I was born in Kainan City Wakayama Prefecture, Japan in 1931. My father worked for an electric company as an electrical engineer, and my mother was a full-time housewife. They had three sons including me. Some people call the period from the outbreak of the Manchurian Incident to the end of the Second World War as 15-year-war. So I was born and grew up with the war.
Japanese Edition
Before Retirement
Preschool days: The First Muroto Typhoon in 1934 is the first incident which my memory corresponds with the date. I was scared because the Tatami mat, on which I was sitting, was raised from the floor by the power of wind blown through the under space of the floor. Though the Japan-China War began in 1937, I do not remember anything.
With my friends, I used to ride a scooter and bicycle, to climb up the stone wall of a temple, to climb trees in a mountain, and to play soldiers. I think I was absorbed in play except the playing soldiers until the middle school. Maybe I quit the playing soldiers when I was in the fourth grade.Sukiyaki was the most gorgeous dinner at my home. Cotton candy, ice cream, and drink were sold on the grounds of shrines and temples at their festivals. Confectionery shops sold chocolate bars, caramels, and Japanese cookies.
Department stores in big towns opened restaurants at their top floors, and offered electric cars for children at their rooftops. Though my house was on the outskirts of the small town, the car and motorcycle occasionally came to my neighborhood. We boys liked the smell of automobile exhaust and ran after the car.
Of course our today’s life is much better than the life of then, but our life was not so bad then.
In a cold winter my mother gave me a pair of socks instead of a pair of knee socks, and a pair of shorts instead of a pair of pants and said, "You have to become a soldier." And she did not give me a blanket and a Kotatsu (Japanese foot warmer used in the bed.) She repeatedly said, "General Togo brushed his teeth and washed his face with a cup of water." Maybe she devoted herself to reduce the difficulty of my future army life.
Elementary School Days: I entered an elementary school called "Jinjo-Koto Shogakko" in the spring of 1938. The public were still peaceful. My mother attended the entrance ceremony with me.
When we passed through the front gate, there was an extra ground other than the play ground. The Hoanden was at the back of the extra ground. (The Hoanden was a small reinforced concrete building which stored the Emperor's picture (Goshinei) and the rescripts(Chokugo). In those days every elementary school had the Hoanden.)
When arriving at the school and when going home, we had to go to the front of the Hoanden, face it, take our hat off, and make a deep bow. It was a strict rule. All children strictly obeyed the rule even if they were in a hurry. When I carelessly passed by the Hoanden, I returned to the front of the Hoanden from where I noticed about it.
The Second World War began in 1939 when I was in the second grade but I cannot recall the outbreak of the war.
An autonomous organization, consisted of a few groups of the pupils, still remained in the school. The leader of each group was an eighth grade pupil. Every group sat down on the suitable place of the playground, and discussed matters like "how to go to school." The teachers were watching the progress of the discussion.
Japan allied itself with Germany and Italy in 1940. I did not know the meaning of the alliance but we children well knew the names of "Hitler" and "Mussolini." When I was promoted to the fourth grade in the April of 1941, the Shogakko (the elementary school) was changed to the Kokumin-gakko (the national school.) Today an old record reminds me of the name change but at that time I did not feel it big change.
But I can vividly recall the radio announcement that reported the outbreak of the Pacific War on December 8, 1941. I thought that my parents had predicted the outbreak of the war as the worst case. From then, the wartime aspect suddenly became dense. The class names were changed from A, B, C in English to Japanese language, Ko, Otsu, Hei. The slogans; "Think that shortage is usual! Never complain!"; "Don't want anything until Japan wins the war." were stuck everywhere on the pillars of the corridors in the school.
I did not know why I did it in the school but I drew lots for cloth and sneakers. I won a scrolled cloth (Japanese Kimono cloth is scrolled on a paper pipe as a unit) and pleased my mother. I suppose that daily necessities had already begun to lack at that time.
I passed the 1-km-swimming test when I was in the fifth grade. The following year, a eighth grade student passed the crawl test but I failed the test. The teacher said, "You have a chance to try once more next year." At the selection of the representative runners for interscholastic long-distance relay, I got the right to take part in the relay but a teacher asked me to hand over the right to a eighth grade student. These two memories, swimming and the relay are the evidence that I was able to eat enough until I was in the sixth grade.
I knew Italy surrendered in 1943, but I did not know that Germany surrendered in 1945 just before Japan surrendered.
The food problem rapidly began to get worse from the beginning of 1944. At first the lack of sweet things began. Probably in those days I ate willingly sweet and sour dried bananas for a while. I heard dried bananas were able to be imported more than raw bananas. But the import stopped because the war situation got worse.
My mother had strictly prohibited to spending my money on candy but I learned to secretly buy cheap candy and eat it. This remembrance means that there was a short time which I was able to buy cheap candy. I think that maybe rationing of food (rice) and clothing had already begun in those days, but I do not know the truth.
I suppose that 450 ml of a daily ration of rice was enough quantity for us while we were easily able to get vegetables and fish. Until I had my own suit made when I entered a university, I wore the cotton clothes handed down from my elder brothers because rationed man-made fiber clothes tore easily.
In the elementary school our compulsory education started from 6 years old and ended at 12 years old. After graduating from the elementary school, we had three alternatives;
(1) Going out into the world.
(2) Learning two more years in the elementary school, and going out into the world.
(3) Learning five more years in the middle school.After graduating from the middle school, people had three alternatives;
(1) Going out into the world.
(2) Learning three more years in the specialist school, and going out into the world.
(3) Learning three more years in the high school, learning further three years in the university, and going out into the world.Middle School Days: I passed the entrance examination for a middle school. Like a soldier, I wore the khaki uniform, cap, and cloth puttees and went to the school. A few students still put on shoes but most of students put on Wara-zori (Japanese sandals made by straw) or Geta (Japanese wooden clogs.)
When my elder brothers entered the middle school, they got respectively a new wrist watch and a fountain pen. I looked enviously at my brothers. But when I entered the middle school, I was not able to get such things.
Playing baseball had already been prohibited because of the sports of the enemy. The backstop (wooden parts only) and the pitcher's mound had remained on the play ground. As the extracurricular activities, I wanted to enter the glider club or the shooting club, but the first- and second-year students were not admitted to the clubs.
I reluctantly entered the apparatus gymnastics club. Under the direction of a senior student, I became to be able to perform the feat called "Ymato-damasii (the Japanese spirit)" on the horizontal bar. However, when I looked at the scene that a senior student failed in the giant swing, and landed on the sandbox with his face, I was frightened to do the same blunder, and dropped out of the club.
When I entered the school, all the students from the first year to the fifth year were learning in the school. But soon the fifth year students gathered together to work for a munitions factory. Successively the fourth year students were sent to another factory too.
The third year students became the oldest students in the school. They who had been the victims of the violence of the fifth year students began to do violence to us (the first year students.) We were terribly afraid of their violence. Teachers often slapped our faces too but we were able to expect when they would slap us. I was not afraid so much about teachers' slapping. To prevent the misunderstanding on violence, I have to explain that most of Japanese people allowed the violent punishment in those days. Our school was not special but ordinary.
The food situation rapidly began to get still worse. The rationing of rice decreased to 414 ml/day from 450 ml/day. I think the rationing decreased to 360 ml/day but it is unclear. Anyway we were starving with about 400 ml/day of rice without enough fish and vegetables.
The rationing of rice began to be replaced with flour, potato, and other grains. Further the delay and nondelivery of the rationing began. For example, two or three boiled tough potatoes were served as lunch, and thin soup floating a few small dumplings made from flour and water was served as supper. I was diverted from hunger while I was eating such meals but I did not feel them tasty.My father studied the cultivation techniques of the sweet potato and pumpkin by a book. He rented a small field, became a sudden farmer, and had a large harvest at the small field. I devoted myself to help him because I was starving. When I have time, I gleaned on rice paddies, and gathered edible wild grass on footpath between rice paddies but I could not get so much food.
Some farmer's children brought big lunch boxes crammed with white rice to the school but I a office worker's child brought a small lunch box put in a small amount wheat mixed rice. I was ashamed of opening such poor lunch box. And the contents of my lunch box began to change to potatoes and minor cereals from wheat mixed rice.The shortage of food lowered my stamina. I knew it when I ran long distances at physical education class. I had been thinking "I am a good marathon runner." but I barely followed my classmates at that time. When I was an elementary school student I was tall but my growth stopped in those days. Some students who ate enough food became taller than I.
In order to defend Japan mainland, the army began to use a part of our school building in those days. A few soldiers carried pipes, which were about 2-inch diameter and 3-foot length, instead of guns. I heard the pipes were new weapons called rocket guns. Unfortunately I was not able to see rockets, but I thought the army had powerful weapons.While we were watching the soldiers and weapons, the army decided to dig tunnels through a mountain by my town in order to build underground trenches. We students were divided into small groups and each group was assigned to a squad. Our group was assigned to the squad staying in a big but empty warehouse.
I can remember we were chattering all day long with a soldier who knew how to get along in the world. I suppose the warehouse was prepared to accumulate the materials for the underground trench but the army was not able to accumulate the materials so soon because all kind of goods ran short in those days. I can not recollect the situation which we were working in the warehouse, and I can not understand the reason why we returned to school.
The underground trenches were probably being dug throughout the night. An enemy plane found the leaked light and bombed it. I heard the sound of the falling bombs and explosions in my air-raid shelter. It was dreadful. I told this experience to a friend of mine. But he said that no one can hear the sound of falling bomb which comes from right above, and that people who heard the sound of falling bomb would be able to survive. After the Second World War, I suspected that it was untruth.
I went to the bombed scene with the friend, picked up a brilliant fragment of a bomb, and took it home. The fragment had the size of just boy's palm, and was jagged. I felt it very precious and kept it as my treasure. But it gradually became rusty and shabby scrap iron. So I threw away it after the Second World War.Almost everyday, a big formation of Boeing B29 bombers streaming vapor trails flew overhead northward to bomb big cities, Osaka and Kobe. I was not able to do anything except to look up at the formation of B29. Two times, a B29 which came from the south dropped one or two bombs at unexpected places in my city and Wakayama city. So we had to be careful even if the enemy plane was only one B29.
Japan was not able to intercept their attacks altogether. One or two small training planes, maybe escaped from bombing, slowly flew low after the formation of B29 bombers had left. I was miserable. Sometimes I saw a Japanese fighter streaming vapor trails flew while the enemy planes were not flying. I expected Japan would mass-produce such fighters and counterattack the enemy.
One day a friend of mine and I suddenly heard the roar of a plane on our way home. We found an enemy fighter. Maybe the pilot of the fighter stopped its engines and approached us. The fighter was reversing and ascending. We found a pilot in the transparent cockpit made by bullet-proof glass. I suppose he found and approached us but he did not shoot because we were children. Now I think we luckily escaped death by his mercy. But at that time we hated the enemy hard. Although we knew the stones did not hit him, we pitched stones to the enemy.
At around the same time, a B29 probably shot by the antiaircraft gun was emitting smoke from its one engine, gradually lowering its altitude, and going southward over our town. We clapped hands and pleased, but now I think that all members of the crew were maybe helped by an American submarine on the Pacific Ocean.
I was not able to dream the future that I would travel taking the Boeing Company-made passenger plane.
In July 1945, when I was in a second year class, Wakayama city was burned up by the B29 bombers. The principal of our school lost his house with the fire and his face got burned. We, a teacher and a few students, went to Wakayama city and took him back to our school by a Japanese cart, a rear-car in Japanese English. (The cart has two wheels and is usually pulled by a bicycle or a person.) He and his family lived at a corner of the practice hall of our school for a while. I was sorry to see them though I was a boy.
Though our school was the summer vacation when Hiroshima was bombed with an atomic bomb, we went to school. We heard about the very powerful bomb but we did not hear the words "atomic bomb." To make hay for army horses was the homework of this summer vacation.
Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allied Powers on August 15, 1945.
Because my parents and I did not know the Japanese surrender, we were planning to move our furniture to a safer place. I went to an office where a friend of my father worked to borrow a Japanese cart for carrying our furniture. He, who always met me with smile, was talking to other men with hollow eyes and did not meet me. I was not able to borrow the cart. I returned home and found my mother was unusual. She said Japan had probably surrendered. In the evening my father came home and said Japan had certainly surrendered.
To prevent the leakage of light, we had lighted up the necessary parts in our house with the dark covered lamps, and had covered windows with black curtains all through the war time. We removed the lamp covers and black curtains this night. The atmosphere of our house suddenly became bright.
After the war, we dug a big hole in the school ground and buried all guns and swords, which were stored for the military training in an arsenal. A famous person also wrote the same experience on a newspaper. It means that we followed the same order in such chaotic period.
When we had met with teachers or senior students on the street, we had given a military salute until the end of the Second World War. But after the war it became the greeting to take off our hats and then to bow. I did not get used to the new greeting for a while.
The world suddenly changed to democracy from militarism. The value judgment of right and wrong was entirely reversed. Our teachers' behavior was various. A military teacher left from our school without a greeting. A math teacher said, "I regret having taught militarism.", and "I would like to return to my birth place and slowly think about my future." before leaving the school. A Japanese language teacher said, "Don't forget the words 'Never give up' and tightly save them in your mind!" and continued to teach in quiet tones. I think he needed courage to make such a statement at that time. I still admire him.
When we were short of food, a newspaper threatened us as follows; "We have to work hard because the population of Japan will increase annually 900,000 people by the repatriates and new babies." The food shortage continued even after the war. But the rationing of canned tomato juice, corn, and sugar began by the aid of America and the food shortage gradually began to improve.
After all, the extreme food shortage lasted about three years. In those days I, between the middle of twelve years old and the middle of fifteen years old, was a boy with a good appetite. The memory of these three years remained as a trauma. Today it is said that the declining birth rate is serious problem in Japan but I cannot understand the seriousness of the problem. I think involuntarily that the fewer population promises an abundant supply of food.
At one time the young people teased us and said, "'Showa-Hitoketa Umare people who were born between 1926 and 1934', cannot leave over the served food on the table." Maybe we have a little different feeling about food with the other generations. Young people who are on a diet may probably understand our starving experience a little.
In Wakayama city, American soldiers were driving jeeps everywhere. I had not noticed the richness of America when I had looked at the big formation of the B29 bombers but I was made to know their richness when I saw the jeeps. I was very impressed with what we had fought with such rich country.
To use English which I had just learned I went to Wakayama city with my friends and we said, "Give me chocolate." to the soldiers. Generous soldiers threw us candy and chocolate. One day a classmate was eating the instant foods in an American lunch box in front of the other classmates. He said, "You can't get a tasty food because your English is poor." I was looking at him enviously with a wistful look. He picked up a piece of cheese and said, "I dislike this one." and gave it to me. Probably my eyes were most wistful among the classmates. I ate it for the first time in my life and felt it strange.
My family moved to Wakayama city in 1947 when I was in the fourth year student. I continued to go to the middle school in Kainan city by streetcar for a while. I took a transfer exam of a middle school in Wakayama city and began to go to the school. However, the old school system changed to the new one on May 10, 1948. Every student of old middle schools was assigned to one of the new high schools by district. I was transferred to the second year class of a new high school.Japanese school year usually begins on the first weekday of April but only in that year it began on May 10. I who had too much time went to a beach with a friend of mine and swam. I shivered with the cold seawater. The state of chaos of mine by the war and defeat ended at that time.
I had gone to school for ten years until the end of the old school system but I have little memory about studying. Although I spend the bitter war time, I often yearn for the war time including even the feeling of starving. I suppose that because any member of my family was not killed in the war and my house was not burnt by the air attack, I can yearn for the war time.
High school and University days: When I was transferred to the high school, the world had become pretty calm. I slowly began to study for the entrance examination but my father was forced to retire in the March of 1949. I stopped the studying for the entrance examination.
During the summer vacation I swam everyday on a beach to enjoy the last summer vacation as a student. On the next day of the last Sunday of the summer vacation, I went to the beach, and found that there was no one on the beach where people had crowded until yesterday. I felt I was alone. For some time, I was not hunting for a job and was absentmindedly spending time. My father found his new job in October and said, "Go to any college. But don't fail."
I chose a university which is seemed to be easy to enter, and became a freshman of the university in April of 1950. The Korean War began in that year. Japan got profit from the War and made quick recovery and the shortage of food had already disappeared. My height grew again and beat some classmates. One of the classmates said, "It is rare that our height grows at our age."
I decided to live in the dormitory of the university. Some students of the left wing ruled this dormitory. If I lost arguments with the left wing students over the war or politics, I had to follow them. So I had to win debate to continue the life of a nonpolitical student. I think I learned much more things from the dormitory life than from the lectures in the university.
About 50 years later, recently I met an American English teacher who called himself a communist. I was surprised that he and the left wing students had the same points of view. The teacher is a sober scholar who got a doctorate but the left wing students were activists and not seemed to be hard workers. But what his and their points of view are the same maybe means that the students studied well too.
When I finished sophomore, I had to decide my major. A friend of mine said, "We can easily get employment when we study under I Professor who is a famous chemist." I believed blindly his word and I thoughtlessly majored in chemistry. Shortsightedly it was a blunder. At least I had to take a roundabout for a few years. I had no interest or ambition for synthesizing a new compound and was not able to memorize uninterested matters. I have never liked chemistry since then. But I cannot complain about this result because I decided it.
The same friend said, "We cannot get job if we stay at such dormitory ruled by the left wing students." I believed blindly the word again. I moved to a boardinghouse, and lived there about one year. I think it was correct. Anyway I graduated from the university in 1945.
As an employee of a chemical company: After graduating from the university, I was employed in a chemical company at once and assigned to the laboratory. I suppose that the company brought together all chemical new employees into the laboratory, and intended to teach the power of scientific thought rather than to teach the power of chemical thought. My boss had been wrestling with the improvement of a chemical process. I became his assistant worker.
The chemical process is very similar to the cooking process. When foods are cooked in pots and pans, the chemical change probably occurs. So both processes are the same rather than similar. Even if you cook well thick stew for five, maybe it is difficult to cook it for fifty.
The chemical process had the same problem in those days. Even if a reaction occurred well in a 100-ml glassware, the same reaction was not guaranteed in the industrial scale reactor; for example a 1-m3 reactor. The different phenomena that are caused by the difference of reactor sizes are called the "scale effect." We designed the shape and size of the required reactor by trial and error in those days.
Because I was not interested in chemistry, I mechanically repeated the experiments under various reaction conditions changing the reactor sizes and reported the obtained data to my boss. My boss and skilled chemical engineers designed a new commercial reactor using my data. Because it needed especially long time to raise and lower the temperature of the big reactor for the experiment, I had to work throughout night many times. I was not able to like the job. About that time, I married in 1957, my daughter was born in 1959, and my son was born in 1961.
If I exaggerate a little, one day I found a book, which changed my future, at a book store. The book introduced the completely new "Chemical Reaction Engineering." "Chemical Reaction Engineering" suggested that we were able to analytically estimate the scale effects without experience. The book said that we had to simultaneously consider the rates of mass and heat transfers with chemical factors when we would design the chemical reactor. I felt as if I had suddenly been awakened to the truth when I read it. To apply this new method I had to understand mathematics. I was poor in mathematics but I began to partially use this method with the elementary mathematical knowledge. It was very useful for me. My boring job suddenly changed to interesting one.
When I worked for about five years, the director of our research laboratory called me and said, "You should not use superficial knowledge but accurate knowledge about reaction engineering.", "Study under a suitable professor.", and "If you submit the list of the treatises of the professor from whom you want to go, I will send you to the professor's laboratory." I readily submitted the list of the author of that book. I was sent to the professor's laboratory for a year from the spring of 1960. My friends who joined the company in the same time had begun to find their foot making the best use their specialty. But I made a fresh start at this time.
The professor gave me a research task which would be finished within a year, and he taught me how to approach the task. At the same time, I attended the meeting of the reading circle of the students of the master's degree program. The life at the professor's laboratory was wonderful and a year passed very quickly. I had heard that we were able to know the true value of the school when we returned to school from the world. It was surely true.
I returned to the company and started to approach the scale effect problems using newly obtained technique and old chemical experience. I began to think my roundabout way was good rather than bad. I continued fundamental study in the company under the guidance of the professor. I read a paper twice at the annual meetings of The Society of Chemical Engineers, Japan and wrote for the magazine of The Society of Chemical Engineers, Japan.
At the same time I tried to apply the reaction engineering technique to various problems. In 1967 I was transferred to a newly built small chemical plant to manage it. Just before the transfer, I was a little too late but bought a light car called "Subaru 360" and rode on the wave of motorization in Japan. At that time we often talk about our own family cars in our laboratory.
Although I had heard that a plant manager usually had to have difficulty with the scale effect when he tried to improve the manufacturing process and to accept a new product, I had not trouble with the scale effect because of my career. But the human relations upset me a little because I had worked alone for a long time using chemicals and equipment. In addition to the daily communication between the plant operators and I, the communication between members of other divisions and I became my important job for accepting new products and for planning the increase of plant capacity and operators. Maybe most people of same generation had already had such kind of experience but it was the first experience to me.
Before I got entirely used to the new job, I had a cerebral hemorrhage, at 39 years old, in the end of 1970. The left side of my body was paralyzed and was hospitalized. My daughter was in the sixth grade and my son was in the fourth grade. I did not know what to do. I was operated on my brain for stopping the bleeding and for removing the overflowed blood. The operation was a success. The prognosis itself was very good. I was able to leave the hospital after about six months.
After I left the hospital, I had to have a hard time. I was allowed to come to the office of the company. I began to sit for a short time at the front of my desk. The oil crisis occurred in 1973. The tendency of the Japanese economic growth, which continued since 1945, stopped for a while. Although a lot of people made a rush for supermarkets and bought up detergent and toilet paper, it was not so important for me. The most important thing of mine was rehabilitation.
Through the kind offices of my superiors who had been carefully watching my condition, I was transferred to a computer room of the laboratory when I pretty well regained my condition. I operated and maintained some terminals of a host computer and many personal computers about 17 years at the computer room. And I kept my rehabilitation program at the same time. When I consider my health and today's computerization, it was lucky that I was able to work in the computer room.
In those days, the fact was that the anxiety about my future grew as the day passed. So I was not able to appreciate my situation. Usually the middle aged people put their experience to practical use but I, who lost the relation between now and the past, was not able to use my experience. In about 10 years, one or two persons wrote papers that referenced my two papers every year. I found solace in reading them.
After about 10 years, my left leg in my dream changed from the normal condition to the paralyzed condition. I thought that the sense of unity between my mind and body came back and I was able to appreciate my situation a little. When I was able to entirely appreciate my situation, I had retired already. I thank my then superior now.
No one knows what is lucky and what is unlucky for us until we die.
When my retirement was drawing near, a TV program and my friends advised me to find pastimes. The TV also said, "Imagine your retired life.", "Can you fill your time after retirement?", and "You have to do something if you find spare time." Furthermore, the TV said, "Remember your young days and think what were your favorite things or subjects.", and "These would help you find your pastimes in order to fill your time."
I irritatingly worked until the age limit, 60 because I had no idea how to find a favorite thing or subject.
rewritten
& uploaded March 19, 2005
Revised June 1, 2005