I have very little information about how my father was able to rejoin us in Vancouver, in August of the year of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Apparently the men who were employed by the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company could not get passage out of Japan. Many were stuck there and were interned in Japanese civilian concentration camps. There were no airplane flights. All the passenger ships were moving troops. My mother and I were on the last passenger ship to leave Yokohama. The Hiye Maru was soon after converted to a troop carrier. All but 50 lbs. of baggage were allowed to leave the country. Furniture, possessions, all left behind.
Years later my father gave me a ring, a jade ring. The story was that he had managed to purchase a jade stone with our remaining bank balance. But how to get it undetected out of the country? He had it set in a cheap ring. When he crossed the border he turned the stone to the inside of his hand showing only a cheap metal band that no one at customs paid attention to.
I know that he was able to get to a friend in Shanghai. Somehow passage was arranged to Vancouver. Years later he told my brother Jonathan that he was able to sail from Shanghai on an American troop ship.
My birthday was on the 31 of July. He sent me a poem to celebrate the occasion, a poem which suggested that he would join us soon. I have it memorized.
"Won't it be lovely to meet again
Won't it be nice to say 'hello'?
You're growing bigger and bigger each day
Learning so much and delighting in play.
But after the fussing and excitement's about
All talking at once, no on listening no doubt
Time will pass quickly and 'fore anyone knows
Why bedtime is coming and sweet repose.
There'll be piggy back rides as of old, just for fun
And maybe after a story, dear one.
Then Mummy will shout out "Now Daddy, you know
Its terribly late, so don't be so slow."
So out go the lights and I give you a kiss,
For my precious is off to that land of sweet bliss."
The moment of his return that August night I was fast asleep. I woke up the next morning in the Murphy bed in some astonishment.
Wow, That's powerful. In such a horrific time, families being torn apart, world at war. Escaping pure evil, not knowing what the future has to promise, your father writes that. Wow! He must have been terrified, getting caught, getting killed, never seeing his family again. The poem tries to restore Hope and Promise for a better future. Major hat tip!
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ReplyDeleteA great article. Just one minor correction, I am pretty sure Dad said that he left Japan on a US troop ship, because he had made friends with the Captain, and travelled that way to Shanghai. He always held a grudge against CP as all of his colleagues ended up in POW camps and suffered horribly. He felt that CP should have closed the office sooner.
ReplyDeleteHe also always spoke highly of the US because of this.
Another footnote to this. Our Dad was a minor spy for the British and because he loved to walk around the port, would report back Japanese ship movements in and out of the harbour, to his British consular friends at "the club." Jonathan Aug,2018.