Silent Witness

by Kana Kobayashi, Staff Writer

One has to wonder whether people were able to enjoy themselves during the dark days of the war. Although these irons retained their original form, all that remains of the woods, without their wooden heads, are the metal shafts. The set of golf clubs was burned in a fierce blaze after the atomic bombing in an earthen storehouse on the property of Sukeji Morihiro. Mr. Morihiro served as the second director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, located in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward, and died in 1993 at the age of 83.

The storehouse was located in Hakushima Higashinakamachi, part of Hiroshima’s present-day Naka Ward, about 1.8 kilometers from the hypocenter. According to the Record of the Hiroshima A-bomb War Disaster, the neighborhood had been completely burned to the ground except for the area around Koheibashi Bridge. Not present in Hiroshima at the time, Mr. Morihiro, then 35, was able to avoid the atomic bombing. His parents, however, died in the bombing at their home in the city.

Mr. Morihiro served as director of the museum during the period 1962–1970. While serving in the post, he worked to edit the Record of the Hiroshima A-bomb War Disaster, making tremendous efforts to shed light on and communicate the reality of the damage caused by the atomic bombing. He entrusted the set of golf clubs to the museum in April 1962, two months after his appointment as the museum’s director.

(Originally published on March 11, 2024)