Featured Interview With Charles A. Pomeroy
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born in Beloit Wisconsin on Nov．6, 1930, enlisted in the U.S. Navy at age 17, and became an aviation electronicsman. As an aircrewman with Patrol Squadron 6, he flew 79 missions out of Japan during the Korean War. A subsequent assignment in 1954 took me to Rome, Italy, where I served with the Naval Attaché and where acquaintance with Japanese diplomats led to my return to Japan as a student in 1957.
After graduating from Tokyo’s Sophia University in 1962, I freelanced as a translator, then became a correspondent in 1966 covering Japan’s healthcare sector until retirement in 2004. My retirement took me to a new home in Otsuchi on Japan’s Sanriku Coast, the town where my wife, Atsuko, was born and raised. There, I returned to an earlier ambition of creating woodblock prints, but that was ended by the tsunami of March 11, 2011. My latest book, “Tsunami Reflections,” provides insights on that disaster. Earlier I authored two books, “Traditional Crafts of Japan” and “Pharma Delegates,” in addition to a number of translated works.
My wife and I now live in a small apartment in Tokyo, where I am working on a book of anecdotes interspersed with haiku-like verse and keeping up with old friends at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
Books opened up a new world for me from a young age and I first started writing short stories when in seventh grade. It was not until I graduated from Sophia University in 1962 that I started to get serious about writing. This largely followed my early efforts as a translator of books on such subjects as Japanese toys and woodblock prints. Indeed, my early interest in creating woodblock prints was inspired by this latter book, but I soon discovered that I was not destined to make a living as artist. “Traditional Crafts of Japan” was my first book as an author. As General Editor, I also organized five colleagues to put together “Foreign Correspondents in Japan,” a hisotry of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, published in 1997. This was followed by “Pharma Delegates” and my latest book, “Tsunami Reflections–Otsuchi Revisited.”
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Of the famous authors of novels, travelogues, and history books popular during the 1940s and 1950s, many of which I read during my nine years in the U.S. Navy, my all-time favorie was James Michener. I was even able to meet and chat with Michener at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo when he visited Japan in the late 1960s. Non-fiction is my favorite genre, with history books in the lead followed by books on healthcare and the arts.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
This book details the fate of Otsuchi, my wife’s hometown where we had retired in 2004. It was one of the many port towns destroyed by Japan’s earthquake and tsunami of March, 2011, and I was inspired to write “Tsunami Reflections” during my first visit there six weeks after the tsunami. While scanning the bare foundations of what had been our home and the vast wasteland stretching beyond, I was struck by the absolute stillness of a now dead town, interrupted occasionally by the distant sound of backhoes moving debris. That eerie silence triggered an overwhelming desire to share with the world the story of Otsuchi and one family’s travails as presented in this book.
To orient the reader, I first position the town geographically and historically, then describe our retirement home, Japanese family relationships, festivals, and other aspects of pre-tsunami local life to provide a sense of place. The disaster itself is then elucidated, including the aftermath and relief operations, followed by a poignant recounting of the search for lost family members and a mass funeral ceremony for missing townspeople, the highest percentage suffered at 9.3 percent of the population. The book concludes with a description of humanitarian efforts and detailed plans for the town’s recovery, accompanied by my own views of future prospects. This memoir views that tragedy on a personal level and provides many photos and maps as visual references.
It was a book written over several years that included numerous visits to the area, as described therein.
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