Documenting Hiroshima of 1945: In November, Jogakuin moves to Ushita after school building destroyed in fires
Nov. 17, 2024
by Minami Yamashita, Staff Writer
In November 1945, Hiroshima Jogakuin Girls’ High School (present-day Hiroshima Jogakuin Junior and Senior High School) resumed classes at Ushita National School (present-day Ushita Elementary School, located in the city’s Higashi Ward) in four classrooms it had leased from Hiroshima City. Jogakuin’s two-story wooden school building, located in the area of Kaminagarekawa-cho (now part of the city’s Naka Ward) around 1.2 kilometers northeast of the hypocenter, had collapsed and burned to the ground in the atomic bombing. More than 350 students and teaching staff of the school had been killed.
Since its founding in 1886, Hiroshima Jogakuin Girls’ High School focused on Christian-based education for girls. During the war, however, the school gained a reputation as a “spy school” and experienced American teachers leaving the school as well as persecution by military police.
On August 6, 1945, the auditorium collapsed and the students of Hiroshima Jogakuin Vocational School, who had just finished attending church service, were trapped underneath. As flames approached, the school’s principal, Takuo Matsumoto, was able to save eight people. The following day, charred corpses were found piled one on top of one another amid the burned ruins of the school.
Around half of the first- and second-year students had been mobilized to demolish buildings in the Zakoba-cho area (in Hiroshima’s present-day Naka Ward), with most of them dying in the bombing. “They all worked very hard for the country,” said Mihoko Ota, 91, a resident of the city’s Nishi Ward. Ms. Ota was a first-year student at the time, and on August 6, she had the day off from mobilization work. Four days after she experienced the atomic bombing at her home in the area of Funairikawaguchi-cho (now part of the city’s Naka Ward), she headed back to school. “There was nothing and no one around, and fires were still smoldering,” she said as she described the scene.
According to Hiroshima Jogakuin Hyakunen-shi (in English, ‘Hiroshima Jogakuin’s Centenary History’), published in 1991, the school held a memorial service on September 20 at school property on the mountain named Ushita-yama, handing over to bereaved family members remains collected from the burned ruins of the school building and the work site where students had been mobilized. On October 5, classes began for the vocational school and the girls’ high school at Ushita National School on alternate days.
The school principal Takuo Matsumoto wrote in a collection of personal accounts titled Natsugumo (‘Summer clouds’), published in 1985, about how “more than 80 students gathered with heads and arms wrapped in bandages, some limping. They were truly a group of pitiable students. But their faces were full of the joy of being able to study again.”
Ms. Ota left the home of her relatives in the village of Yasu (in Hiroshima’s present-day Asaminami Ward), where she had been staying, at 6 a.m. to go to school. “There were five classes, but only about 20 first-year students were in attendance. From that point on, I felt I had to live an honest and righteous life for myself as well as for my deceased classmates,” she said. In February 1946, the school moved into a barracks building that had been erected on the Ushita National School grounds. It was not until August 1947 that the school building was rebuilt in the area of Kaminagarekawa-cho.
(Originally published on November 17, 2024)
In November 1945, Hiroshima Jogakuin Girls’ High School (present-day Hiroshima Jogakuin Junior and Senior High School) resumed classes at Ushita National School (present-day Ushita Elementary School, located in the city’s Higashi Ward) in four classrooms it had leased from Hiroshima City. Jogakuin’s two-story wooden school building, located in the area of Kaminagarekawa-cho (now part of the city’s Naka Ward) around 1.2 kilometers northeast of the hypocenter, had collapsed and burned to the ground in the atomic bombing. More than 350 students and teaching staff of the school had been killed.
Since its founding in 1886, Hiroshima Jogakuin Girls’ High School focused on Christian-based education for girls. During the war, however, the school gained a reputation as a “spy school” and experienced American teachers leaving the school as well as persecution by military police.
On August 6, 1945, the auditorium collapsed and the students of Hiroshima Jogakuin Vocational School, who had just finished attending church service, were trapped underneath. As flames approached, the school’s principal, Takuo Matsumoto, was able to save eight people. The following day, charred corpses were found piled one on top of one another amid the burned ruins of the school.
Around half of the first- and second-year students had been mobilized to demolish buildings in the Zakoba-cho area (in Hiroshima’s present-day Naka Ward), with most of them dying in the bombing. “They all worked very hard for the country,” said Mihoko Ota, 91, a resident of the city’s Nishi Ward. Ms. Ota was a first-year student at the time, and on August 6, she had the day off from mobilization work. Four days after she experienced the atomic bombing at her home in the area of Funairikawaguchi-cho (now part of the city’s Naka Ward), she headed back to school. “There was nothing and no one around, and fires were still smoldering,” she said as she described the scene.
According to Hiroshima Jogakuin Hyakunen-shi (in English, ‘Hiroshima Jogakuin’s Centenary History’), published in 1991, the school held a memorial service on September 20 at school property on the mountain named Ushita-yama, handing over to bereaved family members remains collected from the burned ruins of the school building and the work site where students had been mobilized. On October 5, classes began for the vocational school and the girls’ high school at Ushita National School on alternate days.
The school principal Takuo Matsumoto wrote in a collection of personal accounts titled Natsugumo (‘Summer clouds’), published in 1985, about how “more than 80 students gathered with heads and arms wrapped in bandages, some limping. They were truly a group of pitiable students. But their faces were full of the joy of being able to study again.”
Ms. Ota left the home of her relatives in the village of Yasu (in Hiroshima’s present-day Asaminami Ward), where she had been staying, at 6 a.m. to go to school. “There were five classes, but only about 20 first-year students were in attendance. From that point on, I felt I had to live an honest and righteous life for myself as well as for my deceased classmates,” she said. In February 1946, the school moved into a barracks building that had been erected on the Ushita National School grounds. It was not until August 1947 that the school building was rebuilt in the area of Kaminagarekawa-cho.
(Originally published on November 17, 2024)
