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safer for them to spend the night with us, as we were farther away from the seacoast.
When I went to work the next day, I found that our office had been converted into a kitchen to feed the many volunteers (reportedly many ladies of the night) who had come to help. Our morgue was filled with bodies of civilian victims. The wounded were treated in several hospitals. The enemy planes had strafed some on land and some at sea in their fishing sampans, most of whom ironically were ethnic Japanese. Rumours were rampant about spies and sabotage, and of Japanese citizens being sent away to relocation camps. On the whole the Japanese wanted to show their loyalty to the United States and many Nisei volunteered to serve in the European theatre, forming the famous 442nd Battalion that fought so bravely in Italy and with such a great loss of lives. Among them was Samuel Sakamoto, husband of my good friend, Edna Sakamoto. A quiet gloom settled over the city and even the skies remained cloudy and depressing for weeks. It was not until after the Battle of Midway that the heavens seemed brighter and our spirits lighter. During the war years we found it so stifling with all windows covered to ensure total darkness that we chose to go to bed early and spend our waking moments listening to the radio. Amos and Andy and Allen's Alley were my favourite programmes. Occasionally I could catch Tokyo Rose's propaganda over the air.
In 1945 I was granted a leave of absence from work and clearance from the military to leave for the mainland to visit Mrs. Johnson. I left on 16 March 1945 on a small vessel, the S.S. Permanente, which was escorted by an armed submarine chaser. Because of the threat of being torpedoed, everyone was required to wear trousers and to carry an emergency kit. About twenty hours out to sea, an alert sounded. Although most of the passengers kept calm, my roommate became hysterical. She was a Jewish woman taking her infant daughter back to New York, leaving her husband, a defense worker, in Honolulu. It was rumoured that an enemy submarine had been sighted. Fortunately nothing happened. It took us eight days to cover a distance that normally took four and a half days. I left San Francisco for Lincoln, where I stayed with Mrs. Johnson for three months. While there, on 12 April 1945, we heard the sad news of President Roosevelt's death over the radio. I took this opportunity to visit Dora, Tso-chien and Eugene in Chicago before