Hiroshima: 66 Years After the A-Bomb

August 15, 1945... it was a normal morning for the residents of Hiroshima during World War II, children were already off to school, parents were at work, the port of Hiroshima was busy as usual and at 8:15 AM the world as they knew it changed forever. On that morning Hiroshima, Japan, became the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon. The watch to the right was an artifact at the Peace Museum in Hiroshima where we spent many hours on our visit to the city. The United States chose Hiroshima as the city to drop the bomb on because of many factors... Hiroshima was one of the cities chosen because it didn't have any ally POW camps in it's borders, it was larger than 3 miles in diameter, it was a large urban area and a bomb would cause a lot of damage, and the most simple reason was because that day the sun was shining and it was a clear day over Hiroshima. They used a "T" where 2 bridges connected as a target and came pretty close. The atomic bomb exploded 600 meters over the city of Hiroshima killing 80,000+ people instantly and by the end of the first year after the bombing more than 120,000 people had died. About 69% of the buildings in Hiroshima were completely destroyed that day and 7% were severely damaged. One of the only building that remains today is now known as the Atomic Dome and is part of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. In 1949, Japan declared Hiroshima the City of Peace. The Peace Memorial Park stands in the middle of the city as a reminder of what happened that day, part of the park is the Hiroshima Peace Museum run by a large team of volunteers. It took us close to 3 hours to go through the entire museum- some of it I was prepared for, but there were definitely some pictures and artifacts that I couldn't possibly prepare myself for...

The picture to the right is clothing from a young boy who was at school the day the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima... He was severely burned and injured, his family found him by the school, and he died a few hours later... This was just one of the MANY pieces of history housed in the museum... many of the artifacts were accompanied by stories of the people they belonged to... Some other things that were there were dishes that were melted in the blast, lunch boxes burned, bicycles and toys that barely resembled their original shape. There was also clumps of peoples hair that had fallen completely off as well as pieces of people's skin and nails that peeled off... Some of the pictures of people's skin literally melting off were hard to look at as well as the pictures of the burns inflicted on people from the blast. One of the most amazing things they had was a slab of concrete where someone was sitting when the atomic bomb went off... the concrete was all discolored around where this person sat and the shadow that remains was truly haunting...

There was a large section of the museum dedicated to the survivors of the atomic bomb and how their lives were affected. Something rather remarkable was that the rebuilding of this city started almost immediately and it is hard to believe that they city is as immense as it is today! Many if not most of the survivors had multiple medical complications after the atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima. Women who were pregnant at the time of the blast had children born with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads, that led to a lifetime of medical problems and round the clock care. Many people had problems with their GI systems including nausea, vomiting and ulcers... ALL very similar to the side effects patients receiving radiation have today. Later on in life, many of these survivors suffered from horrible cancers, leukemias, and thyroid problems. Many of these survivors still live in Hiroshima today as they never really left the home they once knew.

It was an amazing day and I am really glad we were able to go to Hiroshima and see the Peace Park and the museum. I learned so much about this time in history and how it affected this part of the world...

Japanese Word of the Day:
Heiwa (hay-wah): Peace