Japan marks 80 years since atomic bombing of Nagasaki (Part 1)
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Japan Times
9 hours ago
- Japan Times
When did WWII end? 1 in 4 Japanese can't say, survey shows
After more than 80 years, World War II feels distant — so much so that around 1 in 4 Japanese don't know the day Japan capitulated, a recent survey has found. The survey by the Japanese Red Cross Society (JRCS) found that 25.8% of respondents did not know the war ended on Aug. 15, 1945, while 21.7% and 27%, respectively, did not know the date the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima (Aug. 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9, 1945). The online study, conducted in June, had 1,200 participants ranging from ages 10 and over. Marking the 80th anniversary since the end of WWII, this was the first time the JRCS conducted a study on the public's awareness and behavior regarding peace. With the wartime generation aging, it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to pass on their stories to the younger generation. Nearly 90% of respondents answered that they thought continuing to tell stories about the war to future generations was important, but only half said that they have heard firsthand accounts of the war. Among those who have heard such stories, around 47% said they heard it from their grandparents, while 38% said they heard it from oral storytellers who work to preserve memories of the conflict. 'In Japan, which fortunately has not become a battlefield for the past 80 years, it may be to some extent inevitable that memories of war are fading,' said Hiroto Oyama of JRCS. 'However, even in the current situation, where many feel an impending crisis about achieving peace, I would like to highlight the fact that the vast majority of people still value learning from past experiences.' When asked about current affairs, over half of the respondents said they thought Japan was peaceful, while only around 20% thought there was peace in the world. Many were pessimistic about achieving world peace in the future, with only 18.4% believing a war-free world was possible. Meanwhile, 68.6% said they did not think world peace was attainable. Asked about Japan's possible involvement in war in the future, 12.9% strongly believed it was possible while 40.3% thought such a scenario was moderately possible. On nuclear weapons, 51.8% of respondents said such weapons should not be used or possessed, while 28.3% felt they should not be used but that having them may be necessary for self defense.
Japan Times
15 hours ago
- Japan Times
'Why do humans wage war?': Woman recalls escaping death on Tinian island in WWII
In 1944, at the height of the fighting on Tinian Island during World War II, schoolgirl Mitsuko Arakaki and her family resolved to die rather than be killed. At the last moment, fear drove her to flee — an impulse that ultimately saved her family. Having watched B-29 bombers take to the sky from Tinian, the same island from which the aircraft used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki departed, Arakaki, now 91, continues to emphasize the precious nature of peace. Arakaki, a resident of the village of Nakagusuku, Okinawa Prefecture, was born on Tinian in 1934. The island prospered on sugarcane, and her grandfather operated a large farm. Living with her grandparents, parents and a younger brother, she recalls, she "lived a life without any inconveniences." Tinian, part of the Mariana Islands about 2,500 kilometers south of Japan's main island, was then a Japanese mandate territory and a key base for the Imperial Japanese military. By the time the war reached the island, some 13,000 Japanese civilians were living there, many of them from Okinawa. When U.S. air raids began in 1944, life on the island changed overnight. In June that year, Arakaki, then a fourth grader at the Marpo elementary school in the island's south, took shelter with her family in an air-raid bunker near their home. After American forces landed in the north on July 24, the family fled again, this time to a mountain cave. About 100 people crowded into the space. There, she saw a Japanese man, suspected of spying for the Americans, shot dead by a Japanese soldier. "The scene still remains in my mind. It was scarier than the attacks by U.S. forces," she says, her voice trembling. As the naval bombardment intensified, a shell fragment landed less than a meter in front of her while she was playing outside. Startled by its searing heat, she ran back into the cave. As the attacks became even fiercer, Arakaki and her family left the cave. Along the road, they saw flies swarming over corpses. "Rather than being killed and swarmed by flies, let's throw ourselves into the sea," she recalls her grandmother saying. At her urging, the family headed for a cliff. But when Arakaki looked down and saw many bodies floating in the sea below, fear overtook her. "I don't want to die," she cried, fleeing into the mountains. The entire family survived. Later, her grandmother thanked her, saying, "We were saved thanks to you. Thank you," Arakaki recalls. Combat between Japanese and U.S. forces on the island ended on Aug. 3, 1944. More than 5,000 Japanese troops and an estimated 3,500 civilians were killed, among them people who leapt from the cliffs. Because of the scale of the losses, the territory is sometimes known as a "gyokusai no shima," or 'island of honorable death." Around October that year, Arakaki and her family were captured by U.S. forces and interned at Camp Churo in the island's central region. At the camp, one story left a deep impression on her. A fisherman, an adept swimmer, survived alone after his family of six — his wife and four sons — threw themselves into the sea. "It wasn't the enemy who killed my family. I killed my family myself," she remembers him saying through tears. The confession has stayed with her ever since. In August 1945, U.S. B-29 bombers took off from an airfield in the island's north to carry out the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "From the internment camp, I watched the B-29s flying, but at the time I assumed they were headed to war," she says. Only later did she learn that the planes she saw may have been carrying atomic bombs. Arakaki said the realization still fills her with sorrow. "If it hadn't been for the B-29s, Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been spared," she says. More than 80 years after the battle on Tinian Island, Arakaki asks, "Why do humans wage war? I've wrestled with that question ever since, and I still don't have an answer." Wars continue today, including Russia's invasion of Ukraine. "They may come from different countries, but they are human beings all the same. I sincerely hope the fighting ends soon," Arakaki says.
Japan Times
16 hours ago
- Japan Times
For the disabled, WWII was a terror of another level
In the closing months of World War II, people with disabilities in Japan, like their able-bodied neighbors, desperately sought shelter from relentless air raids. "I couldn't move my hands or legs because of the sounds of machine gun fire," recalled Isao Shirahata, an 89-year-old resident of the city of Kyoto, who is visually impaired. "Such a terrifying thing must never happen again." Shirahata was born with low vision due to glaucoma. As a child, he lost sight in his left eye after accidentally striking it on a bicycle brake lever, leaving him with only limited vision in his right eye. In April 1944, at 8 years old, Shirahata enrolled in the Kyoto prefectural school for the blind in the city, leaving his family home in Miyazu, Kyoto Prefecture, to live in the school's dormitory. To help students protect themselves, music teachers played recordings of U.S. military aircraft sounds, training them to recognize the approach of enemy planes. "The B-17 had a heavy, rumbling sound. The Curtiss had a light, whirring sound," Shirahata remembered. He heard the distinctive roar of the B-29, the successor to the B-17, while hiding in his school's air raid shelter. As the air raids intensified, the school was forced to close in March 1945, prompting him to return to his family home. One morning in late July, while catching cicadas with friends in the mountains behind his parents' house, an air raid warning sounded. Before he could escape, he heard the piercing screech of a U.S. military Grumman warplane and managed to catch a glimpse of it with his right eye. Suddenly, the rattling burst of machine gun fire filled the air, and bullets whizzed overhead. Although the apparent target was an Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer anchored in nearby Miyazu Bay, Shirahata later recalled feeling as if the enemy aircraft was so close that he himself was being targeted. Paralyzed by fear, he found himself unable to run. Other children were playing in the mountains behind his parents' house before the aircraft appeared. As Shirahata reached the entrance of the air raid shelter, a bomb dropped from a Grumman exploded nearby. He and his friends escaped unharmed, but a boy right behind them was killed when shrapnel from the blast pierced his neck. Shirahata continued to live in fear of air raids, but on Aug. 15, he listened to a radio broadcast of Emperor Hirohito — posthumously called Emperor Showa — announcing Japan's surrender while at home with his family. He noticed that the adults from the neighborhood who had gathered there were crying as they learned of the defeat. But he said he himself felt a sense of relief, thinking, "I don't have to be afraid of air raids anymore." Isao Shirahata, 89, speaks of his wartime experience as a visually impaired boy during an interview in the city of Kyoto in June. | JIJI After the war, Shirahata's glaucoma in his right eye worsened, eventually leaving him completely blind. Despite this challenge, he graduated from the reopened school for the blind. Determined to continue his education, Shirahata went on to study at Tokyo University of Education, now known as the University of Tsukuba, where he earned a teaching license for schools for the blind. He later returned to his alma mater to teach acupuncture and moxibustion. Following his retirement, Shirahata established an acupuncture clinic in Kyoto and went on to earn a doctorate in medicine from Toho University. Shirahata expressed deep sorrow about hearing news reports on radio about ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and other parts of the world. "Ordinary people caught in the ravages of war, especially women and children, suffer terribly," he said. "No matter the reason, war is never acceptable," he emphasized. During the war, even individuals with disabilities, many of whom struggled to escape from attacks, were expected to contribute to the war effort, according to Hiromi Kishi of the Japan Society on the History of Blind Education. "Records of war play a major role when people think about peace, but very few focus on the experiences of people with disabilities," said Kishi, 76. "Although 80 years have passed since the war, we still need to collect records and testimonies from those who experienced it firsthand." Kishi began researching the wartime experiences of people with disabilities about 40 years ago, while working at the Kyoto prefectural school for the blind. While reading a collection of children's essays from 1937, the year the war between Japan and China began, Kishi came across a striking piece written by a boy about the age of a current elementary school first grader. In his essay, addressed to Japanese soldiers on the front lines, the young author urged them to "kill many of them." Kishi was deeply shocked by the evidence of the militaristic education that prevailed at the time. In another document, Kishi found a transcript of a lecture delivered by a university professor at the school for the blind in July 1943, during the height of the conflict in the Pacific theater of World War II. According to the transcript, the professor told the children, "You are in a position completely opposite to that of servicemen. For the sake of the country, you should be careful not to trouble others with your personal matters." Kishi's research into newspaper articles from the era also revealed that visually impaired individuals played key roles as air defense observation post members. In places such as present-day Wajima on the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture, they were responsible for alerting residents about incoming air raids. About 20 years ago, Kishi had the opportunity to interview an elderly man with visual impairment who had served as an air defense observer during the war in what is now Nanao, in the same prefecture. According to Kishi, the man recalled, "I was able to identify enemy planes even at night because I could hear the sound of aircraft with my ears. I was truly happy to feel that even an individual with disabilities could be useful." However, while those who primarily relied on visual observation for the same duties received compensation, the man testified, "I never received any," according to Kishi. Kishi noted, "During the war, people with disabilities were often discriminated against as 'useless,' and may have been left wondering if there was anything they could contribute." "To build an inclusive society that transcends the presence or absence of disabilities, it is important to revisit and learn from the experiences of people with disabilities during the war," he added.
