Documenting Hiroshima of 1945: Around November, Bank of Japan branch conducts business amid ruins
Nov. 19, 2024
by Minami Yamashita, Staff Writer
Around November 1945, amid the city ruins, the Hiroshima Branch of the Bank of Japan remained standing 380 meters from the hypocenter in the area of Fukuro-machi (in the city’s present-day Naka Ward). The sturdy branch building was built of reinforced concrete, and two days after the atomic bombing, the bank resumed payment services.
Built in 1936, the building featured a classical style, with Greek-style ornamental carvings and spiral capitals atop its columns. During the war, in preparation for air raids, its roof was covered with around one meter of earth and sand. On August 6, the building’s first and second floors, whose protective window shutters had been closed, escaped major damage, while the third floor, whose shutters had been open, was completely incinerated. Eight bank employees who were in the building and 12 workers from the Hiroshima Financial Bureau on the third floor died in the atomic bombing.
The bank vaults in the basement were also spared damage. According to the branch’s memorial collection titled Mitama Yasukare (in English, ‘Spirits of the dead, rest in peace’), which was published in 1977, Hiroshi Takayama, head of the bank’s sales section, checked the vaults immediately after the bombing. “I had some difficulty turning the dial to Vault No. 1 because it was too gritty. I finally was able to turn it using all my strength.” The branch manager, Chiemaru Yoshikawa, who experienced the bombing on the building’s second floor, was seriously wounded, but on that same day of August 6 he made the decision to reopen the bank two days later.
At 10:30 a.m. on August 8, with the help of the military, the bank staff cleaned up and started payment services. They divided the counters on the first floor into 12 sections, establishing a provisional office for each financial institution. In remarks at a roundtable discussion held in 1961, Mr. Takayama said, “I kept notes in a memo regarding the maximum amount of loans in our vaults, and we used that as a guide. Of course, no one was carrying official seals or anything like that, but the financial institutions knew the faces of people because they were clients, and so things proceeded quickly with unofficial, family seals.”
On the first day, 10 branch employees showed up at the bank for work. Suzuko Tanaka, a secretary to the branch manager who was 20 at the time, had stayed overnight at the bank to care for the wounded. Ms. Tanaka, who died in 2018 at the age of 93, wrote in her diary almost every day during the period August 9–15 about her poor health. “I feel tightness in my chest,” and “I cannot handle this fatigue,” she wrote. Other employees were injured and in poor health, and by early September three out of 10 had died.
On October 1, the branch also resumed bill-exchange work. Between the end of August and around the spring of 1946, each of the financial institutions built new offices on the ruins of their former sites and returned there. Ms. Tanaka resigned in 1948 when she married. Her younger sister Junko Izumo, 76, a resident of Hiroshima’s Nishi Ward said, “My sister continued to be in poor health even after the war. She never went back to the branch building after resigning out of fear she would recall those days.”
(Originally published on November 19, 2024)
Around November 1945, amid the city ruins, the Hiroshima Branch of the Bank of Japan remained standing 380 meters from the hypocenter in the area of Fukuro-machi (in the city’s present-day Naka Ward). The sturdy branch building was built of reinforced concrete, and two days after the atomic bombing, the bank resumed payment services.
Built in 1936, the building featured a classical style, with Greek-style ornamental carvings and spiral capitals atop its columns. During the war, in preparation for air raids, its roof was covered with around one meter of earth and sand. On August 6, the building’s first and second floors, whose protective window shutters had been closed, escaped major damage, while the third floor, whose shutters had been open, was completely incinerated. Eight bank employees who were in the building and 12 workers from the Hiroshima Financial Bureau on the third floor died in the atomic bombing.
The bank vaults in the basement were also spared damage. According to the branch’s memorial collection titled Mitama Yasukare (in English, ‘Spirits of the dead, rest in peace’), which was published in 1977, Hiroshi Takayama, head of the bank’s sales section, checked the vaults immediately after the bombing. “I had some difficulty turning the dial to Vault No. 1 because it was too gritty. I finally was able to turn it using all my strength.” The branch manager, Chiemaru Yoshikawa, who experienced the bombing on the building’s second floor, was seriously wounded, but on that same day of August 6 he made the decision to reopen the bank two days later.
At 10:30 a.m. on August 8, with the help of the military, the bank staff cleaned up and started payment services. They divided the counters on the first floor into 12 sections, establishing a provisional office for each financial institution. In remarks at a roundtable discussion held in 1961, Mr. Takayama said, “I kept notes in a memo regarding the maximum amount of loans in our vaults, and we used that as a guide. Of course, no one was carrying official seals or anything like that, but the financial institutions knew the faces of people because they were clients, and so things proceeded quickly with unofficial, family seals.”
On the first day, 10 branch employees showed up at the bank for work. Suzuko Tanaka, a secretary to the branch manager who was 20 at the time, had stayed overnight at the bank to care for the wounded. Ms. Tanaka, who died in 2018 at the age of 93, wrote in her diary almost every day during the period August 9–15 about her poor health. “I feel tightness in my chest,” and “I cannot handle this fatigue,” she wrote. Other employees were injured and in poor health, and by early September three out of 10 had died.
On October 1, the branch also resumed bill-exchange work. Between the end of August and around the spring of 1946, each of the financial institutions built new offices on the ruins of their former sites and returned there. Ms. Tanaka resigned in 1948 when she married. Her younger sister Junko Izumo, 76, a resident of Hiroshima’s Nishi Ward said, “My sister continued to be in poor health even after the war. She never went back to the branch building after resigning out of fear she would recall those days.”
(Originally published on November 19, 2024)
