Ｐｅａｃｅ　Ｅｄｕｃａｔｉｏｎ

　In 1970 the fifth alumnae of Hijiyama Girls High School published their experiences during the World War �U in a book called, "In the Atomic flame." The following story is taken from that book. It is Yoshie Oka's. account of the day the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Along with about 90 other girls from the school Yoshie worked at the Military Headquarters. On that morning she was working in the telephone exchange looking for and reporting on every plane. The telephone. exchange was underground and built to withstand air raids, so despite the fact that Yoshie was very near the epicenter of the bomb she survived.

entrance	from the Shrine side	from the moat

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　「Ｗｉｔｈ working in the telephone exchange」　　　　 Yoshie Oka
It is the day I will never forget. On that morning I was in the headquarters as I had been on duty since the previous night. Due to a lot of new enemy planes flying over I had breakfast with a dull head and tried to recover my lost spirits. I looked up to the clear fresh blue sky, and went into the air rid shelter. The all clear sounded again. My relief was momentary as the enemy planes came toward Hiroshima again. At 8:15 the order for a caution alarm was given. As it was my job to inform each report man of the alarm I connected a few cords at the same time and called them( I didn't feel so nervous as it was nothing unusual) ,the moment I tried to say to them "In Hiroshima, Yamaguchi the alarms have just started…" There was a tremendous purple flash for a moment, and I think, I lost consciousness.
Some time past before any gray came in to my half conscious vision. A raised cloud of dust gradually settled my head began to clear. The room gradually became brighter, I found myself two meters away from the place I had been sitting. The desk had fallen down, chairs were broken. Looking at the unusual scene, I found Katsuko, covering her face with her hands in the corner of the dark room. In spite of my shock I ran up to her and she took her hands off her face. Around her eyes there was blood but happily only small wound was on her eyelid. We put back the desks and went into the next room to leave the shelter. There was nobody in the room. I went out with Katsuko and we were speechless. There was nothing of the headquarters that used to be there or the buildings. There was only a pile of lumber and a wall. I ran up to the back of the moat. The city of Hiroshima now resembled a crude rubbish dump. The city was an unimaginable reddish brown. I turned pale, thinking "It's serious." I could hear a soldier shouting. "They dropped a new type of bomb." I ran back into the room. An idea hit me, I would try to contact other people. I held the telephone, and called a man in Kyushu, and I called a man in Fukuyama, east of Hiroshima. It was irritating hearing the soldiers' voices over the phone. "It's serious. Hiroshima has been crashed by a new type of bomb," I said. "What a new type of bomb? Only in the military division?" "No. Hiroshima was almost completely destroyed." "Is that true?" The voice sounded like an echo. Maybe a fire had started, I heard weeds crackling above the bank of the moat. "Hello, a fire has begun to come in. I will have to leave here." "Pull yourself together," someone said. I hung up and went out again.
I heard the wood crackling around the kitchen. I heard a woman's voice crying for help under a broken building. Her voice mixed in with the crackling fire. Katsuko and I ran to draw water from the pond with a bucket. The pond was full of dust from buildings and sand. It was a dumping ground with no water. Oh, no! What I can do ? A soldier was struggling to free the lower half of his body that was caught between pillars. "Let's help him. Let's try to do our best." I said, "We ran up to him but the big pillars were crossed and broken, so we couldn't move them. Mr. Matsui helped us, we brought a strong bar, and we tried to move the pillars. They moved gradually. The soldier tried to get out, twisting himself. How happy we were to help a man! We three joined hands in delight. But there were many other people to be helped. Katsuko and I went up to the square by the headquarters. On the grass around the headquarters were several wounded soldiers. Sparks of fire were spreading on the grass and it was almost in flames. We went and brought military uniforms from the barracks behind the headquarters, and pounded the burning grass. It was a useless task and soon we were surrounded by the fire. The castle gate, which was some hundred years old, was completely surrounded by the fire. The grass on the bank turned red and we couldn't endure the hot air so we submerged ourselves under the mud that had been a pond in front of the headquarters. But it was no use pouring water over ourselves because the heat made our hair crisp and heated our clothes in an instant.
I wondered what time it was now….I looked up at the sky, thinking a long time had past since this morning, and found the sky was smoky and dark. I could see the beautiful sunset. Even at that moment, neither my father or mother crossed my mind. It might be because I had been trained solely for our country and was ready for death at any time in my post. Suddenly, we felt a lot of black drops of rain, it was like muddy water. It became heavy and in a mad flurry we carried the injured to the shelter. Ten or fifteen minutes later, the heavy rain suddenly stopped. We looked for our friends. When we came around to Jotobashi(the eastside bridge of the castle), which leads to a Military junior high school, we met Midori. The skin inside the joint of her right hand was split, the flesh stuck out, the joint was broken, and the right hand was swung loose. She had an irresistible desire for water! But there is no water she could drink. We asked her where everyone had gone as if we were soothing a baby. She said, "Everyone has gone the Military high school." And I said gently. "I'll be back soon." When we were halfway across the bridge I heard the sound of someone diving into water. I prayed it wasn't Midori. However I found that my friend who had wanted to drink water with all her heart had jumped into the moat and was already floating in the water past any state of being helped….All her body was burned , she had lost her eyesight. The skin on her hands had peeled off and was hanging like an old rag.
I had no wounds and felt terribly guilty. I walked around the castle with Katsuko to find our friends who had lost their way, behind the castle. Time had passed and the trees and grass had finished burning. When the sun began to sink, Yasuko, Masako and Tsuyako came back, we were glad to meet again, we made rice balls with the soldiers who came from other prefectures to rescue people. And we gave them to the comparatively healthy wounded people. I ate it and thought it was delicious. I had not eaten since that morning. A camp was set up in the Military junior high school and the soldiers on the grass of the site of the Imperial General Headquarters moved into the camp. Mr. Aoki, a military officer, who had a twenty-centimeter bar stuck into his back was being treated by the nurses. The big fellow was covered in absorbent cotton on his back, and the bar was pulled out. In an instant, the absorbent cotton was smeared with blood. We saw many kinds of wounded. A soldier with a hole on the top of his head, the flesh moved every time his pulse beat. A soldier died burnt black, another died glaring at the sky. Yet another died with his bowels pushing out of his abdomen. A wounded soldier was shouting, "Mom." The voice continued into the night and was held in the dark sky. I felt as if I were in hell. I was tired out and fell asleep instantly.
The next day, on the seventh of August, I went to the camp with Tsuyako and Katsuko to help nurse people early in the morning. Our classmates were badly burnt themselves all over. They said of nothing of the hurt. The maggots were breeding in the their wounds in the heat of summer. They only said, "Please do your work." "I have to go…." "It's time to feel relief." We couldn't stop shedding tears as we listened to our friends' brave voices. The evening came, having been in constant attendance all day, the soldiers died one by one. We went to the front gate of the castle to draw water with several friends. Beside the first front gate, a young American soldier was lying down, he asked us repeatedly, "Water, water." Though he was in a bad way, I thought I couldn't give water to the man from the country which had destroyed Hiroshima. Over the city there was smoke from the fires coming out of the castle, I felt the asphalt hot under my feet. I wouldn't be able to walk to Kamiyacho, downtown on foot. I wondered how my father and mother were and I wanted to go home to show them I was alive.
At night, inside the shelter the work was continued, the war was not yet over . We still had to send information as soon as we got. We needed to send night orders because people were dispersed everywhere helping people. I volunteered to send an order to go to the Military junior high school. On the way, I was astonished by the groaning voices of the wounded. I started to run and I tripped on something, it was a dead body. On the way back, I was with some friends and Mr. Yamanaka. The moon rose in the middle of the sky in a town of dead people. It was a thin half moon. Mr. Yamanaka said to us, "Do you see that moon?" I asked him, "Is that a half moon?" Mr. Yamanaka said, "That is the half moon over the ruined castle." Everybody became silent. There was no more five-story castle. There was a miserable moon above a tower which had been destroyed!!
More friends died one after another. A beautiful innocent girl died with care for her work. Kimiko, Teruko and Junko died almost instant deaths. A friend died with a beautiful smile, humming a song even though her whole body was burnt. Mr. Sagawa stood proudly with the stick of a Japanese sword, glaring at the evening sky. The figure of the principal full of love and sorrow a man did his best to nurse his students and who tore his shirts is one I will never forget.
Twenty-four years have passed since then. I want to gather together on the sixth of August every year, and pray for the repose of the souls of the dead as long as I continue and make a fresh start with my memories. I think this is our duty. In February of 1967 by chance I met a soldier in Tokyo, Mr. Kunimatsu Ogawa whom I gave the connect call to Fukuyama on that day in 1945. At the end I add this fact and I lay down my pen.

Q&A corner　　We will answer your questions!!

　Q　How was the underground room？
　A　Look down.　　

　Q　Why was it built by the moat？
　A　Because it was not discovered easily by a plane.


　Q　Why could the students work in the military Headquarters？
　A　One reason was that most their fathers were soldiers.


　Q　Did the students go to the school？
　A　They couldn't go there because they worked in three shifts a day.