Documenting Hiroshima of 1945: November 15, post office directly at hypocenter resumes mail delivery
Nov. 15, 2024
by Minami Yamashita, Staff Writer
On November 15, 1945, the Hiroshima Post Office in Hiroshima City resumed delivery of mail by mail carriers after some staff had returned from service in the military and through the hiring of new employees. The three-story brick building with a single basement floor, located diagonally across from the Shima Hospital at the hypocenter, was completely destroyed in the atomic bombing on August 6. None of the staff in the building survived, with a total of nearly 300 people, including mobilized students, dying.
Shichiro Nakamoto, 28 at the time, a staff member in the mail department, was working the night shift on August 5. After the bombing, his wife, Miyoko, walked from their home in the village of Kuchita (in Hiroshima’s present-day Asakita Ward) with their three children, ranging in age from one-month to three years old, riding on a two-wheeled cart. Despite her efforts, she was unable to find even the remains of her husband.
Miyoko, who continued to pray for Shichiro’s safety, died in 1998 at the age of 79. Her oldest son’s wife, Mayumi, 77, who is a resident of Hiroshima’s Asakita Ward, said about Miyoko, “Even decades after the atomic bombing, she would say ‘I believe even now that Shichiro is alive somewhere.’”
Meanwhile, staff members who were off-duty at the time and somehow survived the atomic bombing resumed counter service five days after the bombing at a Hiroshima Chokin Bank branch office, located in the area of Senda-machi (in the city’s present-day Naka Ward). However, because it had lost many of its staff, the post office asked neighborhood associations to handle the mail delivery work.
On November 15, the post office resumed mail delivery using its own staff, but the service apparently did not cover the entire city at first. Masato Hirofuji, one of the staff, recalled that time. “We delivered mail to Koi, Kannon, Eba and some other places that had not burned down. In the city center, though, I think that mail was delivered in batches to the presidents of neighborhood associations,” he explained in remarks made at a 1976 roundtable discussion.
Problems with mail delivery were not limited to personnel. The November 22 edition of the Chugoku Shimbun newspaper ran a headline that read, “Request from post office — Post your nameplate even on barracks.” The article quoted the postmaster of the post office in front of Hiroshima Station who called on citizens to place nameplates even on makeshift housing because, without them, “all kinds of problems will be caused for mail delivery work.”
Some pre-war postboxes were made of wood. The same newspaper article pointed out that fire-damaged postboxes “were causing serious disruptions in terms of sending and delivering mail.” New postboxes were set up in some places after the bombing, but the article also mentioned the hardship endured by the post office, indicating that “some people had taken postboxes home to use as firewood.”
(Originally published on November 15, 2024)
On November 15, 1945, the Hiroshima Post Office in Hiroshima City resumed delivery of mail by mail carriers after some staff had returned from service in the military and through the hiring of new employees. The three-story brick building with a single basement floor, located diagonally across from the Shima Hospital at the hypocenter, was completely destroyed in the atomic bombing on August 6. None of the staff in the building survived, with a total of nearly 300 people, including mobilized students, dying.
Shichiro Nakamoto, 28 at the time, a staff member in the mail department, was working the night shift on August 5. After the bombing, his wife, Miyoko, walked from their home in the village of Kuchita (in Hiroshima’s present-day Asakita Ward) with their three children, ranging in age from one-month to three years old, riding on a two-wheeled cart. Despite her efforts, she was unable to find even the remains of her husband.
Miyoko, who continued to pray for Shichiro’s safety, died in 1998 at the age of 79. Her oldest son’s wife, Mayumi, 77, who is a resident of Hiroshima’s Asakita Ward, said about Miyoko, “Even decades after the atomic bombing, she would say ‘I believe even now that Shichiro is alive somewhere.’”
Meanwhile, staff members who were off-duty at the time and somehow survived the atomic bombing resumed counter service five days after the bombing at a Hiroshima Chokin Bank branch office, located in the area of Senda-machi (in the city’s present-day Naka Ward). However, because it had lost many of its staff, the post office asked neighborhood associations to handle the mail delivery work.
On November 15, the post office resumed mail delivery using its own staff, but the service apparently did not cover the entire city at first. Masato Hirofuji, one of the staff, recalled that time. “We delivered mail to Koi, Kannon, Eba and some other places that had not burned down. In the city center, though, I think that mail was delivered in batches to the presidents of neighborhood associations,” he explained in remarks made at a 1976 roundtable discussion.
Problems with mail delivery were not limited to personnel. The November 22 edition of the Chugoku Shimbun newspaper ran a headline that read, “Request from post office — Post your nameplate even on barracks.” The article quoted the postmaster of the post office in front of Hiroshima Station who called on citizens to place nameplates even on makeshift housing because, without them, “all kinds of problems will be caused for mail delivery work.”
Some pre-war postboxes were made of wood. The same newspaper article pointed out that fire-damaged postboxes “were causing serious disruptions in terms of sending and delivering mail.” New postboxes were set up in some places after the bombing, but the article also mentioned the hardship endured by the post office, indicating that “some people had taken postboxes home to use as firewood.”
(Originally published on November 15, 2024)
