Midnight in Broad Daylight Quotes

“Each person, caught up in the moment, had no inkling that this was the last time this group would ever be together.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“furrowed-”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“Once in a while, they passed gangs of demobilized Japanese soldiers. They were drunk on rubbing alcohol, singing, yelling, and arguing. Harry and Chester skirted around them, following police advice about avoiding confrontations”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“Physicians arrived in Hiroshima, trying to determine why so many patients were dying every two to three days.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“Plants were blooming in strange profusion.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“Shortly before Harry had landed, the Occupation authorities had imposed a ban on the military and Japanese press regarding news about the atomic bombs.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“I felt some responsibility to help postwar Japan recover.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“Within one week, Tom would be overwhelmed by Japan’s circumstances. Accompanying foreign correspondents as their interpreter on a brief stop to Hiroshima, Tom felt as if the bomb “had sucked the air out of the city.” Patients—largely old men, women, and children—lay in the hospital, horribly burned, their faces covered with pus. Flies swarmed. When the correspondents quickly boarded their plane for Tokyo, “nobody spoke,” Tom said, his voice trembling decades later.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“And, initially, he could not bear the thought of going to Japan. “I thought it would be no use going.” But, then, he decided to try. Many nisei were released from their extended service in the Philippines, but Harry decided to proceed with the 33rd Division to Japan. From wherever he might be based, he would determine whether it would be possible to venture to Hiroshima.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“nine million wandered homeless”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“Several family members would attest to this account, but history would show that no such leaflets were ever scattered over the city.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“In late May, several Japanese cities considered possible targets for a remarkable weapon were deemed exempt from B-29 air raids.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“Harry had reason to feel exuberant. In March he had been promoted to master sergeant, the highest rank for an enlisted man. At a time when few nisei were as yet commissioned, he felt like a “king” with his six white stripes placed below the 33rd Division’s Yellow Cross. “My arm looked like a zebra.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“One of the first he interviewed was voluble and wounded. Admitted to a Japanese camp hospital for his injuries before he fled and surrendered, he had overheard instructions that patients who were not mobile should be lethally injected when the troops withdrew. The officer had witnessed Japanese nurses going from bed to bed with syringes, carrying out what they had likely been told was anrakushi (euthanasia).”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“Against a backdrop of hissing shells and thundering gunfire, General Clarkson took notice of his interpreter’s tireless work and sent positive evaluations that reached the top echelon of ATIS.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“Harry crouched at the caves’ opening. The stench of urine, feces, blood, and putrid flesh was overpowering. He entered and kneeled over the men inside. Since he had no idea whether the enemy soldiers were dead or alive, he held a mirror close to their mouths. A couple of times, the glass fogged and Harry had the GIs carry out the few who were still breathing. The moment the ailing men were exposed to the brash sunlight, they succumbed”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“Allied forces advancing in Saipan watched in horror as hundreds of Japanese residents killed themselves en masse—exploding hand grenades or jumping from rocky cliffs to the whitecap-tossed ocean far below, a phenomenon that would be repeated elsewhere.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“Back in Hood River, there was a public outcry. The late Frank Hachiya’s name was hastily repainted on the county honor roll.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“The Illinoisans were astonished. “They had never heard about it, and they wouldn’t believe it. They said it was impossible,” said Harry. “But we did explain to them that it was possible and that it did happen.” Harry pulled out his letters from his female pen pals in the camps and showed them to his 33rd buddies.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“in one incident, the American Legion removed the names of sixteen nisei soldiers from its county honor roll in Hood River, Oregon. One of the nisei was a linguist in the Pacific Theater named Frank Hachiya.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“When you fight while young, you remember well.” If he and Fukuhara had not grappled at the festival in Hiroshima, he might not have recognized him in New Guinea. “Fighting brings intimacy,” he reflected. By giving him special treatment and dispatching him promptly to Australia, Harry had saved his life.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“His suicide did not redeem him;”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“In another lifetime, he had been a desultory student, baseball pitcher, and bully. His father thought the military would straighten him out.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“their skin turned particularly jaundiced from the antimalarial tablet that they downed daily at the chow line.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“Neither man mentioned an unsettling development: one of the four Japanese taken prisoner at Wakde was a nisei from Hawaii who spoke English.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“759 had been killed and four Japanese captured.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“Whoever heard of a soldier going on a landing with a typewriter?”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“World War I veterans marched with pride.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“Yet, as the Fourth of July approached, the Tulare residents welcomed the distraction and took to their beloved holiday with gusto. They organized a full schedule of events, including a three-quarter-mile-long parade, sumo and judo contests, relays, and a tug-of-war.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

“When the time came, they drove 170 miles over the Tehachapi Mountains at a “victory speed” of 35 miles an hour on rationed gas and tires.”
― Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds