Involved in building demolition work
In the spring of 1945, when major cities throughout the country had been destroyed in the indiscriminate bombing attacks by the US military,
an order to mobilize was sent out to 1st year junior high school students who had just started at school.
All 1st year junior high school students were then mobilized to forcefully tear down buildings in the shopping districts,
in order to create a firebreak zone of a width of 100m passing from east to west of the Hiroshima City metropolitan area.
We were 1st year students at the Junior High School Attached to Hiroshima Normal High School, and we too were mobilized.
Our role as junior high school students was to carry away the waste materials from buildings that had been cut down with saws by adults.
Mobilization of volunteer corps from rural areas
At the beginning of July, to encourage building demolition work, representatives from junior high schools were called to the prefectural government office.
In the presence of senior officers from the military and the government, one teacher spoke.
"The air strikes are getting worse all over the country, and on top of that, making young junior high school students work in the scorching heat is extremely dangerous.
Our school's students will be going to rural villages to increase food production."
Although high-ranking military officials raised their voices, yelling and threatening that teacher, apparently no-one opposed what the teacher said.
On July 20, leaving a few behind, eighty of us 1st year students were taken by our teacher to Hara Village, Kamo-gun (the name at that time), and started work to support the farmers there who had lost workers to conscription.
We ended up surviving
In this way, although myself and the other 1st year students at our school escaped direct damage from the bomb,
we suffered the misfortune of losing the ten students who were left behind as well as almost all the 1st year students from other schools who were involved in building demolition work.
The 1st year students who died in the bombing were actually our classmates from elementary school, friends who had gone on to different junior high schools after graduation.
And we ended up surviving.
Permission for gradual return home
We 13-year-olds were staying at various temples and shrines, and our job was mainly to weed the rice fields.
We were sometimes given rice balls from the farmers, who pitied us because we were so small.
We carefully ate every morsel, not leaving even a single rice grain.
Even today I cannot forget the taste of the white rice that I ate during the food shortages.
It was at that time that our teacher said that they would gradually let us go home, starting from the ones who had worked hard.
I was one of the fortunate group of five to be chosen to go home.
The date was set as August 6.
The sky flashed
It was 8:15am when I was waiting for the train home to Hiroshima on the platform at Hachihonmatsu Station on the Sanyo Honsen line.
Suddenly there was a flash and the sky burst.
I immediately threw myself to the ground.
When I finally raised my head, what I saw was a huge mushroom cloud billowing up into the void.
The train to Hiroshima that we boarded stopped operating at the next stop, Seno.
The five of us started walking to Hiroshima, where huge amounts of smoke were rising up.
I hope they survive
We entered Hiroshima City from Higashi Ohashi Bridge, around three kilometers from the hypocenter.
The narrow wooden bridge was covered in bomb survivors dragging the skin that had peeled away and was hanging down from their fingertips.
Around their feet two young children appeared like a vision.
A girl who looked around the age of a 2nd year elementary school student was pulling the hand of her sister, who was probably around three years old.
Their faces were swollen up like balloons, with small dimples that must have been their eyes and mouth.
We could hear a faint voice.
"Hold on tight."
The girl was encouraging her younger sister, and that voice remained with us as the two young sisters disappeared into the crowd.
I hope they survive.
All I could do was watch them go, and that was my prayer.
|
My school was gone
On the afternoon of the next day, the 7th, I managed to reach Senda-machi, the place where my school should have been.
The area had turned into a field of devastation, with a single red-brick building of Bunrika University remaining.
I could see some people involved in what appeared to be aid activities.
I saw a person there who looked like a teacher from my school, and I shouted "I have a report to submit!"
I then gave the teacher the document that I had been given by my homeroom teacher.
I found out later that the bodies of three of my classmates and two teachers were discovered in the burnt ruins of the school.
As a 1st year junior high school student, I loyally obeyed the orders of a teacher.
Although I had fulfilled my duty, I have absolutely no recollection of how and where I passed through to return home after that.
Our testament: we must communicate our stories!
The site of the building demolition work in what is now known as Peace Boulevard is the grave of six thousand people, including all the 1st year junior high school students who were killed.
They were mainly our classmates, people who spent their elementary school days with us, the survivors.
We have continued to avoid dredging up memories of the tragedy and speaking about the circumstances, and now we are old, almost eighty years old.
I hope you understand these thoughts, the thoughts of a junior high school student who survived and has finally started to open up and talk.
This is our testament.
|
