Documenting Hiroshima of 1945: In December, wooden castle tower, a national treasure, no longer there
Dec. 25, 2024
by Minami Yamashita, Staff Writer
In December 1945, Toshio Kawamoto, a member of the Hiroshima Prefectural Police Department’s photography team, took a photograph on the remains of the Chugoku District Military Headquarters, located on the grounds of Hiroshima Castle around 790 meters northeast of the hypocenter. In the headquarters was an air defense operations office, considered to have communicated “the initial report” of Hiroshima’s destruction. The castle’s main tower, which once stood tall on the north side of the site, had collapsed.
Terumoto Mori initiated construction of Hiroshima Castle in 1589. The wooden castle, which nearly maintained its original appearance at the time of construction until the atomic bombing, had been designated a national treasure and was one Hiroshima’s most well-known sites. The castle’s other gates and towers had disappeared one after the other, replaced by military facilities.
The air defense operation office of the Chugoku District Military Headquarters was a ferroconcrete, half-underground building located amid the ruins of the castle’s central structure. It was used as the headquarters for war strategy and information at a time when air raids were prevalent. A total of 90 third-year students at Hijiyama Girls’ High School (present-day Hijiyama Girls’ Junior and Senior High School) had been mobilized to work at the office in three shifts and were in charge of such communications as announcing the arrival of enemy aircraft, regardless of whether it was day or night.
Yoshie Oka, 14 at the time, who died in 2017 at the age of 86, was responsible for sending out warnings to broadcasters and military facilities using a communications switching device. In the morning of August 6, as Ms. Oka was about to read out the words, “At 8:13, an air-raid warning has been issued for Hiroshima Prefecture and Yamaguchi Prefecture,” she was blown to the ground by the blast from the atomic bombing. When she went outside, she witnessed the city in ruins. To a military unit in Fukuyama she connected with by telephone, she reported that, “Hiroshima has been completely destroyed,” content that is regarded to be the first external communication, issued by her and her classmates, of Hiroshima’s destruction.
Even as more than 60 students at her school died, Ms. Oka engaged in the care of her classmates and in land clean-up work in the Hiroshima Castle area until August 18. In Honoo no Naka-ni (in English, ‘Amid the flames’), a collection of personal accounts written by her classmates and published in 1969, she wrote, “A beautiful and pure young girl, with a clear and innocent soul, continued speaking only of work until her last breath.”
Regarding her experience on the night of August 7, when she had looked at the moon, she wrote, “The five-story main tower, which had stood until yesterday, is no longer there. How the lonesome moonlight shines above it!! What is this if not ‘Kojo no Tsuki’ (the song, ‘Moon over the ruined castle’)?” Lumber from the former castle tower declined over time until the end of that year, with citizens thought to have taken the materials home.
More than 40 years after the bombing, Ms. Oka began to share her experiences after being encouraged to do so by people she around her, continuing with that activity until her later years. Aiko Hatano, 72, a resident of Hiroshima City’s Aki Ward who has taken on Ms. Oka’s memories and communicates them on her behalf, said, “Ms. Oka apparently would offer incense and flowers at the site where her classmates had fallen for a while after the end of the war as a way to comfort their souls.”
(Originally published on December 25, 2024)
In December 1945, Toshio Kawamoto, a member of the Hiroshima Prefectural Police Department’s photography team, took a photograph on the remains of the Chugoku District Military Headquarters, located on the grounds of Hiroshima Castle around 790 meters northeast of the hypocenter. In the headquarters was an air defense operations office, considered to have communicated “the initial report” of Hiroshima’s destruction. The castle’s main tower, which once stood tall on the north side of the site, had collapsed.
Terumoto Mori initiated construction of Hiroshima Castle in 1589. The wooden castle, which nearly maintained its original appearance at the time of construction until the atomic bombing, had been designated a national treasure and was one Hiroshima’s most well-known sites. The castle’s other gates and towers had disappeared one after the other, replaced by military facilities.
The air defense operation office of the Chugoku District Military Headquarters was a ferroconcrete, half-underground building located amid the ruins of the castle’s central structure. It was used as the headquarters for war strategy and information at a time when air raids were prevalent. A total of 90 third-year students at Hijiyama Girls’ High School (present-day Hijiyama Girls’ Junior and Senior High School) had been mobilized to work at the office in three shifts and were in charge of such communications as announcing the arrival of enemy aircraft, regardless of whether it was day or night.
Yoshie Oka, 14 at the time, who died in 2017 at the age of 86, was responsible for sending out warnings to broadcasters and military facilities using a communications switching device. In the morning of August 6, as Ms. Oka was about to read out the words, “At 8:13, an air-raid warning has been issued for Hiroshima Prefecture and Yamaguchi Prefecture,” she was blown to the ground by the blast from the atomic bombing. When she went outside, she witnessed the city in ruins. To a military unit in Fukuyama she connected with by telephone, she reported that, “Hiroshima has been completely destroyed,” content that is regarded to be the first external communication, issued by her and her classmates, of Hiroshima’s destruction.
Even as more than 60 students at her school died, Ms. Oka engaged in the care of her classmates and in land clean-up work in the Hiroshima Castle area until August 18. In Honoo no Naka-ni (in English, ‘Amid the flames’), a collection of personal accounts written by her classmates and published in 1969, she wrote, “A beautiful and pure young girl, with a clear and innocent soul, continued speaking only of work until her last breath.”
Regarding her experience on the night of August 7, when she had looked at the moon, she wrote, “The five-story main tower, which had stood until yesterday, is no longer there. How the lonesome moonlight shines above it!! What is this if not ‘Kojo no Tsuki’ (the song, ‘Moon over the ruined castle’)?” Lumber from the former castle tower declined over time until the end of that year, with citizens thought to have taken the materials home.
More than 40 years after the bombing, Ms. Oka began to share her experiences after being encouraged to do so by people she around her, continuing with that activity until her later years. Aiko Hatano, 72, a resident of Hiroshima City’s Aki Ward who has taken on Ms. Oka’s memories and communicates them on her behalf, said, “Ms. Oka apparently would offer incense and flowers at the site where her classmates had fallen for a while after the end of the war as a way to comfort their souls.”
(Originally published on December 25, 2024)
