Silent Witness: A belt buckle and burned name badge, only evidence of son’s existence
Apr. 5, 2021
by Yuji Yamamoto, Staff Writer
Takashi Shimada, then a 13-year-old, first-year student at Sanyo Junior High School (present-day Sanyo High School, in Hiroshima’s Nishi Ward), suffered horrific burns over his entire body in the atomic bombing and had been transported to Ninoshima Island in Hiroshima Bay. He was already dead and cremated by the time his mother, Matsuyo, hurriedly made her way to the island. All she could do at that point was to collect her son’s belt buckle and burned cloth name badge, the only personal effects of his that remained.
Just prior to August 6, 1945, the family had moved from Fukuoka City to the village of Inokuchi (now part of the city’s Nishi Ward), the location of Matsuyo’s family home, in Hiroshima Prefecture. On the day of the atomic bombing, Takashi was headed to the area of Zakoba-cho (now part of Hiroshima’s Naka Ward), where he had been mobilized to demolish buildings for the creation of fire lanes. He experienced the atomic bombing near Shirakami-sha Shrine, about 500 meters from the hypocenter.
Matsuyo walked around the city in search of her missing son. Around August 9, she traveled to Ninoshima Island and found Takashi’s name on a list of the dead. Later, a woman who said she had been with Takashi at a first-aid station visited Matsuyo to tell her about Takashi’s last moments. According to the woman, his skin was peeled from burns covering his back and arms, and he had been crying out for water. The following day, August 7, he seemed to grow quiet, at which time she found that he had died.
Matsuyo donated the keepsakes she had carefully stored in her household Buddhist altar to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in 1979. She told a Chugoku Shimbun reporter at the time, “I don’t want anyone else to experience the grief I have known.”
(Originally published on April 5, 2021)
Takashi Shimada, then a 13-year-old, first-year student at Sanyo Junior High School (present-day Sanyo High School, in Hiroshima’s Nishi Ward), suffered horrific burns over his entire body in the atomic bombing and had been transported to Ninoshima Island in Hiroshima Bay. He was already dead and cremated by the time his mother, Matsuyo, hurriedly made her way to the island. All she could do at that point was to collect her son’s belt buckle and burned cloth name badge, the only personal effects of his that remained.
Just prior to August 6, 1945, the family had moved from Fukuoka City to the village of Inokuchi (now part of the city’s Nishi Ward), the location of Matsuyo’s family home, in Hiroshima Prefecture. On the day of the atomic bombing, Takashi was headed to the area of Zakoba-cho (now part of Hiroshima’s Naka Ward), where he had been mobilized to demolish buildings for the creation of fire lanes. He experienced the atomic bombing near Shirakami-sha Shrine, about 500 meters from the hypocenter.
Matsuyo walked around the city in search of her missing son. Around August 9, she traveled to Ninoshima Island and found Takashi’s name on a list of the dead. Later, a woman who said she had been with Takashi at a first-aid station visited Matsuyo to tell her about Takashi’s last moments. According to the woman, his skin was peeled from burns covering his back and arms, and he had been crying out for water. The following day, August 7, he seemed to grow quiet, at which time she found that he had died.
Matsuyo donated the keepsakes she had carefully stored in her household Buddhist altar to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in 1979. She told a Chugoku Shimbun reporter at the time, “I don’t want anyone else to experience the grief I have known.”
(Originally published on April 5, 2021)
