Day VI - Hiroshima

Day VI - Hiroshima

On Tuesday we took a bullet train out to Hiroshima to witness the destructive power of the atomic bomb first hand.

The train ride provided great views of the Japanese countryside. Japan has a beautiful landscape. It is a highly volcanic region so there are many mountains and mountain ranges. The most famous mountain of course is Mt. Fuji, which we did not get a chance to see up close, but we did see many mountains on our trip.

The mountains are wooded and basically uninhabitable for humans and the land in the mountains is more or less untenable for crops. The Japanese mainly live and farm in the valleys and plains outside the mountains.

Hiroshima

Of course, Hiroshima was the first of two Japanese cities (the other being Nagasaki) that were hit with an Atomic Bomb during World War II. At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945 an atomic bomb (nicknamed "Little Boy") was dropped on Hiroshima, at the time a relatively large metropolitan area (population over 250,000), instantly wiping out more than 90% of the buildings in the area and indescrimately killing tens of thousands of people.

Hiroshima has been built up substantially in the past few decades and what remains now is a fairly large city (population over 1 million) that in my opinion was very pleasant. While traveling throughout the city it was difficult to imagine that only a few decades ago the most powerful destructive force to ever be layed upon a metropolitan area had ripped through the city and its inhabitants.

The city has preserved a large portion of the city center where the bomb was dropped. It is now covered with multiple monuments, museums, and memorials to recognize the tragedy that occurred.

One of the very few buildings that survived (or remained standing, albeit in shambles) the bomb blast was this building, formerly an exhibition hall, now known simply as the "A-bomb Dome."

Before picture

AfterThe bomb detonated only a few hundred meters above the A-Bomb Dome.

The square also had a memorial dedicated to the Korean victims of the atomic bomb. Koreans represent the largest group of non-Japanese people who live in Japan. It is estimated that 20,000 Korean workers were killed by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

This is the Children's Peace Memorial. If you look closely you will see a girl holding a crane above her head. This is a tribute to Sadako Sasaki, a girl who died from after effects of the atomic bomb. Sadako was only 2 years old at the time of the bombing and she was about one mile away from ground zero. Ten years later she, like thousands of others who were in close proximity to the atomic bomb, developped leukemia.

When hospitalized, a friend of Sadako came to visit her and folded an origami paper crane for Sadako. There was an old Japanese fairy tale that whoever folded 1,000 paper cranes would be granted a wish. Inspired by this crane and story, Sadako began folding cranes herself, folding them out of anything she could get her hands on. Unfortunately she passed away before folding all 1,000 cranes, and it has been told that her friends and family folded the remaining cranes.

Sadako has become a leading symbol of the impact of a nuclear war.

There also was a victims' memorial that payed tribute to the estimated 140,000 people who died from the bomb and the after effects of the bomb. This memorial was very powerful - it had multiple videos that showed the terrifying scene that followed the explosion of the bomb. Buildings were demolished, people's clothes were evaporated, and clouds of black smoke covered the city. People's skin was hanging loose from their bodies while they all searched endlessly for water to drink, which it was believed would kill them if they drank but they drank anyway. Thus, you will see many memorials with water containers strewn about, reflecting the water that people wished that they could have given those who suffered.

The videos had voice-overs from people who were present and their tales were absolutely heart-wrenching.

The victim's memorial also had a fabulous mosaic that was composed of 140,000 tiles, one for each of the victims

as well as a video screen which displayed the names and faces of each victim - it was every type of person imaginable, from old men and women to infants and babies.

The Hiroshima Memorial Museum was a very interesting and informative museum. There were literally hundreds of exhibits that explained in detail the different reasons why the atomic bomb was dropped in the first place, how and where it was created, how atomic and other bombs work on a physical level (i.e. the splitting of atoms) as well as on a practical level (attached to missiles/warheads, what types of planes or missile launchers can deploy nuclear weapons), why they decided to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as opposed to other Japanese cities, what types of damage are caused by atomic bombs (initial blast, thermal heat, radiation), what each type of damage does to human beings, what countries have nuclear capabilities, and Japan's policies on nuclear weapons.

Without attempting to duplicate all that information I thought I would just show a few things that I found particularly interesting.

One exhibit consisted of two models of the city of Hiroshima, one representing the city before the bombing and the other after the bombing.As you can see the vast majority of the city center was completely wiped out.

Here is a picture of a watch stopped at 8:15 - the time of the blast.

Some wax figures depicting the loose skin hanging from the bomb victims.

I also looked through a book that had drawings done by victims of the bombing. Each of these pictures looked like a complete and total nightmare - a landscape of hell on earth.

Overall the trip to Hiroshima was very powerful. What occurred at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945 was a monumental event not only in terms of the outcome of World War II but in terms of our country, all man kind, life on planet earth and potentially beyond. The destructive power of this bomb was absolutely horrific and to think that there are bombs out there that are over 1,000 times stronger than this bomb is nothing short of bone chilling.

Seeing how many people were killed by this bomb also was disturbing. The fact that this bomb did not discriminate in terms of who it killed was even worse. I could not help but feel very mortal and simultaneously very thankful for the life that I have been given seeing how it can be taken away at an instant.

Hiroshima certainly has a different vibe than the other places we visited in Japan but I would highly recommend visiting Hiroshima (or Nagasaki) to obtain a true appreciation for the Atomic Bomb and its destructive power.