Bridge to the Sun: A Memoir of Love and War

Gwen Terasaki was born in Johnson City, TN. She met Hidenari Terasaki, a young and rising Japanese diplomat, at an embassy function in Washington DC in 1931. Overcoming opposition from both sides -- her family and his government-- they were married and began a deeply loving partnership that would take them to Tokyo, Shanghai, Havana, Peking, and Washington, D.C.

In early 1941 Hidenari Terasaki was posted in Washington, D.C., where he served as head of Japanese intelligence in the Western Hemisphere for Imperial Japan. He played a delicate and dangerous role in last minute efforts to avert war between Japan and the United States. When these efforts failed, Gwen insisted upon keeping the family together and returned to Japan with her husband and nine-year-old daughter, Mariko, where the family bravely confronted the dangers and privations war.