August 6th, 1945 at 8:15am... May not instantly trigger anything until I remind you that I am currently in the Japanese city of Hiroshima. To walk around the city today, you wouldn't think that nearly 70 years ago the city was mostly flattened by the world's first use of an atomic weapon as a tool of war. Indeed, the city is pretty much like any other in Japan with tall buildings, neon signs, busy streets, but that doesn't mean the city has forgotten what happened on that fateful morning; not does it wish to see it ever happen again to anyone.
So I started the day with a tram (or streetcar to use the local term) back to the main Hiroshima station. From there, there is a walk through the city called the Promenade of Peace. This walk takes you to and along Peace Boulevard which in turn leads you to the Peace Memorial Park. Sadly, Peace Boulevard is anything but peaceful as it is a fairly major 5-lane road running across the city. There is also surprisingly little of note on the way; with the exception of the Christmas decorations that are springing up at this time of year. The only reason you know you are on the right track is the regular plates in the pavement with "Promenade of Peace" engraved into them.
Eventually you arrive at the Peace Memorial Park. You are greeted at the park by the Fountain of Prayer, behind which is a fairly ordinary looking building housing the Hiroshima Peace Memorial museum. At first, I thought my travel book had a misprint, but the museum charges a meagre 50 Yen to get in (or just under 50p for those in the UK). I guess a museum with such an important story to tell doesn't want to put people off by charging a lot to enter, but their current fee does seem very low. They also have volunteers who do guided tours of the museum. Unlike most guided tours, they run theirs on a group-by-group basis, regardless of group size; so I ended up with my own personal guide (who spoke very good English).
The museum starts off with the background to Hiroshima; particularly referencing its importance as a military and education centre as well as a port used by the military which caused it to be classified as a target by the Americans. At the time of the bombing, most of the city consisted of wooden buidings with a few newer concrete structures dotted around as well. It's thought the intended target location was a distinctive T-shaped bridge, on end of which is now the site of the park and museum. The bomb detonated some 600m above ground level and the "wind/2 created flattened most of the city. The intense heat generated by the explosion then caused a lot of the wooden buildings (or at least their debris) to ignite. Finally, the radiation came. The museum then goes on to document each of these phases in more detail including artefacts including roofing tiles that have "blistered" due to the intense heat of the blast. It is thought the temperature reached around 3000 degC for 0.3 seconds.
Whilst any bomb would have caused mass destruction, the most horrific part of the use of nuclear weapons is the radiactive fallout. While many of those around ground zero were killed instantly, the high levels of radiation left in the area caused suffering that some survivors still live in fear of today. Many of the victims of the bomb weren't killed by the initial blast. Instead many later succumbed to the effects of exposure to high levels of radiation such as leukemia and the slow break-down of internal organs. Seeing the suffering of those who had started to display the symptoms, and not knowing if you were next must have been incredibly hard to deal with. The museum is not afraid to show some fairly graphic photos of some of the victims of the radiation poisoning. There are also a number of displays of clothing and other items related to those who died in or as a result of the blast.
The surrounding park includes a number of memorials including a cenotaph for the victims and the "Flames of Peace" - a small torch that will only be extinguished when there are no more nuclear weapons in the world (so I suspect it will burn for a long time!) There is also a Children's Peace Monumemt. This is dedicated to a girl who, a number of years after the blast, contracted leukemia. While in hospital she started making origami cranes from medicine lables; some of them so small she had to use a pin to fold the paper. She did this partly to take her mind off her suffering, but she also believed that if she could make 1000 cranes she would win her fight against leukemia. Sadly, she didn't recover, but her classmates continued making the cranes (stories conflict as to whether she completed the 1000 before she died or not - but it isn't really important at the end of the day) and the practice continues to this day. Around the monument there are a few displays of works of art children have done using origami cranes, and there are pre-folded ones available to help create new works of art.
It is nice to see the youth of today being told about what happened and getting involved in trying to stop it happening again. The park and museum were both full of Japanese school children. Let's just hope it has an impact on them for the future. Sadly, I'm not sure it is the Japanese children that we need to be educating however. There are a number of countries out there with nuclear weapons at their disposal; or who are working to create their own nuclear arsenals. While I think some of those countries would never use the weapons now, there are some I am not so sure on. It is said that if all the nuclear weapons in the world today were detonated at once (an unlikely scenario, thankfully) the resulting cloud of smoke would be enough to block out the sun, causing the earth to freeze and probably taking with it all life as we know it today.
One of the few buildings that remains from the bombing is an old exhibition hall. It was a concrete structure, built in a European style. It was almost directly under the hypocentre, but the building remained stable - the dome and all the windows were detroyed, but the walls and the dome's framework were mostly left standing. Because of the building's construction it was left as it was during most of the initial clear-up of the area. As time went on, a decision was made to leave the building standing as a monument. In 1996 it was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (although some countries, including the USA, either voted against or abstained due to the site's link with war.
In the afternoon I had planned on trying to visit the Mazda museum just outside Hiroshima. Unfortunately you need to pre-book the tour, and the website isn't overly clear on the difference between the "Group" and "Individual" tours. When my hotel phoned for me it seems I was only able to go on an "Indivdual" tour and the next one wasn't until 10:00 tomorrow. Unfortunately, tomorrow I am on the move again so I won't be able to go. So in the end I had a relaxing afternoon in the hotel doing as little as possible. In some ways it was nice to have a little R&R time from doing things or travelling around the country.
So tomorrow; off to Nagasaki!