Dec. 7, 1941 : The...

TOM HOM

San Diego businessman Tom Hom was 13 years old when the United States entered World War II. The third of 12 children, Hom’s family lived at the corner of 16th and K streets. When not working with his brothers at their father’s produce stand on lower 6th Avenue, Hom used to sell the Saturday Evening Post and Liberty magazines on the street. During the war, he and his brothers tended the Mission Valley farm of a Japanese family, which was herded off to an internment camp. Hom’s two older brothers enlisted during the war and served in the Army.

“I remember the day very distinctly. We were playing football in the street. One kid came out and said the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. We asked him, ‘Where’s Pearl Harbor?’ . . . Then we heard on the radio that we were going to go to war.”

“Later in the day, we went to a football game at San Diego Balboa Stadium to see the San Diego Bombers. . . . After they played the Star-Spangled Banner, the announcer said that all military people had to return to their bases right away. As the servicemen filed out, everybody got up and applauded them. It was very spontaneous.”

“The Japanese farmers all knew my Dad. . . . One farmer who had a farm in Mission Valley, where Jack Murphy Stadium now sits, asked my Dad to take over his farm. So, my brothers and I spent the war years working on that farm and my Dad’s produce stand. It seemed like everybody was working.

“A lot of Caucasians couldn’t distinguish between Chinese and Japanese. Invariably, people would stop when I was selling magazines and ask if I was Chinese or Japanese before they would buy anything.”

Hom’s father kept a huge map in the house.

“Every evening, after dinner, my Dad would spread out the map and plot the movement of the war. Since he was born in China, he was always more interested in what was going on there. But we were interested in the South Pacific. . . . We followed MacArthur’s advance on the map.”

The gas rationing that accompanied the war presented a problem to Hom’s father, whose business depended on a produce truck.

“Finding gasoline was very difficult. We had to have gas for our delivery truck. So, we used to drive to the outskirts of Tijuana and buy gas from Mexican farmers. . . . It was an interesting and exciting period.”