Hiroshima, Japan

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"Then, after a few weeks in Japan, I asked the lieutenant if I could have a few days off to go look for my parents. He wasn’t going to give it to me, but the major sitting right by him said, ‘Give the man a ten day pass.’ So I got ten days to go look for my mom and dad. And when I got to the town named Kaita, I had my one week supply of food...My sister-in-law told me just about where to go, so I knew about where it was and I looked. When I got there, I looked and my dad was raking the ground, dirt you know. He was facing the other way, so I went up to him and I said, ‘Hi, pop.’ And he about died! Hugged me for the first time, and he called my mother, and my mother was sick in bed, but she came running out...and that’s how I met my mom and dad."

Editor's note: Jimmy Doi's parents survived the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Doi recalled, "They were in Hiroshima that early morning gathering firewood. When they were coming back home, four miles, he was coming home and all his friends and relatives were going to Hiroshima to get firewood. They were laughing at him, but when he got home and sat to take off his shoes in the house, the bomb went off and knocked him to the ground. But all his friends and relatives...they were gone. I mean, they were dead. But my mom and dad were safe."