Features

by Masami Nishimoto, Masanori Nojima and Jumpei Fujimura, Staff Writers

On the east bank of the Honkawa River, flowing on the west side of Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima City’s Naka Ward, is a monument inscribed with a traditional Japanese tanka poem. “Not knowing any words of comfort, I only cry, remembering your faces and valor.” The monument stands where first-year students at Hiroshima Prefectural Hiroshima Second Middle School (present-day Hiroshima Prefectural Hiroshima Kanon High School) experienced the atomic bombing and perished on August 6, 1945. Herein, this features series will take a close look at the history of an era in which young boys were forced to be “killed in action.”

“Live a long life”

Masayo Kitamoto, who lives in the town of Saka-cho, Aki-gun, overlooking Hiroshima Bay, will celebrate her 88th birthday next month. “I still think of my son’s words,” said Ms. Kitamoto. Her oldest son, Kunihiko, then aged 13 years and one month and a first-year student at Hiroshima Second Middle School, died at 9:00 p.m. on August 9, 1945. With his parents at his side, he said, “Mom, live a long life,” before breathing his last.

“I wonder what he would have become had he lived. At that time, there was a pervasive mood in the country where everybody was ready to die, and Kunihiko was no exception. It was the fault of the education system.” She spoke calmly in a sunlit room in her home.

On the morning of August 6, 1945, Ms. Kitamoto had been worried because of the air-raid warnings sounding since the night before. But Kunihiko replied with a smile, “If I die for my country, I will be enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine,” and left home. He had been mobilized as a student to engage in building-demolition work in the former Nakajima-shinmachi area, which became what is now Peace Memorial Park.

Kunihiko continued to describe tragedy

The mushroom cloud of the bomb rising eerily from the Nakajima area could be seen from the village of Saka, around 13 kilometers to the east of Hiroshima. Ms. Kitamoto immediately got onto a neighbor’s truck, walked through the flames from Hiroshima Station, and reached the Hatchobori area on the east side of the Nakajima district. The next day, August 7, she set out by fishing boat with her husband, Masakazu (who ultimately died in 1994), after he returned home from the Army Shipping Command in Hiroshima’s Minami Ward, where he had experienced the bombing. Ms. Kitamoto explained, “I took a straw mat and an obi with me. I didn’t expect Kunihiko to be alive.”

With that in mind, when she saw Kunihiko as he was brought home by an acquaintance around noon on August 7, his face swollen like a wax figure, Ms. Kitamoto hugged him tightly. Kunihiko burst into tears and spoke in a torrent of words.

He described how he had seen the bomb falling above him when he and his classmates were gathered along the Honkawa River. He also said that they had jumped into the river, with its hot water. He described how he had been pulled from the river by first-responder soldiers and spent the night on Kanawajima Island in Hiroshima Bay. During that time, the feces from his body had a charred smell, as if even his intestines were burned.

Ms. Kitamoto said, “When we heard the roar of airplanes, he trembled in his mosquito net, but he continued to talk and talk until he died. At the end, he said, ‘Mom, live a long life,’ and then he passed away.” She described how they had taken care to dig a hole in a field to cremate his body to ensure that enemy planes would not notice the smoke.

Feeling empty at news of “Eighth Order of Merit”

Under the provisions of the 1952 Act on Relief for War Victims and Survivors, mobilized students were classified as “paramilitary personnel” to be enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine, located in the Tokyo district of Kudan, alongside military personnel and civilian employees of the military.

According to records held by the bereaved families of students at Hiroshima Second Middle School, the students were enshrined there on October 17, 1963. Seven years later, the government informed the families that the nation would confer the Eighth Order of Merit to the students.

Ms. Kitamoto received a certificate of commendation through a local government office. When holding the small medal in her hands, she was overcome with “a sense of emptiness, because it seemed like a mere formality.”

“Children were killed while helping clean up after buildings had been demolished. If only I had stopped him from going that day... But Kunihiko wanted to give his life for the country, so I guess it was good I didn't stop him.” Even though she has 11 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, her questioning, imbued with a mother’s sorrow, continues to weigh heavily.

The tanka poem appearing at the beginning of this article was written by the late Sadaei Furuta, who was serving as principal of Hiroshima Second Middle School at the time the atomic bomb was dropped.

(Originally published on November 19, 1999)