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Anna S. E. Lundberg

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Remembering Hiroshima

1 April, 2016 By Anna S E Lundberg Leave a Comment

I’ve long wanted to travel to Japan, and I’m so excited that I’ve got a whole month here – although, of course, that’s not long at all to see much of what this country has to offer. We’re travelling around the main Honshu island, right at the start of the cherry blossom season. I’ll be sharing some of the rich cultural experiences in the coming weeks – the food, the temples, the onsen baths – but this first post will be somewhat darker: our first stop was in Hiroshima.

Having visited the USS Arizona Memorial last December along with the site of the Japanese surrender, the USS Missouri, at Pearl Harbor, I was interested in seeing the other side of the story. As you can imagine, it was an emotional experience.

Ground Zero, Hiroshima
Ground Zero: the atomic bomb exploded 600 metres above this point, the position chosen to inflict maximum damage on the city

There were three B29 bombers that carried the atomic bomb: one carried devices for scientific observations, another photographic equipment, and the third the bomb itself. At 8.15 am on Monday 6th August 1945, the bomb was detonated.

It was between 3,000 and 4,000 degrees centigrade inside the hypocentre and burns resulted up to 3.5km away; the people who happened to be within 1.2km faced severe injuries to their internal organs and most of them died within days. All wooden buildings within 2km were crushed and windows were smashed as far as 27km away. The intense heat rays of the explosion set fire to the wooden houses and telephone poles and the flames enveloped the city for three days. “Black rain” fell across much of Hiroshima as dust and soot became radioactive.

Abomb dome
This building was the only structure remaining near the hypocentre, and soon become known as the A-Bomb Dome. Today it is officially named the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, standing as a reminder of the bombing and a symbol of peace

As you enter the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, there’s a horrific scene recreating the skin hanging off the bodies of people in the street following the explosion. There are pictures of bodies with bad burns, charred remains that are reminiscent of the bodies of Pompeii (and in fact the materials melted by the intense heat were said to resemble molten lava).

On the steps in front of a bank, a black shadow where someone had been sitting as they waited for it to open. People were trapped under the collapsed houses, and those outside could only say a quiet prayer as they ran away to save themselves from the fire that was engulfing the city.

Afterwards, when they were searching for their loved ones, many were unable to find the remains and often had to make do with a random item of the individual’s personal possessions – a hat or a bag, a notebook, a tricycle – as a keepsake or for the burial.

One of the museum exhibits tells of how Tsuneyo searched desperately for her husband Masatoro in all the relief stations around the city. Eventually she found the ruins of his office building, and where his desk had been she found bones in the position of someone sitting in chair, a lunch box and pipe lying at the end of his outstretched arm.

A child's uniform
The exhibits include this uniform of a five-year-old child, along with a school lunch box with the charred remains of a lunch that was never eaten

Many who died were school children, pupils in year seven and eight, who had been mobilised towards the end of the war to demolish buildings for firebreaks (gaps that would act as a barrier to the spread of fire): around 6,300 boys and girls died when the bomb fell.

The worst stories were of the parents who survived their children.

“I killed her,” says Aiko, a woman in one of the audio recordings, “I killed my daughter.” The little girl had said she had a headache that morning but her mother told her she had to go to school; the girl never came back. Another mother tells how she was caring for her daughter in the days following the bomb and the little girl asked for a tomato; while her mother went out to fulfil this request, the girl died.

There was a chronic shortage of medical supplies to deal with all the injuries of those who did not die right away. There were rotting bodies, often unclaimed, as whole families were dead. It was a huge task to manage to cremate them all, there were so many.

Children's Peace Memorial
Sadako Sasaki was aged two when she was exposed to the bomb but she grew up without any apparent injuries. Aged twelve, she contracted leukaemia. In hospital, she folded tiny paper cranes – it was said that folding 1,000 cranes would make a wish come true – in the hope that she would recover; she passed away in October 1955. The story of the little girl and her paper cranes spread around the world and inspired this Children’s Peace Memorial, outside the museum

Of course, we now know that there were long-term effects from the radiation, not immediately obvious in the aftermath of the explosion. Acute effects of the explosion lasted five months and included “epilation, symptoms of damage to mucous membranes including diarrhoea, melena and bleeding from gums, and impeded blood-forming functions”. People would appear uninjured but days later would start vomiting blood. The fish died.

Around 350,000 people are estimated to have been in Hiroshima at the time of the bomb, including many thousand Chinese and Koreans along with foreign exchange students and American prisoners of war. By the end of the year, 140,000 people were dead.

Perhaps the worst part of the whole exhibit was the sign at the end, which explained how the dropping of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima (and Nagasaki) did not end the use of this weapon but instead signalled the start of a Nuclear Age. The Cold War created an arms race that brought a hydrogen bomb with a destructive force more than 3,000 times that of the atomic bomb that had been used on Hiroshima.

You may have come across this visual representation that was shared on social media a few years ago, depicting all nuclear detonations as of 1945 on a world map; it’s quite evocative. It’s now estimated that there are still 16,000 nuclear warheads in the world, 90% of which are held by Russia and the United States.

 

Filed Under: Asia, Japan, Travel Tagged With: atomic bomb, children's peace memorial, cold war, hiroshima, history, japan, travel

Remembering Pearl Harbor: 7th December 1941

4 December, 2015 By Anna S E Lundberg 1 Comment

Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor: The view from the USS Missouri across the water to the USS Arizona Memorial.

I studied the Second World War at school. A lot. We covered the rise of the Nazis through to the Yalta and Potsdam conferences that came at the end of the war and continued through the crises and treaties of the Cold War. Although we did of course cover Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor*, we were focused on the war in Europe and learned little about what was going on in the Pacific.

To experience Pearl Harbor for yourself, watch this short video and join me as I visit the USS Arizona Memorial and the Battleship Missouri:

 

Pearl Harbor was attacked on 7th December 1941, a date, as President Roosevelt famously announced to Congress, that would “live in infamy”. It was the event that brought the US into the war and probably sealed the fate not just of Japan but of Nazi Germany. In short, a pretty crucial point in the course of the war and of history.

Memorial plaques
The plaques bear the names of all the people who died at the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Admiral Yamamoto’s strategy was to annihilate the US Pacific Fleet, thus preventing them from interfering in Japan’s military actions in Southeast Asia. He attacked mainly by air (with a less successful attack by midget submarine): starting at 07.48 local time, 353 Japanese fighter planes, torpedo planes, and bombers were launched from six aircraft carriers and attacked the base. During the attack, 2,335 military personnel were killed and 1,143 wounded; the civilian figures were 68 and 103. The Japanese attackers lost 55 men.

“Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

[…]

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.”

USS Arizona Memorial
The USS Arizona Memorial, a bridge that sits across the wreck of the ship below, was designed by an architect who had been detained at the start of the war as an enemy due to his Austrian birth. Oil still seeps from the ship below.

Today, Pearl Harbor is still a naval base, with a visitor’s centre and museum dedicated to telling the story of what happened during the war. The focus is on the USS Arizona, one of three battleships that could not be returned to service after the attack and the only one that could not be raised. One of the bombs that was dropped on the Arizona caused a detonation of the forward magazines and the explosion and its aftermath saw 1,177 officers and crew lose their lives. The names of these men are marked on the memorial built over the wreck of the ship.

You can say what you want about the cheesy Hollywood epic in which “the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle” but what it definitely does do is bring to life the horror of the sudden bombing and especially the reality of the men who were trapped on board.

USS Missouri
The USS Missouri was saved from a fate of being dismantled for scrap metal and used for target practice.

If Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona marked the beginning of World War Two for the US, it was the USS Missouri that marked the end. The last battleship commissioned by the US – technology has since made these ships obsolete – the USS Missouri was not yet built at the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Instead it played an important role a few years later, when it housed the official signing of the Japanese surrender in September 1945.

Kissing sailor
The “kissing sailor”, a statue of that famous photo that was taken on V-J Day in Times Square.

To my ignorant eye, the Missouri looks a lot like the Arizona in the film and this made it all the more poignant to walk around on board the ship and imagine what it would have been like on board the battleships that were present on the day of the bombing. Although I chose not to go below deck – I’m claustrophobic – I did peek into the cramped cabins lined with bunk beds, where men were sleeping on the day of the bombing; on the Missouri, youth groups can now spend the night here.

Across the water, you can see the more modern destroyers and submarines in what are still the headquarters of the US Pacific Fleet.

Next March, I’m travelling to Japan and I’m going to continue this historical journey to Hiroshima, another pivotal moment that came before that official signing of the surrender on the USS Missouri.

 

*As you can see, I’ve made the very difficult decision to go with the US spelling here. It is, after all, a place in the US…

The practical bit

Pearl Harbor Tours: You can drive to Pearl Harbor and visit the sights yourself but given that I didn’t have a car I booked onto the Arizona Memorial & Battleship Missouri Tour. It’s basically a full day, including also a drive through the Punchbowl Cemetery in town and a mini-city tour including Barack Obama’s private high school.

Filed Under: North America, Travel, United States Tagged With: history, pearl harbor, United States

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Anna Lundberg is a success coach and business strategist who helps experienced corporate professionals reimagine success outside of the 9 to 5.

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