A DALMENY woman is the focus of a new exhibit remembering Japanese war brides.
Teruko Morimoto fell in love with an Australian soldier during the occupation of Japan and the two eventually made it back to Australia after immigration laws were relaxed, living a long, happy life together.
The new exhibit at the Australian National Maritime Museum recalls how romance frequently overcame wartime antagonisms in occupied Japan immediately after World War II.
Indeed more than 600 Japanese women migrated to Australia as war brides with partners who served in the British and Commonwealth Occupation Force after Japan’s surrender.
Some 12,000 Australian troops were based in Japan at that time – most of them around Kure, not far from Hiroshima.
At first marriage between Australian soldiers and Japanese women was prohibited… but many men fell in love and lobbied the Australian government for change.
In 1952 Immigration Minister Harold Holt lifted the ban and the Japanese women who sailed to Australia were the first significant group of non-Europeans officially permitted under Australia’s White Australia Policy. Many of them though endured prejudice in both Australia and Japan.
The exhibit Japanese War Brides at the Australian National Maritime Museum focuses on the experiences of two of these Japanese women – Teruko Morimoto now of Dalmeny, who married Warrant Officer Bill Blair, and Sadako Kikuchi, who married John Morris, a signaller in the Australian Army.
The display includes mementoes and love tokens exchanged during their courtships in Japan, photographs taken in Japan and on the ships that brought the couples to Australia, a special kimono that Sadako’s mother made for her during the years of hardship at the end of the war, wedding gifts and baby clothes….
Unlike some of the Japanese brides, Teruko felt accepted by her new country. In 1991 she published her memoirs, in Japanese, titled Embraced by Australia.
Teruko, still sprightly and active in her eighties, now lives at Sir James at Dalmeny.
She moved to Dalmeny last year to be closer to her daughter Helen who lives in Narooma.
Previously Teruko lived all around Australia as her husband Bill continued his career in the army.
Sadako lives in Adelaide. They know each other through the Japanese War Bride Association.
The Australian National Maritime Museum, at Darling Harbour, is open daily, 9.30am to 5pm (6pm in January). Admission to Japanese War Brides is free. Inquiries 9298 3777, or www.anmm.gov.au .
Special talk… with a chance to meet Teruko and Sadako
In conjunction with the National Maritime Museum’s new exhibit Japanese War Brides, Dr Keiko Tamura, an Australian National University research fellow and author of Michi’s Memoirs – the Story of a Japanese War Bride, will give a talk at the museum at 10am on Thursday, February 5, 2009. Teruko Blair and Sadako Morris will be present, and it will be possible to meet these two women whose experiences feature in the museum exhibit. Bookings essential, on 9298 3655.
Email a friend