Documenting Hiroshima of 1945: Late September, weeping willow endures A-bombing
Sep. 22, 2024
by Maho Yamamoto, Staff Writer
In late September 1945, a weeping willow spread out its branches at the east end of Tsurumi Bridge (in Hiroshima’s present-day Minami Ward), which spans Kyobashi River. While nearly all of the buildings within about two kilometers of the hypocenter were completely destroyed by the fires that arose after the atomic bombing, the tree, standing around 1.7 kilometers to the east, had withstood the blast and thermal rays from the bombing.
On August 6, 1945, the weeping willow was deeply engraved into the memory of Kenji Kitagawa, who died in 2022 at the age of 87. In his A-bomb testimony filmed by the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, Mr. Kitagawa had said, “Every time I see the tree, I recall my childhood, as well as the time I passed by the tree when fleeing after the atomic bombing and thought, ‘The willow’s still there.’”
A fifth-grader at Takeya National School (present-day Takeya Elementary School, in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward), Mr. Kitagawa was in the classroom when he experienced the atomic bombing. He crawled out from the collapsed school building and headed in a northerly direction toward his home in the area of Shimonagarekawa-cho (in the city’s present-day Naka Ward). With flames obstructing his path, he pulled up at the west end of Tsurumi Bridge on the east side of the school.
The scene at the familiar Kyobashi River near Hijiyama Hill, where he had often played before the bombing, was completely transformed. In the area near the west end of the bridge, many students from junior high schools and girls’ schools who had been mobilized for building-demolition work were suffering from severe burns and other injuries. Countless bodies floated down the river.
With raging fires spreading at the west end of the bridge, on the side of the city center, Mr. Kitagawa swam to the other side of the river. Feeling tired, he rested under the weeping willow, whose “branches and leaves were cruelly broken and strewn about,” as he described in his personal account of that time. Thanks to desperate efforts to extinguish the fires, the wooden Tsurumi Bridge was spared destruction, enabling many people to flee in the direction of Hijiyama by crossing over the bridge.
When the bridge was reconstructed in 1990, the willow tree was transplanted in its present location, close to the original site. The tree, having reached the age of more than 100 years old, was confirmed to be dead in 2007, but a trunk that had sprouted from the same root system after the bombing still lives today. During his life, Mr. Kitagawa continued to share his experiences of that time, along with his memories of the weeping willow, as an A-bomb survivor who spoke to the public for the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Now his thoughts and ideas are being passed on by what are called “A-bomb Legacy Successors.”
(Originally published on September 22, 2024)
In late September 1945, a weeping willow spread out its branches at the east end of Tsurumi Bridge (in Hiroshima’s present-day Minami Ward), which spans Kyobashi River. While nearly all of the buildings within about two kilometers of the hypocenter were completely destroyed by the fires that arose after the atomic bombing, the tree, standing around 1.7 kilometers to the east, had withstood the blast and thermal rays from the bombing.
On August 6, 1945, the weeping willow was deeply engraved into the memory of Kenji Kitagawa, who died in 2022 at the age of 87. In his A-bomb testimony filmed by the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, Mr. Kitagawa had said, “Every time I see the tree, I recall my childhood, as well as the time I passed by the tree when fleeing after the atomic bombing and thought, ‘The willow’s still there.’”
A fifth-grader at Takeya National School (present-day Takeya Elementary School, in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward), Mr. Kitagawa was in the classroom when he experienced the atomic bombing. He crawled out from the collapsed school building and headed in a northerly direction toward his home in the area of Shimonagarekawa-cho (in the city’s present-day Naka Ward). With flames obstructing his path, he pulled up at the west end of Tsurumi Bridge on the east side of the school.
The scene at the familiar Kyobashi River near Hijiyama Hill, where he had often played before the bombing, was completely transformed. In the area near the west end of the bridge, many students from junior high schools and girls’ schools who had been mobilized for building-demolition work were suffering from severe burns and other injuries. Countless bodies floated down the river.
With raging fires spreading at the west end of the bridge, on the side of the city center, Mr. Kitagawa swam to the other side of the river. Feeling tired, he rested under the weeping willow, whose “branches and leaves were cruelly broken and strewn about,” as he described in his personal account of that time. Thanks to desperate efforts to extinguish the fires, the wooden Tsurumi Bridge was spared destruction, enabling many people to flee in the direction of Hijiyama by crossing over the bridge.
When the bridge was reconstructed in 1990, the willow tree was transplanted in its present location, close to the original site. The tree, having reached the age of more than 100 years old, was confirmed to be dead in 2007, but a trunk that had sprouted from the same root system after the bombing still lives today. During his life, Mr. Kitagawa continued to share his experiences of that time, along with his memories of the weeping willow, as an A-bomb survivor who spoke to the public for the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Now his thoughts and ideas are being passed on by what are called “A-bomb Legacy Successors.”
(Originally published on September 22, 2024)
