![]() ![]() It’s a feeling shared by 82-year-old Terao Okihiro, a stained glass artist and first-generation A-bomb survivor, who spends time in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park when he can, to tell visitors about his WWII experiences. Still, they can’t help but feel sad about the lost centuries of history. He said he and his friends are grateful for the effort made by their parents and grandparents to rebuild Hiroshima into the metropolis it is today. Three days after the bombing, Hiroshima Electric Railway – which had lost 185 employees – reopened a portion of a single streetcar line and worked steadily to restore the city’s transport network.Īnd in December 1945, just four months after the end of WWII, automotive manufacturer Mazda resumed production of its tricycle trucks – affectionately dubbed “ batanko” – and made it a priority to get them to Hiroshima to help people transport essential items needed for daily life.īut the path to recovery was no easy feat.įull-scale reconstruction only began in August 1949 after the Hiroshima Peace Memorial City Construction Law was promulgated, allowing the national government to extend special financial support to Hiroshima.Īs a child, Ishida, the third-generation A-bomb survivor and bar owner, grew up alongside senior citizens with burn marks on their hands and faces and heard stories of the A-bomb’s devastating aftermath. Mazda's three-wheeled trucks became a familiar sight around Hiroshima after the bombing. By August 20, 1945, the company restored power to 30% of homes left standing and the whole city by the end of November. ET), Hiroshima city lost roughly 40% of its population, which numbered around 300,000 people at the time.Ī new exhibition in Hiroshima Gate Park entitled “ Pride of Hiroshima” highlights how quickly businesses in the city joined recovery and reconstruction efforts in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.įor instance, just a day after the bombing, the Chugoku Electric Power Company started working to restore power to the people, repairing a damaged substation in the eastern part of Hiroshima city so the power would return to the port area. That was partly because America wished to use Hiroshima to demonstrate “the full potential of the atomic bomb,” according to the website of Hiroshima for Global Peace.Īfter the American military detonated its first atomic bomb at 8:15 a.m., Japan local time (7:15 p.m. Till then, Hiroshima – unlike other major cities across Japan – had escaped America’s firebombing raids during the last stages of WWII. Hiroshima’s role as a military capital expanded and critical army facilities were erected in the city as the conflicts in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937 to 1945) and the Pacific War (1941 to 1945) intensified.Īccording to the city’s prefectural government, that concentration of military facilities and its “size and layout” made it a testing target for the atomic bomb. When a railroad was connected to Ujina port – found on Hiroshima’s southern coast – the following year, the city became a strategic base to dispatch troops to the Korean Peninsula and Chinese mainland. Hiroshima was among several large castle towns of the Edo period (1603-1867).ĭuring the Meiji Restoration, Japan underwent a period of modernization, and in 1888, the city became the base for the Fifth Division Headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army. Still, I’d like them to be aware that this city also owed much of its initial development as a military hub,” Hiroshi Ishida, a bar owner and third-generation A-bomb survivor in Hiroshima, told CNN. They have the idea that Hiroshima is a city of peace. ![]() “When visitors from overseas come to Hiroshima, they tell me they’re going to the Peace Museum and Park. However, some locals say that though the city promotes a message of peace, its complex relationship with history must also be noted. Indeed, with a population of one million people, Hiroshima embodies resilience against the odds. Meanwhile, Hiroshima has earned itself the title of Japan’s “manufacturing prefecture,” making everything from automobiles and ships to electric machinery and components. In the wake of the pandemic, numbers are quickly going up as tourists return to Japan. Though the city’s backdrop may serve as a symbolic reminder of the atrocities of warfare, tourists and delegates visiting for the G7 Summit between May 19 and 21, would’ve found a modern city teeming with shops, parks and businesses.įrom 2015 to 2019 the annual number of foreign visitors to Hiroshima surpassed 1 million, with the city welcoming 1.8 million overseas visitors in 2019. A man relaxes alongside the river on a bench overlooking the Genbaku Dome. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |