Personal Histories of World War II in the Marianas

This series is presented by the CNMI Museum of History and Culture for the 60th Anniversary Commemoration of the Battles for Saipan and Tinian.

A Daughter’s Story

My name is Victoria Delos Reyes Akiyama. I was born January 7, 1933, in Garapan, Saipan. Some older people still remember me by my Japanese name, Setchan. My father was Japanese and my mother was Chamorro. My father’s name was Tomomitsu Akiyama (Pedro) and he came to Saipan from Yamanashi Ken, near Tokyo. He first came to Saipan in the 1920s when he was still a student. I am told that when he arrived all he had was his bed roll, a pair of chopsticks, and a rice bowl. He met my mother on this trip. He returned to Saipan after he finished his studies, and they married. My father became a Catholic, and to the best of my knowledge he never saw Japan again. As a young girl, Saipan was my entire world. It never occurred to me to ask my father why he came to Saipan. Why should I? I was happy. My world was defined, safe, and secure. How was I to know that it would be torn apart, and never put back together again?

My mother’s name was Abelina Sablan Reyes and she was the third of nine children. She married my father when she was only seventeen or eighteen. Before she died she gave the world seven children. I don’t remember much about my mother. She died when I was only five years old. After my mother died my father married my aunt and had three more children, two girls and one boy. Of the ten children in our family, only three of us survived the war. I have a sister who still lives on Saipan, and a brother who lives in California with his wife. Neither one of them will talk to me about what happened to us during the war. I have five children of my own now, but they don’t want to talk about it either, because they don’t like to see their mother cry. But I need to talk to somebody.

I was a happy child. I never wanted for anything. Our house was not far from the old Garapan Church. We lived close to an air raid shelter that still exists on Beach Road. When American planes started bombing Saipan in February of 1944 we would always go there. One of my older brothers, Shiuichi, was killed during one of these air raids. I don’t know the whole story of what happened. He was hiding in a cave with a friend. During a lull in the bombing he left the cave and, according to the friend, a boulder fell on him and crushed his chest. However, this was never confirmed. We never found his body. Like so many, he just disappeared.

Just before the invasion of the island, my father left for some important business in the Marpi area. He was always such a busy man. But I remember, as busy as he was, he always had time for me. One of my last memories of my father was the two of us having a bicycle race on Beach Road in Iliyang. He was such a wonderful man. He must have known that something was going to happen because he made me responsible for his important papers, and he asked one of his friends to look after us if anything happened to him.

On the night before the invasion we fled Garapan. We had a farm in Iliyang where National Office Supply is now, but my stepmother insisted that we go on to Aslito where we had another farm, and she knew my grandparents and other family members to be. I carried my youngest sister, Elpedio, on my back, and in my arms were the documents that my father had entrusted me to carry to a safe place. All together we were seven, me, my stepmother, and five siblings. I was also responsible for two younger siblings, both of whom wanted to be carried. We walked along the beach where we saw [Japanese] soldiers planting mines. Then we moved inland toward Aslito. We had to stop and take cover from time to time because of the shelling.

When we got to Aslito we went to the house of my uncle, William S. Reyes. Before the fighting reached us we had dug a hole and covered it with palm logs and dirt, but the soldiers took that, and the only place left to hide was under my uncle’s house. I remember hearing one of my cousins say, “Oh, look! They are fighting.” But I was busy concentrating on what I had been taught, “Stick your thumbs in your ears, and cover your eyes with your fingers.” The next thing I remember is the house disintegrating and catching fire. My sister Teruko just disappeared. I never found any trace of her after that. My grandmother and stepmother were both wounded. I was untouched at the time, so I started dragging the wounded away from the burning house and into one of the covered foxholes.

I saw my aunt Carmen. She was dead, and someone had laid her body on a box and folded her arms across her chest. Not far from her was my brother, Jose. He had a small hole in his chest, but when I rolled him over his back was shattered. He was trying to hold up his pants when he died, because I had taken his belt. In the same foxhole where I dragged the wounded were two [Japanese] soldiers; one of them had part of his face missing. He said to me, “I am a soldier; I am supposed to die. You can come in.” He then left with the other soldier.

In the foxhole one of my cousins was praying. She was full of holes and blood kept spurting from her wounds. She complained of being hot, and took her clothes off, and tried to wring the blood out. She died shortly after. I watched so many members of my family die that day. I sat at the entrance to the foxhole, trying to protect them from further harm. It was some time later, I don’t remember how long it was, I felt something hot on my back. They were using flame throwers, and my back had been burned. I screamed hysterically.

When the Americans captured us they treated our wounds on the spot, then transferred us by ambulance to a makeshift hospital at Camp Susupe. I was lying face down on a stretcher in an ambulance so I saw very little of the carnage around me. Before we left the foxhole for Camp Susupe I remember that everything around us was burned. My stepmother had a broken shoulder, and it was in a cast. We were in the same tent at Camp Susupe one night when the air raid warning siren went off. I was so scared that I jumped out of my cot and onto my stepmother. I must have landed on her broken shoulder because she screamed. When I was able to get up and move around they allowed me to visit my grandmother in another tent. People were always dying in that tent, but she survived.

In Camp Susupe we were always hungry. I think that is where most of us tasted Spam for the first time. Sometimes American soldiers would call us over to the barbed wire fence and give us chocolate. We were provided with no shelter. We had to make our own with whatever materials we could salvage. Pieces of rice sacking might be all we had for a door. We were all covered with lice. While we were in Camp Susupe, people, even friends and relatives, told me I could no longer speak Japanese. I had spoken Japanese all of my life; now people were telling me I couldn’t. The Japanese were all dead, or in camps like us. The Americans were in charge now. Because I was half Japanese, people who used to be my friends started calling me names like “Tojo.”

I think I must have been in a state of shock during those days. I was able to function, but I could not and did not shed a tear. I asked around about my father. Some people said that he had stopped by their cave, but did not linger for long. One of my cousins told me that she last saw him at a cave in Talofofo, but that was the last time anybody saw him. Even though I watched most of my family get killed, I still had hope that my father was still alive, and that he would take care of me, and all would be well again. In Camp Susupe there was a Mr. Guerrero. He told me one day that my father would come the next day. As a young girl I was always taught to look up to and respect adults. You could always depend on them; they would never lie to you. All that next day, and for some days afterward I sat outside my shelter and waited and watched, but my father never came. Ever since then I have been suspicious of people. After more than fifty years I still miss my father.

(Excerpted from “Japanese Father, Chamorro Mother,” by Vickie Vaughan, in Bruce M. Petty, Saipan: Oral Histories of the Pacific War. Published in 2002 by McFarland & Company, Jefferson, North Carolina, and London. Used by permission of Mrs. Vaughan and Mr. Petty.)