After a long and exhaustive courtship, I, a U.S. Naval member stationed in Japan, was finally allowed to marry my Japanese fiancé, Chizuko. The year was 1969, and the place was Sasebo, Japan. I had spent considerable time learning the Japanese language from the University of Maryland, Far East Division in the preparation for my proposal “through” her immediate family. That's not to say that there were several in her family who still held strong objections to our union.
As my mother in law and myself became more comfortable talking with one another over time, she began to include me in more intimate conversations about her family. She had referred to my wife as her “miracle child” many times; an expression I thought had referred to the fact that her daughter Chizuko had been born rather late in her mother's life, in her mid-forties in fact, long after Chizuko's brothers and sisters had grown up and left home.
One day I questioned her about that expression, asking her if having a child that late in life created any additional hardship for her at that time, especially since her pregnancy would have extended throughout that period of the war when Japan itself was coming under constant bombing attack by the Allied Forces.
“No”, she said. Even though food and medical care was scarce during the time of her pregnancy, their location high in the hills surrounding Sasebo had spared them from most of the effects of the bombing, even though Sasebo was a well known shipyard, and had been under regular bombing attacks.
A-26's, B-25's and P-47's had been bombing the Sasebo Naval Shipyard on a regular basis from the end of July up to the second week of August of 1945, but my mother in law admitted that they apparently had very good aim, as most of the damage seemed to be confined in and around the shipyards itself.
The city's civilians were left to watch the carnage and devastation from the hillsides, all the time hoping that their loved ones working at the harbor would return home safely. Sometimes they did; sometimes they didn't. The inhabitants had become very philosophic about the concept of war and personal sacrifice by this time, as so many relatives and neighbors had been lost in the conflict, never to be heard from again.
On August 8th, Sasebo was inundated with leaflets falling from the sky, let loose by Allied planes during what everyone expected to be yet another bombing raid on the shipyard. Rumors of some horrible tragedy occurring at Hiroshima had been trickling in to the city of Sasebo for the past couple of days, as all forms of contact with that city had come suddenly to a halt.
The leaflets seem to confirm the suspicion that Hiroshima had suffered some horrible fate, and that worse was yet to come. Loosely translated, the leaflets stated in Japanese;
To The Japanese people,
America asks that you take immediate heed of what we say on this leaflet.
We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2000 of our giant B-29s can carry on a single mission. This awful fact is one for you to ponder and we solemnly assure you it is grimly accurate.
We have just begun to use this weapon against your homeland. If you still have any doubt, make inquiry as to what happened to Hiroshima when just one atomic bomb fell on that city.
Before using this bomb to destroy every resource of the military by which they are prolonging this useless war, we ask that you now petition the Emperor to end the war. Our president has outlined for you the thirteen consequences of an honorable surrender. We urge that you accept these consequences and begin the work of building a new, better and peace-loving Japan.
You should take steps now to cease military resistance. Otherwise, we shall resolutely employ this bomb and all our other superior weapons to promptly and forcefully end the war.
Also stated in this leaflet was a warning to the inhabitants to flee the city for safety elsewhere, as they were about to witness yet another manifestation of this horrible new weapon. The sense of urgency in this leaflet was quite apparent, and thousands of Sasebo inhabitants began to make arrangements to leave the city for safe refuge elsewhere.
My mother in law, however, was faced with a dilemma. Her pregnancy with Chizuko had been a very difficult one, complicated by the lack of healthy provisions and medical care in those most trying times, further complicated by her age. She was unable to travel at this time, being partly incapacitated by her weakened physical condition, and the fact that she was already near term with her baby.
As the family witnessed hundreds of friends and relatives leave the city for refuge elsewhere, they made up their minds to remain in Sasebo, whatever might happen, and trust in the Almighty to reveal their fates in the days ahead. Some relatives had remained behind as well, along with close friends and neighbors, most of whom had no other place to go.
Suddenly she became silent, and as I looked over at her I noted that she was watching me out of the corner of her eye, as if assessing me for my reaction to her story. She waited patiently for me to digest what I had heard so far, and falling into her carefully woven web of story-telling I asked; “So, why do you call Chizuko your miracle baby?”
Very deliberately, she began to explain. The leaflets did not mention any specific city as the next target for their strange new bomb, so there was no way of knowing where to go for refuge. The fact that she was unable to travel because of her distressed pregnancy had kept her and her immediate family and many of her closest personal friends and neighbors in Sasebo, which as history has recorded, was NOT the next target of this most terrible bomb.
Had she been able to travel however, she would have joined the rest of her relatives and friends in their frantic flight to safety to their neighbor city to the south, Nagasaki.
A month later, on September 18th, 1945 my mother in law gave birth to a healthy baby girl, whose future adventures through other countries and cultures could hardly have been imagined at that time.
