timblesworldtour

On 6th August 1945, the busy garrison town of Hiroshima in the south of Japan awoke to another beautiful, clear summers day. The people were on alert for allied bombing, which had occurred in other Japanese cities, and had begun demolishing wooden homes around major buildings to deter the spread of potential flames. Schoolchildren and students were being drafted to carry out this task, and that morning they were ready to begin work.

‘Little Boy’ dropped from the ‘Enola Gay’ bomber, detonated 60m above the town centre near a recognisable T-shaped bridge at 8-15am. Hiroshima and The World would never be the same again.

The initial down blast, and intense heat, from the bomb destroyed buildings and lives for 2km from the epicentre. People simply disappeared. At The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum there is a stone step taken from a destroyed building. The intense heat has changed the colour of the stone to white, except in one area. Something shielded the stonework from the blast – it’s a human shadow.

Following the initial blast, a huge fireball sent fire raging through the crushed streets, burning everything in it’s path. Many not killed by the initial blast were burnt to death. Deadly radioactivity was also released, causing severe poisoning and killing many within a few days.

No one will ever know the true figure of those who died, but it’s estimated that of the 350,000 people living in Hiroshima at the time, 140,000 had died by the end of the year. Up to 20,000 Koreans, forcibly sent to Japan for labour perished, aswell as the schoolchildren and students already mentioned. Thousands of young children, evacuated because of bombing threats, lost both parents and became orphans.

At the museum we saw bottles melted by the heat, crockery and coins fused together, even roof tiles whose surface structure was altered. Amongst all the clothes, belongings and harrowing accounts of the victims, one item really brought it all home to me – a simple rusty, child’s tricycle. It belonged to a three year old boy, killed whilst playing outside his house that morning. His father didn’t want him to be lonely in the family plot and so buried him, with his favourite toy, in his garden. Forty years later he moved his son’s remains and donated the tricycle to the museum.

There is no attempt, by the museum, to justify Japan’s conduct during the war. Many atrocities were carried out by the country, both at home and abroad, with the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. Equally, it is true that it was not really necessary for the USA to drop the bomb in order to end the war, rather it was for other convenient political considerations, including making the USSR aware of America’s power. Overall, the museum aims to show the horror of nuclear weapons and campaigns vigorously to achieve a worldwide ban. It is after all, the Hiroshima peace museum.

Ironically, following the second bombing of Nagasaki 2 days later and Japan’s surrender, Britain became an occupying force for 6 years in Japan. The press were banned from reporting the bombings during that period and the full horror of what happened remained secret to the world.

We didn’t really look forward to visiting Hiroshima, but felt it was something we had to do. Like The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, or Auschwitz in Poland, we need to be reminded about the horror man can do, so that people don’t die in vain.

The former industrial promotion hall, at the epicentre of the explosion, which was one of the few ruins left standing, as all other building nearby were flattened. It is now re-named the A-bomb dome, and has been preserved in it’s post bomb state for future generations to see

The flame of peace, which will only be extinguished when the last nuclear weapon on earth has been destroyed.

The memorial cenotaph under which lies a single coffin containing the names of all those killed or injured by the bomb