"Hiroshima - 1945 & 2007"
- by Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon, Images Through Glass, Tokyo To get to Hiroshima from Tokyo, I went to Tokyo Station and climbed aboard one of the sleekest looking Shinkansen super express trains (out of several types) and took the journey down to Hiroshima in style and speed (300kph in places).        (Above center) - The Rest House (when it was the Taishoya Kimono Shop, later to become the Fuel Hall, before its current use as the Rest House). Note that this picture is distorted, making it look as though the building is at a sharp angle, when in fact it's a standard 90 degrees. (Above right) - Another view of the Dome Building on the right side of the picture. The concrete building on the far left (partially visible) also survived the blast (as an empty shell with a buckled roof), but the building in the middle (apparently made of wood) was completely obliterated (based on aerial photos I've seen taken shortly after the blast).    (Above left) - The bomb exploded at 8:15 a.m., August 6th, 1945, and this was taken at around 11:00 a.m. on the same day, about 2,270m from ground zero, by Yoshito Matsushige, a photographer for Chugoku Shinbun Newspaper (whose own house was half-destroyed in the blast - he pulled his clothes and camera out from under the rubble of his home and went out for pictures). He couldn't bring himself to photograph the more horrific things he saw that day, and had to force himself to take even the five pictures he did take. Taken less than a few hours after the blast, these people were mostly injured schoolgirl volunteer workers (who were clearing areas in the city as fire breaks around military installations, since conventional bombing was expected at some point) lining up for help at a makeshift first-aid station at a police box near Miyuki Bridge. This is one of the large photos in the museum - studying the details of the individuals in the photo brings home some of the misery and horror of the day. Yoshito Matsushige's five pictures taken that day are the only known photos taken on that day within Hiroshima city. (Above right) - Taken days (weeks?) later. The buildings in the distance look deceptively small. The tallest of them is about ten to twelve stories high. You can also see people walking on a road on the right side of the picture. (Below) - A photo taken some time after that day. Notice how more than half of the Dome Building has collapsed. It looks more whole from the front, but in this view of the side and rear, you can see that nearly everything above the first floor collapsed (and burned).    (Above right &
below left) - (Rebuilt) Hiroshima Castle, about a fifteen minute walk
from the Dome Building.
 (Below) - Views from
the top of Hiroshima Castle.
    So, did I manufacture that sensation? It seemed more like a memory of an event than something I thought up myself, but then again, the imagination can be powerful, so I don't know....  I hadn't had time to go into the Rest House the day before, but it caught my attention for some reason when I walked past it, and after reading about it, it felt like something I needed to see. Rather than a hollow ruin, here was an intact building that was still in use, and it was very near to ground zero (100m away by most accounts I've read, although one stated 170m). (Above left) - Looking over the bridge leading to the Fuel Hall, notice how the top part of the stone lanterns on the bridge are pushed to the side? And towards the edge of the bridge on both sides (more on the left than the right)? This puts the epicenter almost straight ahead (and up), on almost an exact line with the path of the bridge (a little to the right). (A very high-contrast image, the Fuel Hall appears as a black hulk, but a lower contrast image would have looked as it does in the image at the right, in which you can see one of the bridge's stone lanterns on the far right of the picture.) From available information on the building: "The Rest House is the only remaining original building in the former Nakajima area. Built in March 1929, this three-story building (plus basement), was modern and innovative at the time it was built. In 1944, the Hiroshima Prefectural Fuel Rationing Union purchased the building and it became known as the Fuel Hall. 170m [100m by most other accounts] from the hypocenter, it was gutted by the A-bomb, leaving just the basement and the framework of the building intact. 37 people who were at work at the time, perished. The only survivor was Eizo Nomura. Nomura lived until 1982, dying at the age of 84. The concrete which surrounded the vault and thick earth prevented the shock wave, thermal radiation, and ionizing radiation from affecting him." [June 2015]: I have since found a more detailed version of Eizo Nomura's account, which states that there were other survivors from the same building. However, given that he was (apparently) in the most protected location of the building (under the stairs in the basement - on the far side of the space away from the only windows [which are up near the ceiling]), it seems the others didn't live very long. I've included the much more detailed account (a translation of the original Japanese) at the bottom of this page. - LHS]   (Below) - This is the (since rebuilt) bridge that Eizo Nomura crossed soon after leaving the Fuel Hall (see text below). (Below middle) - Two parts of the original bridge. Another two are incorporated into the new bridge.  "Around 8:25 a.m. August 6, 1945 - Approx. 130m from the hypocenter, Motoyasu Bridge - ''Outside, it was dark because of the black smoke. It was about as light as night with a half-moon. I hurried to the foot of Motoyasu Bridge. Right in the middle and on my side of the bridge I saw a naked man lying on his back. Both arms and legs were extended toward the sky, trembling. Something round was burning under his left armpit. The other side of the bridge was obscured by smoke, and the flames were beginning to leap up.' 'We noticed that in some places on the Motoyasu River, the water was rising. Just then, it started circling and whirling and climbing high into the air in a cylinder. It was a waterspout! From the top, the water fell in the direction of the wind. The fire was getting more violent. We found ourselves attacked by smoke and sparks from the other side of the river. We climbed the stone steps in terror, running toward an open space. Now sparks from that direction attacked us. With no other choice, we returned to a corner of the stone steps we had been on before and huddled in a small group. Again and again, we dipped the tin roofing we were using as a shield into the river, and endured.'" I was surprised that someone so near ground zero could have survived the radiation, and apparently he almost didn't, according to this bit of information I found: "He barely escaped toward Koi through furious fire and thick smoke. Later he hovered between life and death with high fever, diarrhea, bleeding gums, and other acute effects of radiation."  (Above right) - The front entrance to the tourist information center (current Rest House, former Fuel Hall) building - which faces the direction the blast came from. The only entrance to the basement (see photos below) is from a door on the back side of the building. Walking into the Tourist Information Center expecting to be able to just walk down to the basement from there (not yet knowing about the rear entrance), I was perplexed not to find any evidence of stairs leading down, so I asked a woman at the counter about it, and she said that it could be seen by request only, and gave me a form to fill out (in Japanese). After filling it out, she called somewhere and said that a visitor was on their way to see the basement, and then led me outside of the building and back in through a side entrance (since the front of the building is a corner, the back two sides could be called either sides or the rear of the building) that led to stairs going up on the left, and - at the end of a dim hallway - stairs going down (to the right, but in the same direction as the hallway). Opening a metal cabinet with several hard hats in it, she took one out and handed it to me, saying that I was required to wear it when visiting the basement. I took it, dutifully put it on my head, and she hurriedly went back outside. As people generally will guide you all the way to a destination here, I thought it odd, but proceeded to the top of the stairs and took a picture of the old wooden handrail and narrow stairs leading down (see photo below). Walking down, I was struck with an acrid smell... my first impulse was turn around and get out of there double-time, but I wanted to see what was in the room and I continued on.... Looking ahead, I saw an exhaust fan that was in one of the small windows up against the ceiling on the far side of the room, so I walked over towards it stupidly thinking that it might be blowing air in - it wasn't, it was blowing air out - but by then I was in the space, so I took some pictures and looked around. It was an empty basement basically, so I was initially surprised, as the words "has been preserved just as it was when the building withstood the A-bomb" in a tourist guide I'd read led me to believe that there were still things in there from before August 6th, 1945 (not logical, but...). The strange thing is that as I took pictures, it almost seemed like any old concrete basement that could use more ventilation, but after leaving the space and thinking back, that space and that acrid smell scare me. Suddenly I understand why the woman didn't go near the stairs leading down and got away from there in a hurry. And the lack of ventilation... how long does radiation from an atomic bomb blast at ground zero hang around in a poorly ventilated underground space? (The exhaust fan was turned on and the door opened after the phone call I presume.) I was only in there for two or three minutes, but somehow the memory of the place seems to be growing into something more... scary? Frightening? Dangerous? For some reason, I thought I really wanted to see that space, but I think it conveyed more to me than I bargained for somehow. The next time I visit Hiroshima, I don't think I'll go back to that basement - once was enough.   (Below, second from left) - Although a handful of injured survivors (seven of thirty-seven working in the building?) apparently stumbled down these stairs, none lived. While there was something (currently) scary about the stairs leading down, there was something (historically) scarier about these stairs leading up. Imagining the people who worked in the building climbing the stairs, thinking it was just another day, but they were never to climb these stairs again. The one-way nature of that trip is like something from a nightmare. (Well, worse than a nightmare - it's real.)      "Covering a small space of about one third of the floor area, which was a little over 10 tsubo (approx. 33.1 square meters), the basement was always illuminated with electric lights. After looking for documents here and there in vain, I finally came to the safe under the stairs in the basement. That was when I heard quite a loud boom. The lights cut off the moment I heard that sound. At the same time, a few solid objects like pebbles hit my head. Ouch! Placing my hand on my head, I felt some kind of thick liquid trickling. Blood! Wondering what had just happened, I checked my upper body, arms, feet and other parts to see if I had been injured someplace other than my head, but my body didn't seem to show any signs of abnormality. In the basement, it was pitch dark and I couldn't see a thing. I was standing at a point right under the stairs. I put my foot on a stair trying to climb the stairs. I took a few steps up, but it felt weird. The stairs no longer maintained their staircase-like structure. They appeared to have been transformed into a slope upon which lay a jumble of pieces of wood, fragments of roof tiles and sand. Under my feet was a soft substance like a straw bag. Sensing something was strange, I gently touched it. It was half buried under the sand. Oh! It was a person! Holding the person in my arms, talking to him/her, I did everything I could, but his/her head just kept facing down. He/she seemed to have already died. As soon as I understood that, I felt shivers through my body. Then, the voice of a man calling for help came in from the darkness at the back of the basement. After the voice had called for help a few times, it turned into cries and moans. Hurrying up the slope, I hit my head on something above me. I touched it with my hand - it felt like a concrete wall. I pushed it with both hands, but the wall wouldn't move one bit. It seemed that we couldn't get out of the basement! Enveloped in a desperate feeling like I was dying, the faces of my four children flitted through my mind like a kaleidoscope. I don't remember what happened after that, or how or from where I got out of the basement. Then, the next thing I knew was that I was standing on the first floor. A person was on one of the window frames on the first floor. My eyes saw the person as a black substance like a silhouette. I could not tell anything about the situation on the darkened first floor, but it felt like a jumble of scattered things, such as overturned cabinets, desks and chairs. I pushed my way through the jumble to the window, and asked the figure, "Who are you?" He answered, "I'm Hirose." "Oh, Hirose. What can you see outside?" I asked. "There's a road," he answered. "OK. Is it possible to jump onto it?" "Yes, it is," he answered. "Jump! I'll follow." Then, we were standing on the road outside. It was dark outside, enveloped in a deep-black smoke. It was like a half-moon night. Taking another look at Hirose, I saw he was bleeding from his face and hands. We hurried to the Motoyasu Bridge. Casually looking for the bridge, I saw a stark-naked man lying on his back and shivering at a point just before the center of the bridge with his hand and legs stretched toward the sky. Then I saw something round burning around his left armpit. The other side of the bridge was enveloped in black smoke, in which flames seemed to begin rising in some places. So, instead of crossing the bridge, we ran in the direction of the present-day Peace Tower. The area was a site of house demolition work, and was transformed into an open space, part of which provided a vegetable garden. Hirose and I went to the stone steps leading down to the river, and sat down there. Until we sat down, I had been half desperate. Looking around, I saw black smoke everywhere on the ground and in the sky. In the thick smoke, the building of the Hiroshima Prefectural Fuel Supply Control Union, from which we had just been able to escape, was looming. The Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall was also standing in front of us on the other side of the river. I could also see the Commerce, Industry and Economy Association on the far left. Flames, which had been burning in the smoke, were gradually growing. However, those three buildings had yet to catch fire. After a while, the window frames of the Fuel Supply Control Union began to burn. After all the windows of the building had caught fire, the flames crept into the building. Then, after a little while, the Industrial Promotion Hall followed in the same manner. Before long, fires at the windows of the Commerce, Industry and Economy Association began burning toward the inside of the building. I believe that the Commerce, Industry and Economy Association was the last building to begin burning, and Hiroshima Post Office was the first. With some other escapees from the Fuel Supply Control Union joining us, we became a group of eight - four men and four women - including myself. All of us, sitting down on the stone steps, gathered together in one place. Each of us was suffering from our respective external injuries and mental trauma, with a woman claiming that she was losing sight in one eye, a man claiming that he was feeling sick, and a person complaining of a headache. However, no one moaned in agony. Most of us remained silent. As the fires increased in force and size, our bodies felt hot. The river water level at the high tide was gradually dropping to the level of the ebb tide, and we moved down the stone steps one by one. The black smoke of Hiroshima Post Office, which was diagonally opposite from our location, billowed high up in the sky like a tornado. Sometimes, the smoke tornado leaned over our heads and belched some burned galvanized iron sheets and scorched pieces of wood upon us. The situation was so dangerous that we were having to dodge falling objects, but to do so, we had to look upward. Once the smoke got into our eyes, they stung with pain causing tears. Once we inhaled the smoke, our throats became choked up. So I took the secondhand towel hanging from my waist and spread it over my face. This made it somehow easier for me to bear the pain in my eyes and to breathe. Since I had picked up some burned galvanized sheets from among the falling objects and given them to the other members, all of us could cover our bodies as protection from the heat and the danger of being hit by the falling objects. Suddenly, a section of the Motoyasu River swelled, spiraled into a column, and rose high up in the sky. A water tornado! The tornado trailed water downwind. Still, the force of the fires was fierce. Smoke from the bank across the river harried us along with sparks from the fires. As soon as we had all reached the open space, after we climbed the stone steps screaming to escape from the attack, sparks began to pour down on us. We had no choice but go back to the corner of the stone steps, which served as a stone wall, stick tight together. We survived the imminent danger by alternately soaking the galvanized sheets in the river and covering our bodies. We heard a sound like an explosion of an oil can over ten times both far and near. We were scared by the sounds, wondering if they were explosions of time bombs. Over time, large raindrops began to fall, which gradually turned into a downpour. It was every man for himself, as each of us searched for a place to hide and took shelter from the downpour. However, most of us got drenched to the skin. When the downpour let up, we began to shiver and our teeth chattered. Then, we drew near to the fire to warm our bodies. Twenty to 30 minutes later, we finally felt relieved. Here we were, in the height of the August summer, and at the center of a big fire, having to draw near to the fire to keep warm. What on earth was going on? The downpour had chilled our bodies so much that we had no choice. In the meantime, the central part of the fire was dying down. However, when we went to the Aioi Bridge, we were surrounded by thick smoke and fierce fires. Kamiya-cho and eastward were no longer visible through the smoke. The direction of the First Infantry Supply Corps (104th Chugoku Unit), the Chugoku Regional Military District, and the southwest direction were smoky as well." Copyright 2007 by Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon, Images Through Glass, Tokyo |