Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto

That month a massive send-off ceremony took place at the Jingū Gaien Stadium adjacent to Meiji Shrine in central Tokyo for more than twenty-five thousand students from schools all over eastern Japan. Amid a drenching downpour, the young men marched into the national stadium to the blare of bugles and trumpets. Sixty-five thousand student spectators sat soaked in the stands. Dignitaries, including Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō, addressed the audience atop a draped podium. The recruits sang the military ode “Umi Yukaba,” “Across the Sea,” vowing to die for the Emperor. After hours standing at attention in the chilling rain, they marched to cheer “Banzai” before the Imperial Palace. One of the soft-skinned soldiers that day was surely Pierce, whose entire class had been summarily conscripted. By December 1, the day that Pierce was officially inducted, there was so much that he did not know. His brother Harry was in the Pacific, preparing for his first landing in an active combat theater. The United States, Great Britain, and China would announce in the Cairo Communiqué their determination to obtain Japan’s unconditional surrender. The Manhattan Project was making progress. The air force would soon refit its Boeing B-29 Superfortress to transport a new and stunning weapon.