Silent Witness

by Ikumi Yorikane, Staff Writer

Soldiers would wear leather gaiters on their lower legs. This pair of reddish-brown gaiters, while appearing to be undamaged, experienced the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by the U.S. military on August 6, 1945.

They were worn by Minoru Yagi, who served in the accounting department of the Chugoku District Military Headquarters (located in Hiroshima City’s present-day Naka Ward), around 1.2 kilometers from the hypocenter. Mr. Yagi apparently had been buried under a completely destroyed building and lost consciousness. After coming to the next day, August 7, he found himself lying on a dry riverbed downstream from the Tokiwa Bridge. His left leg was lacerated, he had hit his head forcefully, and his lower jaw was fractured. According to a personal account of experiences that he contributed to Genbakuka no Shireibu Dai 2 Shu (in English, ‘The headquarters after the atomic bombing: Second collection’), published by the Hiroshima Shiyukai Association in 1977, his injuries were so severe he was unable to eat a rice ball held out to him by someone who appeared to be a civil defense corps member. He spent the next year and a half recuperating.

Both his grandmother and wife, with whom he lived at the time in the area of Hirosekita-machi, around 1.2 kilometers from the hypocenter, survived the atomic bombing. But his oldest son, four-year-old Hiroshi, who had been playing outside, has been missing since that day. Mr. Yagi was said to have felt frustrated at not being able to search for his son due to his immobility. After recovering enough to move again, however, he became engrossed in reading literature about the bombing, trying to find clues in even one line. When lists of victims of the bombing were published, he was the first to rush to take a look.

In 1973, nearly 30 years after the atomic bombing, he donated the leather gaiters to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Mr. Yagi, who was deeply wounded both physically and psychologically, said in front of the undamaged gaiters, “It’s truly a mystery.”

(Originally published on April 14, 2025)