Japanese War Brides: An Oral History Archive
Stories from across the United States as told to a daughter of a war bride
She was late for work on August 6, 1945, and for that reason, she survived. Ten years later, a master sergeant in the U.S. Army boldly sought her hand in marriage, taking her from Hiroshima to a life as the wife of a military man, and then to a farm in southern Indiana.
Clark ends up in Japan after serving in Korea, and is working at an ammunition depot where he starts courting the daughter of a samurai family, Akiko Matsuda. He is persistent and eventually persuades her to agree to marry him, but her father might be an obstacle.
Angelo Amato, an 18-year-old GI from East Boston, was among the first US troops to arrive in Japan following Emperor Hirohito’s surrender in August 1945. In time, he would meet the girl he would marry — Kimiko Yamaguchi — and bring her home. But to get around the immigration laws of the day would require help from his congressman, a young political up-and-comer named John F. Kennedy.
Chizuko Murata met Clifford Watkins in 1946 in Japan. He was the first black man she had ever seen, and she married him two years later.
She loved working for the Silvers as a nanny for their infant daughter in Japan after the World War II. They treated her as one of the family and she was heartsick when they returned to the United States. Decades later, their paths crossed again.
Peggy was fairly certain she did not want to be involved with the American GIs at the Kure Ammunition Depot in Hiroshima depot, where she had gotten a job as a typist. But one young man asked several times and Peggy agreed to go out on a date with him because she knew he was leaving Japan in just a few weeks. She figured it would be a few dates with no obligations on either side. But Cy told her he would write and that he wanted her to write back. And he did. For three years. When he was finally posted back to Japan, he wanted to marry her but first she had to convert to Catholicism. Getting baptized, it turned out, was not going to be easy.
Sidney and Kazuko were great partners at the Zanzibar in Yokohama, a club where black GIs bought tickets to dance. Sidney bought a whole roll of tickets every night, so that no one else could dance with her.
When Hiroe got the well-paying job in a military intelligence office, she knew she was not supposed to date anyone in the building. He was persistent, though, and finally she relented. She got fired and he was demoted. Still, she was taken aback when at a dinner show one night he presented her with a box containing two rings, which she thought were earrings.