August 15th in Xinjing (by Ukigumo)

　
At that time, I was a fourth grade pupil of the national elementary school.
I lived with my parents in the eighth substitutional residence of government located on the west side of the zoo, in Xinjing. Xinjing, special municipality of the "Manchukuo", is now Changchun, a city in the northeast area of China.
My elder brother was a first grade student of the Lushun high school, and he lived in Lushun.

Before dawn on August 9, Xinjing was air-raided by Soviet Union planes, and we heard that the tanks of the Soviet Union would approach Xinjing on August 11. Then we kept at the state foundation university with the family of the person concerned. My father had served the state foundation university.
On August 14, we were evacuated to the suburbs in one day trip, with a little luggage on the cart pulled by a mule.
My father remained in the university and he saw off my mother and myself from horse-back.

The mule which took us on was dead soon after we arrived there, without our taking relief time.
I heard the mule died because its horseshoe came off.
I, at that time, didn't understand whether the reason was true or not.
However, I have thought that the mule which worked until the death was pitiable in any case.
I am not sure what was called the place where we were evacuated, but the name of Zyougettan came to my memory. There was a wide pasture.

It was on the next day, August 15th that we heard Emperor's voice broadcasting at the evacuation place.
We returned to the premises in the university immediately and then returned to the official dwelling on the 17th.
On the 17th, my elder brother, too, came back home from Lushun.
Nobody knows what would happen to him, if he had arrived with one-day delay.
However, thanks to the teacher of his high school whose judgment was quick, all of my family could gather together.

At that time, I was breeding a cat but we could not take it to the evacuation place.
Therefore, I made beforehand a hole in the wall, so that the cat could go in and out of our house.
My father was saying that he went home several times and that he put a food for the cat.
However, it seemed that frogs, mice and sparrows which the cat caught were better than the food my father gave, and when we went home, there was a trace that it had eaten them.
I was surprised that the countenance of the cat became severe like the fierce animal in only 1 week.

We had to spend every day hiding from bullets and marauding of the USSR soldiers and the battle between the Chinese communist army and the Kuomintang (Nationalist party) army for one year, till we returned home.