Dulce Et Decorum Est

Donated by Kazuo Nikawa
1,600m from the hypocenter
Kan-on Bridge

Kengo Nikawa (then, 59) was exposed to the bomb crossing the Kan-on Bridge by bike going from his home to his assigned building demolition site in the center of the city. He suffered major burns on his right shoulder, back, and head and took refuge in Kochi-mura Saiki-gun. He died on August 22. Kengo was never without this precious watch given him by his son, Kazuo.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 in the morning, the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb over the center of the city of Hiroshima, Japan. Hiroshima was the first target ever attacked with nuclear weapons in the history of the world.

The bomb exploded about 200 yards over the city, creating a 13 kiloton explosion, a fireball, a shock-wave, and a burst of radiation. When the bomb was dropped about 255,000 people lived in Hiroshima.

The explosion completely incinerated everything within a one mile radius of the city center. The shock-wave and the fires ignited by the explosion damaged or completely destroyed about nine-tenths of the buildings in the city. Somewhere between 70,000 and 80,000 people–about one third of the population of the city–were killed immediately. The heat of the explosion vaporized or burned alive many of those closest to ground zero. Others were killed by the force of the shock-wave or crushed under collapsing buildings. Many more died from acute radiation poisoning–which is to say, from their internal organs being burned away in the intense radiation from the blast.

By December 1945, thousands more had died from their injuries, from radiation poisoning, or from cancers related to the radioactive burst or the fallout. It is estimated that the atomic bombing killed more than half of the population of Hiroshima, totaling about 140,000 people, and left thousands more with permanent disabilities.

Almost all of the people maimed and killed were civilians: although there were some minor military bases near Hiroshima, the bomb was dropped on the city center, several miles away from the military bases on the edge of town. Hiroshima was chosen as a target, even though it had little military importance, because It is a good radar target and it is such a size that a large part of the city could be extensively damaged. There are adjacent hills which are likely to produce a focussing effect which would considerably increase the blast damage. 1. Hiroshima was also one of the largest Japanese cities not yet damaged by the American firebombing campaign. Military planners believed it strategically important to demonstrate as much destruction as possible from the blast.

Thomas Ferebee dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. His commanding officer was the pilot of the Enola Gay, Paul Tibbets. Tibbets and Ferebee were part of the XXI Bomber Command, directed by Curtis LeMay. LeMay planned and executed the atomic bombings at the behest of Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and President Harry Truman.

Kengo Nikawa died on August 22nd, 1945 because of the bombing. This is his pocket watch.

We will never know the names of many of the 140,000 other residents of Hiroshima who were killed by the bombing. We have only estimates because the Japanese government was in a shambles by this point in the war, and countless records, of those that were successfully kept, were consumed by the flames, along with the people whose lives they recorded.

Grave marker with 1000-Person Mound written in India ink

Photo / Shunkichi Kikuchi Courtesy / Tokuko Kikuchi
October 17, 1945, Aza Majidomari, Ninoshima-cho

This mound was by the sea in Majidomari near the Horse Quarantine Station. About August 25, 1945, the marker was placed there by quarantine staff during a memorial service. In those days, burial sites were everywhere.

#28. Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Special Exhibit on the Island of Final Rest (2003).

As a sort of virtual tour guide, the Special Exhibit includes these manga drawings of a grandmother, who had been a nurse during the war, showing her grandchildren through the exhibit.

Kenichi Nakano was 47 at the time of the atomic bombing. He witnessed this scene in the city center, near ground zero, on the afternoon of August 6th, 1945. He was 76 when he drew this picture. The words on the drawing read:

Whole city a sea of fire. Hell. Hell on Earth.

Kenichi Nakano (1975)

Donated by Mihoko Naito, Akira Hirakawa
1,350m from the hypocenter
Sumiyoshi Bridge

Koharu Hirakawa (then, 50) was a teacher at Hijiyama Elementary School. She was exposed to the bomb in front of the Sumiyoshi Bridge in a truck carrying bags for her pupils who were leaving for their evacuation locations. When the bomb detonated, the bags ignited, and the head teacher instructed everyone to flee. He thought Koharu had fled with the others, but she was never seen again. In December 1945, her brother Akira (then, 21), when he attended her father’s memorial service, put a bowl he found in her totally destroyed house into a box of pawlonia wood in place of her remains. At that time, it was reported that Koharu’s bag had been found. In it were these glases, savings bonds and other valuables and the business cards of her two sons.

Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park

Kikue Komatsu was 37 when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. She witnessed this scene on the morning of August 7th, 1945, about 550 meters from ground zero. She was 67 when she drew the picture. The words written on the drawing explain:

While searching for my daughter, I came across a mountain of corpses in a street of carnage. People had evidently rushed to plunge their faces in the water of a cistern, where they died with their arms around each other, clinging to the side. How they must have screamed for water. My heart aches for them. I clasp my hands in prayer.

Kikue Komatsu (1975)