A-bombed wall clock-a new marker: Hiroshima's Kazuo Takemoto tells his A-bomb experience

8/3/00

The wall clock that belonged to Kazuo Takemoto (70), who managed a rice store in Koinaka 2-chome in Nishi Ward, Hiroshima City, was stopped at 8:15 am by the shock of the A-bomb blast. The clock was in its 55th summer. Over the years, Takemoto talked little about the clock or his own experience because, "It's frightening to recall." This year, he told the story of his experience for the first time to elementary school children in his community.

"It looks exactly as it did that day." The clock hangs in a six-mat room where he used to work at the time. It is located about three kilometers west of the hypocenter. The shock to the two-story building that was both residence and business was sufficient to shake mud plaster off the walls and blow away all the roof tiles and straw, but the structure itself remained intact.

On August 6, 1945, Takemoto was a mobilized student at the Mitsubishi Juko Hiroshima Shipbuilding Yard in Eba. It was there that he was exposed to the A-bomb. Having escaped injury, he left the factory around 3:00 pm and walked home. He saw many injured people suffering along the riverbanks.

When he entered his house, Takemoto saw the familiar clock. Neither the wooden body nor the glass face were scratched, yet the pendulum was still, and the hands had stopped at 8:15.

Because he also had an alarm clock, he did not need to repair the wall clock immediately, and he gradually came to see it as "proof , here and now, that the bomb actually fell back then." He never removed the clock from wall except to dust it or show it to his grandchildren.

Takemoto remained silent about his bombing experience all these years because, "It's frightening to recall those horrible scenes." In June, children at Koi Elementary School asked Takemoto to tell them his A-bomb experience. He showed the clock to six children who came to see him, telling them, "We can't have any more wars. Tell everyone that nuclear weapons have to go."

[Caption] Holding his A-bombed clock, Takemoto relates his A-bomb experience.

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