped, was not requisitioned for use by the Occupation. Gwen turns from their personal lives in Tokyo to wide-ranging impressions of Occupation reforms and policies. These take on considerable interest, given her husband’s position in mutual service to the Occupation and to the Palace.

The Japanese had adopted the English word "democracy" with the occupation, and the American efforts at what in the official language was termed "democratization" of the country evoked from them the devastating pun "demo-kurushi" (suffering from democracy). Few Americans, be it said to their credit, failed to enjoy the humor in this expression—and for those who knew Japanese it was uproarious. Under these circumstances, it would have been extraordinary indeed had the Japanese felt much liking for MacArthur at the outset of the occupation. Although they came to feel quite differently with the passage of time, their original reaction to MacArthur was one of intense dislike.

They resented his treatment of the Emperor the first time he was required to call. The picture taken of this meeting was widely circulated throughout Japan for the purpose of illustrating who was the new boss. It showed His Majesty, his short, slight figure respectfully clothed in full morning dress in the presence of a casual, unimpressed MacArthur who wore no blouse, was tieless, and stood aloof with his hands in his pockets. The Japanese understood the intent of the picture but thought "the dignity was with the Emperor." The contrast reminded me of the sur¬render at Appomattox.

It was not only the Japanese who sympathized with their Em¬peror on that day. When the little man came under escort in the big limousine to the American Embassy and got out to meet MacArthur, he squared his shoulders and marched toward the guards at the entrance. He had brought his personal physician with him, so little did he know what to expect.

As MacArthur's Military Secretary, Bonner Fellers was at the entrance to receive the Emperor. As His Majesty approached, with his doctor and the chamberlains, Fellers extended his hand to him. The Emperor took it gladly and the two men shook hands on the steps. General Fellers told me later he could not restrain himself; he stood there and thought, "My God, the humiliation!" Upon returning, the first thing the Emperor asked was, "Who was the man that put out his hand to me when I went to the Embassy?" Terry was pleased to be able to say that General Fellers was a relative of mine. The Emperor sent Bonner a photograph signed in English. It was fitting that the gift came as a surprise, for Bonner's act in greeting the Emperor had also been unexpected, the spontaneous gesture of one moved by the Emperor's example to his people of "bearing the unbearable."

MacArthur and the Emperor became friends. The General would put his arm around the smaller man in a fatherly attitude during the course of their frequent meetings--he recognized that the Emperor was acting in good faith, doing all he could to cement relations with the conquerors. I wonder how it would have been had Hirohito acted upon Sir Winston Churchill's dictum that in defeat one should show defiance to one's enemies.

Once, the Emperor asked if he might tour the country and MacArthur granted permission. The Emperor had seen little of his country, being confined by custom and protocol very closely to the Palace. His people had seen even less of him. There was a superstition that if one looked on his face the radiance would be blinding. When he had approached in the past the guards would yell, "Bow your heads, Their Majesties are going by." It happened to me once and I have always wondered which member of the royal family went past in the carriage.

Rigid and unyielding tradition bore down heavily upon all members of the royal family. The children were taken from their empress-mother at birth and reared separately in their own quar¬ters near the Palace; they could not live with their parents or each other. Terry wished that the royal children might have a more normal family life and Mrs. Vining, who was brought from America to educate the Crown Prince, Akihito, wished for a change—at least that the children might live together—but it was too much against orthodox tradition. Such had been His Majesty's childhood, living in his own small palace, brought up by a chamberlain and a staff of retainers, paying formal visits to his brothers and parents, seeing them as his family only during brief vacations at the summer palace when they lived together.

When he was permitted to go among his people freely for the first time, it was as though the Emperor had been liberated. Terry accompanied him on one trip. Immense crowds choked the line of travel as they went by auto through the villages and towns and cities of Japan. The people would surge toward the car, cheering, tearful in their joy to look upon the tenn?. An old lady held up the photo of her lost son for the Emperor to look at, saying, "Look upon him, look upon him, I beg you. He died for you!"

Terry was deeply moved—he had never fully realized the pervasive love his people felt for the Emperor. When Terry first received the appointment, he told me that he went into the Palace as a blank piece of paper to see what the man there would write upon it. The man wrote well.

Once Terry asked him,

"What was the happiest day of your life, sire?"

The Emperor described a trip to France he had taken when he was Crown Prince. The chamberlains clustered around everywhere, making arrangements, clearing the way, doing all things. The Prince had never used money in his entire life. He became separated at the railroad station amid the confusion and proceeded to walk alone through the gate leading to the trains. A ticket agent had shouted to him, "Hey, bud, what are you doing going through there without a ticket!"

That had been one of the happiest days of his life. On that same trip in Paris, he had enjoyed going shopping for himself for the first time.

Like other Japanese—including my husband—the Emperor came to admire MacArthur. The General had a gift for the splendid gesture. This was strikingly illustrated early in the occupation. He went about in public without guards and even went to meet Mrs. MacArthur when she landed without any escort [this comment is open to question. It was Mrs. MacArthur, not the General, who went about in public while the General rarely strayed from his daily routine at the office and residence.] It was reported that she asked where the M.P.'s were and he told her they were not needed. Japanese by the thousands took note of this and thought with pride that such trust was something for them to live up to.

When Terry first started going to the Palace he was careful to observe all the details of proper etiquette when in the presence of the Emperor. He would take off his shoes at the entrance way, after the Japanese manner to achieve cleanliness in the house and show respect, replacing them with slippers provided for the pur¬pose. But Terry was a heavy man with high blood pressure; when he was at home he was careful not to bend over or exert himself in any way, and it was difficult and dangerous for him to lean down to change his shoes. He was seeing the Emperor every day and after a few calls he said to him, "Sire, let's dispense with that. I'm too sick and it takes too much time." The Emperor assented. They also cut short the formalized greetings, instead of the elaborate bowing and the crossfire of formal questions as to everyone's health, Terry would tell the Emperor, "Good morning, sire"; the Emperor would bow and say, "Please sit down," and that, quite sensibly, was all there was to it.

As a courtesy to Terry, I was invited to have audience with the Emperor and Empress. How excited and nervous my husband was! He was a member of the Imperial Household and if his foreign wife did not carry the thing off correctly everyone from the chamberlains to the scullery maids would know him as the man with the gaijin [foreigner] wife who knew no manners.

I was carefully instructed as to the procedure. The ceremony would be formal and brief. I should approach and bow to each the ruling monarchs, answer their questions, remain standing d watch the chamberlain on the Emperor's right for my cue to part, and in departing I must back out and not turn my back Their Majesties.

At 10:30, the appointed hour, I was dressed in a beige linen lace dress, gloves to the elbows, buff colored shoes with high heels, a brown pillbox straw hat, and a string of pearls. I waited in the anteroom with my anxious husband. He patted me on the back when I was announced. I thought of how a football coach sends an untried but eager substitute in to replace the injured star.

On entering the royal presence I found them standing in front of a gold screen. They appeared happy and pleased to see me. I bowed at the entrance to them both and then to each side, first to the Emperor and then to the Empress, and each of them shook my hand. The Emperor asked me to sit down. I was so engaged in following the beautiful Japanese the Empress was speaking that I hardly noticed this shattering of precedent; so far as I know no other woman had ever been invited to sit down on such an occasion. One would ask me a question, which the chamber¬lain would translate, and then my reply would be translated.

"You have been married a long time, we understand, and have been a great help to your husband."

I replied that we had been married since 1931 and I had tried to help. The Emperor then said,

"I am very grateful."

The Empress asked me about my mother and where she was. When I told her that my mother had heard nothing directly from me for four years, tears flooded into her eyes. The Emperor said he had been told that I understood the Japanese very well, and he expressed admiration that I should have remained with them during the war. I said I had wanted to prove that an American woman could bear as much for her family as the Japanese women could. The Empress said I had surpassed them.

The chamberlain to the Emperor's right was shuffling uneasily. I saw him catch the Emperor's eye and almost imperceptibly His Majesty shook his head.

The Emperor then asked if I had been treated very badly by his people. I was glad to answer. There were so many instances of unusual kindness shown me. I told him of a woman who, a month or so after the surrender, had come alone across the entire width of Tokyo to bring me two rolls of bread wrapped in a newspaper because she knew I had not had bread for months—no, his people had not treated me badly.

The Empress asked about Mako and told me Terry had shown her the child's picture. She wanted to know how serious Terry's illness was. I told her he was sick but that he had to be working now. They asked about my house and the Empress was especially interested to know how our daily lives were carried on. The Emperor asked about Bonner Fellers. Then the chamberlain, growing restive again, nodded to me and I executed my with¬drawal, moving backward without turning around.

Many times Japanese had told Terry and me with some wistfulness that it was a rare and precious thing, our romance. "Not many Japanese ever have a chance to have a romance like yours!"

But it occurred to me that the royal couple was an exception to that unhappy rule.

I saw the Empress several times after that. Once, while Mako and I were walking through the gardens of the Palace we heard someone say, "The Empress is coming!" We stepped back off the path. There was the Empress in a purple kimono strolling with her lady in waiting. She saw us and started toward where we were, a happy smile on her face, but the lady in waiting said something low in her ear and they passed on, the Empress turn¬ing to look again and again. As they passed, I bowed and was amused to see Mariko bent almost double, her tall thin body re¬sembling a croquet wicket. The lady in waiting had reminded the Empress that there were many people in the gardens and that if she spoke to us she would be obliged to speak to everyone.

Sometime later I sat next to the Empress at a luncheon at the Palace.

"Oh, I saw Mariko-chan!" she exclaimed joyously.

She displayed the most avid curiosity about her and wanted to know what I did each day, from the time I got up, in the way of keeping house and shopping. We were still talking when it came time to leave. The Emperor and Terry were going to walk the gate together and they were waiting on us. His Majesty stood at the door of the dining room silently demanding that we come on, and I thought that a husband's impatience was a part my daily life that I need not explain.

George Atcheson had been on the Panay when it was sunk in 1933 by the Japanese, and he had witnessed Japanese atrocities in Nanking. When it was learned that he was coming out as adviser to MacArthur, a feeling of dismay went through the Japanese who knew him. We had been acquainted with him in Washington, over the telephone, at least, but we too feared he would be too hard on the conquered.

Soon after his arrival in Tokyo he came to call, saying he wanted to meet the woman whose voice he had known over the telephone in Washington. How embarrassed we were that the house was frigid. We wrapped him in a blanket and set a hibachi [charcoal brazier] at his feet. He looked like an Eskimo but he never got warm.

Terry discovered our mistaken opinion of Atcheson first. He came home one evening, flushed in the face and with the vein at the temple pulsating. Mako and I took him into the warmest room we had, removed his coat, and brought tea as we always did. After one cup his spirits returned and he wanted to laugh with us. It seemed Atcheson had given him a large heavy object about the size of a squash and asked that it be presented to the Emperor. It was some part of a whale and from the first successful whaling expedition since the surrender. Terry knew nothing of whales or what this bone might be, but he appreciated Atcheson's good will and his efforts at rebuilding the fishing industry. He knew the Emperor's hobbies included the study of marine life.

Feeling extremely silly, Terry presented himself at the Palace with the gift wrapped in papers. He had to tell his secretary not to put ribbons on it.

"Sire, I have something for you. A gift from Mr. Atcheson. I don't know exactly...."

"Oh, thank you! What a fine specimen! The middle ear of the blue whale. Convey my thanks to Mr. Atcheson," and Hirohito examined the bone excitedly.

From this and many other things we perceived that Atcheson was a much larger man than we had thought. He was firm with those responsible for Japan's folly but he was compassionate with the people—not the indiscriminate and overly-righteous avenger some in his place would have been. As time went on our friendship grew warmer and, as he noted happily, the house grew warmer, too. We had found a woodburning stove and it kept the living room and dining room comfortable.

George made trips to and from the United States at intervals, and on one occasion as he was leaving he asked me if he could do anything for me. I told him gleefully that he could bring me a new dress. I gave him the size and admonished him to have his wife do the selecting.

Shortly he returned and telephoned us to come over to see what he had for us. I suppose he had broken all the rules in flying back with such a large satchel bulging with the dress, shirts for Terry, some liqueurs and cigarettes, and candy for Mako. The bags of the diplomats are not inspected at customs. Anyway, Terry went over immediately to pick up the haul.

He had seen Atcheson and was just leaving with the satchel, about to get into "the cement mixer," when two M.P.'s took hold of the bag and told him to get in their jeep which had pulled up behind the limousine. They furnished no explanation, hustled Terry into the rear of the jeep with two other M.P.'s, and went bounding down the road to the stockade. Terry's dazed chauffeur had no choice but to drive back to the Imperial Household alone, leaving his master in the hands of the Americans.

At the stockade headquarters the satchel was opened and its contents examined with knowing, satisfied eyes by the M.P.'s.

"Unh-huh, two Arrow shirts, American shirts, where did you get them, bud? One carton Camel cigarettes, they were not made in Japan, were they now, bud? Where did you get them? And candy and a dress for the girl friend, eh, and all made in the States. All right, what black-market dealer did you get them from?"

At each question Terry tried to explain where he got them. He asked repeatedly that he be permitted to call George or that they place a call to verify his story. They would not permit him to call nor would they call themselves, doubtless thinking the story too absurd to be worthy of checking. Terry took a grip on himself, knowing the great danger if he should become angry. His mental state was quieted when a Negro M.P. gave him a letter in Japanese from his "girl friend" to read. The author of the letter, it soon appeared, was not the lady she might have been and was, regrettably, one of what the soldiers called the "pon¬pon" set. The letter grew more and more lascivious with each line. The white M. P.'s huddled close to hear the contents which their colored comrade in arms had ordered their "gook" prisoner to translate. Terry read slowly and with painful emphasis until the Negro muttered, "O.K., that's all, that's good, thanks, don't read no more."

But Terry insisted that there was more and it was important. He continued to read to the raucous enjoyment of the audience. When he had finished, the Negro took the letter, thrust it into his pocket, and sat down in a corner some distance away.

Terry was permitted to use the stockade latrine, but when it seemed to his captors that he was staying there too long, they went in and slapped him on the shoulder, "Hubba hubba, bub!" In vain did Terry search his vocabulary of Brown-learned slang [a reference to his year at Brown University] for the meaning of this, but he got the general idea and returned to the grilling. The questions began again; from his pocket they took his fountain pen given him by Dick Buttrick [American Foreign Service officer from the days in Shanghai] and they won¬dered at his brown felt hat, with the inscription inside, "Roma, Italia." They did not know how he had come by any of it but were sure he was not telling the truth. He wondered wryly what would happen if he told them in addition to the goods made in. the States he had an American wife—could he explain where he had gotten her?

He was picked up around five in the evening. At ten he was allowed to call the chief of the metropolitan police of Tokyo, a personal acquaintance, who was permitted to take him into custody overnight with the agreement that he be returned in the morning.

I was notified that Terry was spending the night out and only learned the next morning what was going on. I ran the six blocks from our house to where Major Harris lived; he was the nearest American whom I knew who would help. When I got there, around nine in the morning, the Major was having coffee and reading the Sunday paper. He was unshaven but announced, as he put on his blouse, that he would not shave, he looked tougher without it. At the provost marshal's office we interviewed a bored sergeant who said, "Oh, that case. He's already released."

We went to George Atcheson's. In a violent rage, which the State Department reserves for the army on such occasions and is returned by the army on others, he telephoned the head provost marshal. The general said the M.P.'s had orders to pick up Japa¬nese who had American goods—regardless—that it was not their fault. Atcheson insisted they should have checked the man's story. Finally the general agreed. Terry was angry because they had kept the fountain pen which was not in the satchel.

Later that afternoon, George appeared at our door with the satchel and the fountain pen. Terry said it was all for the good because the regulations were changed thereafter and the M.P.'s were instructed to verify the story of any Japanese they picked up about articles in his possession.

It was a pity men like George were not in charge of the war crimes trials. There should have been such trials and a purpose could have been served by them, but they failed miserably the way they were carried out.

General Tomoyuki Yamashita, "The Tiger of Malaya," was the first. He was brought to trial in Manila in October of 1945 before a military commission. The charge against him was not that he ordered or condoned the atrocities committed by troops under his command (at the time the Philippines were being re-invaded by the Americans) but simply that such atrocities were so widespread that they must have resulted from his failure to effectively control his troops. At the time of his trial, the Japanese public was not yet willing to believe that a Japanese general would have participated in such atrocities, any more than the American public would have believed a West Pointer could be guilty of such an offense. They thought he was being tried for defeating the British in Malaya. The Japanese had made a movie of the surrender there which showed the British general truculently attempting to state the terms of surrender and Yamashita striking the table with his fist and declaring,

"Enough of that. We will have no more talk like that at this table. I will make the terms!"

To the populace that was the crime of which Yamashita stood accused—putting the white man in his place. We learned that the General himself had much admiration for American soldiers and was supremely confident that they would not see their antagonist on the field of honor sacrificed to political propaganda and the spirit of vengeance.

Yamashita had been popular and a strong rival of Tojo [Army General in the 1930s and Prime Minister, October 1941-July 1944], such a rival that for a while after his victories in Malaya mention of his name was forbidden in Japan. Tojo sent him to the Philippines to bury him from public view and people were arrested for wondering aloud what had become of him. This had aroused much sympathy for Yamashita, especially toward the end when Tojo had resigned and made a shameful failure of his suicide attempt—dishonoring his people to behave with so little dignity as to fail at harakiri. How could one with so little ability have run the government?

The Commission which tried Yamashita was ordered to dis¬regard the usual rules of evidence and it proceeded with the trial so hastily that the accused had little time in which to defend. The officers appointed to defend him worked diligently and, upon his conviction, took the case to the Supreme Court of the United States, which upheld the conviction in a split decision. The dissents were strongly worded to the effect that Yamashita's rights were grossly violated and that the procedure used in his conviction would support the punishment of the vanquished by the victorious under most any circumstances and regardless of his personal culpability.

When Yamashita was hanged his dignity masked any fear of death, any humiliation at the ignominy of the public spectacle, and any astonishment that the Americans would execute their adversary in battle.

Later, as the soldiers came home and corroborated the stories of brutality and oppression, public sentiment underwent a great change. People began to realize what fools had been made of them. They saw the parallel between their mistaken certainty that their forces had treated prisoners decently and their mistaken certainty that Japan had been forced into the war—they saw that the military party had not been responsible to them in either respect. The average citizen had never known much about the previous barbarities of Japanese soldiers at Nanking for which Itagaki was taken as a war criminal. The revelations about Nan¬king and later outrages during the war came as a dreadful, sickening surprise. The people now realized also that while their government had been faced with very grave problems in the period before the war, the solution attempted by the militarists was wrong both morally and practically. It had increased the evils it was meant to cure to a grotesque degree. For had not the result strengthened the old enemy, Russia, which was now repossessed of territory won by Japan in the old war, and were not Formosa and all the empire of islands gone? What chance had they ever had? Granting the valor of her sailors who sank the Allied cruisers off Savo Island, did the admirals really cal¬culate that the war could be won without the staggering losses of the Coral Sea and Midway? Did they suppose American shipyards could not replace American losses threefold—whereas the Japanese yards could not begin to rebuild the sunken warships of the Imperial Navy? How had the government thought the millions of tons of merchant shipping were to be replaced? Did they think that the American submarines and bombers would not sink their freighters by the hundreds? Not until it was over did the people have opportunity to judge these things—then it was clear that the miscalculation had been enormous. A war spread over thousands of miles of water from Attu to Guadalcanal could only be a test of which country could produce the most planes and ships; and the industrial might of Japan did not even remotely rival that of the United States. The conclusion reached in the syllogism based on these premises was obvious. What solution should have been sought was less obvious but there could be no doubt but that the government had done the worst thing possible.

Looking now at themselves more carefully than they had ever done in their history, the Japanese perceived not only the fanaticism of the militarists but also their own great ignorance in having trusted them. The people's disillusionment penetrated to the marrow. In natural consequence, a public scapegoat was sought and readily found in all military people of whatever rank. Everywhere the returning veterans were treated with resentment and contempt. There were few who did not indulge in the indiscriminate bitterness. My husband was one of these few; possibly because he had realized what would happen from the start, he said nothing further against the militarists after the inevitable defeat had come.

Had the trials proceeded with dispatch at this time and the ample proof of guilt of some of the accused been presented before neutral judges, most Japanese would have cheered the results. It was tragic that this did not happen. Too many were tried and the delays of the law were multiplied and persisted in from month to month and year to year so that judgments were not reached until 1948 and 1949. Terry was gravely disappointed that the trials did not succeed in the propaganda effect intended and thought it unwise that the particular political appointees sent out from the United States should have been chosen to match wits with some of the best brains, evil or not, of the Japanese nation.

Mako and I witnessed Tojo's trial. The people would have lynched him themselves had they had opportunity. He had be¬trayed them into the war and perpetrated the cruelties that had abased his people. He was despised for having failed at suicide, thus permitting the Americans to nurse him tenderly back to health to stand public trial. There was a saying expressive of the people's resentment at such awkwardness, "Going to be another Tojo, not even able to kill yourself?"

The American prosecutor did not handle his examination of the former premier well. He postured in front of Tojo, jibed at him, and tried to outwit him. He referred sarcastically to the change in the educational system, the abolishing of Ichiko and other Japanese schools, and asked Tojo if he had not kept the Education Ministry under his thumb when he was prime minister, and if it was not much improved by the democratic rule imposed by the occupation. To this Tojo pointed out calmly that he had been in prison for the past two years and was in no position to know how well the Americans were succeeding. There was gen¬eral laughter, joined in by American officers among the specta¬tors.

The prosecutor called Tojo "Mr. Tojo" and asked him if he was aware that he was only "Mister" and no longer "General." "Mochiron (Of course)," stated Tojo.

At one point in the translation where Tojo had replied, "I didn't have enough understanding," the interpreter put it in English, "I didn't have enough virtue." The gallery, who had suspected Tojo might be somewhat short on virtue, was greatly amused. Tojo blurted out, "That is not right, it is not translated correctly!"

Once he leaned over to tie his shoe and sighed; the microphone amplified a loud noise out of the groan, "Yaa, dokkoi sho (Oh, me, oh my)," and again the audience was amused.

General Homma had been tried in Manila for the death march of Bataan. He pleaded that he did not know what was happening and had not ordered or condoned the offenses. He was a big, fine looking man who had spent sixteen years in the British Army after graduating from Sandhurst. Before the war he had tried to divide the army and avoid the approaching conflict. Many of the army officers were his followers and with luck he might have succeeded.

I was told this story by an American officer. He said that Mrs. Homma was flown from Japan to Manila to be a witness at the trial. She was a small, gentle lady who knew nothing about the issues in which she had to play a part. A WAC was ordered to stay with her, see her to and from her apartment, and guard her against the Filipinos. The WAC was bitterly resentful at such duty and made a point of showing her hatred to Mrs. Homma. For several weeks they were together constantly, at the trials, in the apartment, and going back and forth.

When Mrs. Homma was called to the stand she could only state that the General had been good to her and exceedingly kind to their servants, while her accused husband sat bolt upright and stared straight ahead, never once looking in her direction.

When the trials were over, Homma gave her several letters to read after his death. He wrote her to carry on, that after all he was a soldier and a soldier is dead from the moment he goes into the army, that she should consider his passing as an inevitable loss of war itself.

Mrs. Homma was flown back to Tokyo before her husband was executed. On the way, the heating system on the plane failed and the WAC, who had become very sympathetic, got out an army blanket to keep her charge warm. She took the blanket to Mrs. Homma and unfolded it. The General's lady glanced up at the big U.S. printed on the blanket and shook her head in refusal. She sat quietly in the bucket seat and nearly froze before they descended to land.

Soon after, her husband refused to be helped and walked unattended to the stake to face the firing squad, remarking that he did not wish to be blindfolded, he was not afraid of guns.

There was an execution every few days now although no one was permitted to know in advance who would be next. The widows were not permitted to have the ashes of their condemned husbands because the authorities thought this would foster nation¬alism again. One night our little girl awoke with a scream, and when we went to comfort her she told us she had been dreaming that a man was being hanged in our garden.

We had fears for many of our friends, but most of all for Mr. Shigemitsu [Shigemitsu Mamoru, her husband’s close friend from the Foreign Office days and Foreign Minister at the time of surrender]. The Americans, British, and Dutch appeared to have no charges against him, but until the purges should be over we were anxious for his safety.

The day before the Class "A" defendants were to go on trial, Terry came from the Palace and told us that Mr. Shigemitsu was a defendant. He wanted me to understand that it was at the request of the Russians who were pushing for convictions of everyone who had served in their country; we had been correctly informed about the American and British intentions.

Terry would not attend the trials but Mako and I did. Along with his goddaughter I watched Mr. Shigemitsu hobble in, disdaining earphones, assistance, or any defense. His American lawyers, appointed by the court, read affidavits from Churchill, Grew, Sir Miles Lampsdon, and others. Terry told us nothing could be done to get Shigemitsu to fight the charges, that even these affidavits had been sent unsolicited.

Mr. Shigemitsu was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison.

The last thing he told me was, "Don't feel too badly, Gwen. I can rest and read and write. If this will help deter future wars, I am all for it."

Many who were not prosecuted by the Americans were con¬victed and punished by the Japanese public. One friend of ours was a colonel when the war ended and, of course, he was purged from holding office by the Americans, but he was punished more severely by the Japanese. They had come to regard the military as responsible for all their ills, and the ills were grievous. Even our friend's son no longer wished to associate with him, as the father stated, "He is very much oppressed in my presence." The ex-officer could not get a job and returned to the country to work as a farmer, doing the jobs he had done when he was a boy. As he said, his countrymen considered him a "useless person." He had been one of Homma's peace party group and the American forces eventually found use for him in the section on Japanese history. They called him "Colonel" and he began to regain his self-respect.

While summing up the mid-Occupation years, Gwen makes some pointed comments about the social and political scene and describes the repatriation of Japanese from labor camps in the Soviet Union back to Japan.

Japan was changing fast. The MacArthur constitution had converted it into an oriental Switzerland, a pacifist nation, by fundamental law at least. Cabarets in the American style had sprung up, where girls in Western dress—many of them from the Yoshiwara district [licensed prostitution quarters] which the Americans had closed—danced to Stateside “bebop” with the Yankee soldiers and sailors. American slang enjoyed great vogue among the mobo (modern boys). With amusement and concern we watched the merging of our national customs. Intermarriage was becoming common and not infrequently one saw the bridegroom dressed in yukata (cotton kimono).

With all the veteran government servants on the purge list, an amateur Japanese Diet came to power. A number of women made their unaccustomed appearance there and the socialist representation grew; the Communists, who had been sent into exile before the war by the Japanese and were returned by the hospitality of the Americans afterwards, enjoyed a number of seats. The result was very nearly chaos. The Diet had never reflected the dignity of the Japanese, but now it was bedlam. I remember the disgust with which my husband answered me once when I inquired if that was a baseball game on the radio. “No, my dear, that is the Imperial Diet in session.”

One day I started across the booming city to visit friends who lived in Meguro. The sh?sen [train] had just passed when I reached the station and while I waited for the next, a train carrying repatriated Japanese from Russian camps in Manchuria came in. People in the crowd held up big photographs of their sons and husbands, missing in Russian hands now for four years, imploring the returning men piteously,

“Please, have you seen him? Private Suzuki Ichiro. He was with your division. Please, look! Have you seen my husband.

A few of the returning soldiers carried red banners and behaved with coldness toward their weeping families. In time, I knew they would be like the rest of the returning “reds.” They, too, would grow pinker and pinker and finally throw the red flag away as they settled back into their own lives again.

Terry collapsed with a stroke in 1948. Though he recovered, his speech was affected and he remained weak and listless from high blood pressure and heart trouble. Mako was then attending Tokyo Women’s Christian College and beginning to show talent as an artist. Concerned about her future, both parents at first thought of sending Mako to the United States alone to stay with her grandparents and to become better acquainted with her mother’s country. But at Terry’s insistence, Gwen accompanied Mako to Tennessee in 1949 and took a job in a department store to help with expenses. She intended to visit her husband and Japan in 1950, but the Korean War broke out. She never again saw Terry, who died in 1951. Mako remained in the United States and graduated with honors from East Tennessee State University in 1953; in 1998, she was voted ETSU outstanding alumna. Shortly after graduation, Mako married an American lawyer, Mayne Miller. She became the mother of four sons; moved to Caspar, Wyoming; and played an active role in many political causes, including the National Women’s Political Caucus, the Wyoming Commission for Civil Rights, and the Democratic National Committee. In Japan, there was such interest in the Terasaki story, especially Mako, that NHK Public Television created a three hour docudrama for broadcast on August 15, 1981. Almost a decade later, 1990, the Millers discovered a valuable Japanese document in Terry’s papers, recording a monologue of Emperor Hirohito during the early Occupation years. It became sensational news when published in Japan the following year. Mariko was appointed the first Honorary Consul-General of Japan in 1995. As for her father, scholars now know from declassified documents that Terry was a double agent of sorts: liaison between the palace and GHQ but also gathering intelligence about the Occupiers for Japanese officials.

Terasaki, Gwen. Bridge to the Sun. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1957; 181-204; 221-236.

For information about Mariko Terasaki Miller, see: ETSU Alumni Association, “Mariko Terasaki Miller ’53 1998 Outstanding Alumna.” 18 December 2005. Available on the World Wide Web at http://www.etsu.edu/alumni/award/98Award_Miller.asp.

For information about Tarasaki Hidenari's intelligence work, see: Gerhard Krebs, "The Spy Activities of Diplomat Terasaki Hidensari in the USA and his Role in Japanese-American Relations," Leaders and Leadership in Japan, ed. by Ian Neary. Richmond, Surrey: Japan Library: 1996, 190-205.