I heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor in my house by radio early in the morning. This was Monday morning in Japan, and I was getting ready to go to work. I took the commuter train and went to my lab at the University of Tokyo. I think, in a way, when I realized that it had finally come to this, that in some ways I was relieved. Before that, I had seen so many soldiers and horses and so on moving around downtown Tokyo—going somewhere but nobody knew where. We felt something was going to happen very soon, but we had no idea that Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor.
When I heard that news, of course I got scared. That was very scary. Immediately I expected a counterattack. You know, American planes could have easily attacked us from the Philippines. And so we were very scared. But nothing came out of it, no counterattack. Then for several days we got good news after good news—all the American ships wiped out at Pearl Harbor. Also the British Far Eastern fleet was sunk, their ships Repulse and Prince of Wales went down. So I must say that for a while all the Japanese became very much excited. Even the people who had been against the war really became sort of for it. That lasted for several months, I think, until the April 18, 1942, Tokyo raid by Colonel Doolittle.
People ask me if that came as a shock, but I wasn’t really surprised by it. I had thought the Americans would counterattack before that. I saw Doolittle’s planes flying overhead. It was a beautiful day, and the raid was a nice show for me, because I was seeing for the first time the American B-25s. They did some damage, but it wasn’t serious at all. Compared to the raids that began in 1944 it was nothing.
Then, in May and June of 1942, we heard about the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway. So, for about six months prior to that, I think all Japanese were very happy. The Battle of Midway the government really tried to cover up. They announced it as a victory, but their explanations didn’t sound quite right. I had a friend who was aboard one of the ships. He got back alive, and he told me all about it and how terrible it was.
But things really got bad when the B-29 raids started in late 1944. I remember vividly the airraids of November 27, 1944. I don’t remember the total number of airplanes—I read later that there were about 2 70, I think. These were B-29s, and they were planes we hadn’t seen before. That was scary—having B-29s overhead, more than 200 of them. That was rather scary. I was doing an experiment in my lab at the time, and I think I am the only person in Tokyo who did my business as usual without going into the shelter. This story is well known among my friends who are American scientists, because when we are together we talk about such things. I think I am the only scientist who has gone right on with research experiments when B-29s are flying overhead and dropping bombs. I’m rather proud of that. I thought, “Maybe I am about to make some great discovery, and so I can’t die tonight.” That’s the sort of feeling I had!
I stayed on in Tokyo through all the terrible fire-bomb raids in 1945. But after the war, science in Japan almost came to a stop, so I decided to go to the United States to continue my research. I ended up becoming a nuclear physics professor at the University of Arkansas.