
Nagasaki cathedral blesses a bell that replaces one destroyed by U.S. atomic bomb
A Nagasaki cathedral has blessed the final piece to complete its restoration nearly 80 years after being destroyed by the second U.S. atomic bomb dropped on Japan: a reproduction of its lost bell restored by a group of Americans.
The new bell was blessed and named 'St. Kateri Bell of Hope,' by Peter Michiaki Nakamura, archbishop of Nagasaki, at the Urakami Cathedral in a ceremony Thursday attended by more than 100 followers and other participants.
The bell is scheduled to be hung inside the cathedral, filling the empty bell tower for the first time, on Aug. 9, the anniversary of the bombing.
The U.S. bomb that was dropped Aug. 9, 1945, fell near the cathedral, killing two priests and 24 followers inside among the more than 70,000 dead in the city. Japan surrendered, ending World War II days later.
The bombing of Nagasaki destroyed the cathedral building and the smaller of its two bells. The building was restored earlier, but without the smaller bell.
The restoration project was led by James Nolan Jr., who was inspired after hearing about the lost bell when he met a local Catholic follower during his 2023 visit to Nagasaki. Nolan lectured about the atomic bombing in the southern city and its history about Catholic converts who went deep underground during centuries of violent persecution in Japan's feudal era, to raise funds for the bell restoration.
'I think it's beautiful and the bell itself is more beautiful than I ever imagined,' Nolan, who was at the blessing ceremony, said after he test-rang the bell. He said he hoped the bell "will be a symbol of unity and that will bear the fruits of fostering hope and peace in a world where there is division and war and hurt."
A sociology professor at Williams College in Massachusetts, Nolan is the grandson of a doctor who was in the Manhattan Project — the secret effort to build the bombs — and who was on a survey team that visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki shortly after the bombings.
Nolan, based on materials his grandfather left behind, wrote a book 'Atomic Doctors,' about the moral dilemma of medical doctors who took part in the Manhattan Project.
© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Japan Times
7 hours ago
- Japan Times
80 years on, Iwate woman recalls naval bombardment
The city of Kamaishi in Iwate Prefecture is said to have been the first place on Japan's main island of Honshu to suffer a naval bombardment by the Allied powers during World War II. More than 5,000 shells were fired into the northeastern Japan city, which had a large iron mill, on July 17 and Aug. 9, 1945, killing a total of 782 people, mostly civilians. As the bombardments lasted about two hours on both days, Mutsuko Sano, 94, clearly heard the earth rumbling at a school for girls about 30 kilometers away. Sano was 14 years old when she evacuated with others from her hometown in Kamaishi to the school in the neighboring city of Tono in April 1945. After the second attack, more of Sano's classmates evacuated from Kamaishi. She could do nothing but hold devastated friends who had lost relatives. "I want to tell young people now that natural disasters cannot be avoided, but war can," Sano said. Since Kamaishi had a prisoner-of-war camp, Sano often saw lines of prisoners heading to a mine for work. After the war ended, however, she saw them whistling as they walked through town, a scene that made her fully realize her country's defeat. When Sano returned to Kamaishi with her father, she saw burned ruins everywhere, with the five chimneys of the ironworks, which used to be a symbol of the city, bent miserably. Around Kamaishi Station, there were several craters formed as a result of the bombardments. "It was complete hell," Sano said. "I wish the war had ended earlier." Sano has lived in Kamaishi for 80 years since the end of the war, witnessing the rise and fall of her hometown. The city began to recover in the 1950s, led by its steel and fishery industries, but was again devastated by the massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. "The city remains deserted now," she said. "Why should we experience such misery again?" Still, she keeps busy working for the town, making her wartime experiences into a booklet and sharing her story through lectures. "People can't resist a tsunami, but war can be avoided," she emphasized. "We must never start a war."


Yomiuri Shimbun
16 hours ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Peace Museum in Brazil to Rise from Ashes, Convey Survivor Stories Again
FREI ROGERIO, Brazil — The reconstruction of a peace museum in southern Brazil, established by an association of survivors of the Nagasaki atomic bombing and their descendants, is well underway about a decade after it was destroyed in a fire. The 'Museu da Paz' (Peace Museum) in the city of Frei Rogerio is seen as a poignant testament to the enduring hopes for peace carried by Japanese immigrants who survived the atomic bombing before making new lives in South America. The reconstruction of the facility that chronicles the tragedy of the atomic bombing clearly shows how the deep-seated desire for peace among survivors has taken root in Brazil. The work is a collaborative effort between Japanese-Brazilian immigrants and the local government with a completion target by the end of this year, which coincides with the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. The museum was built in 2010 with support from the Brazilian government and an association founded by three atomic bomb survivors and their families living in Frei Rogerio, including the now 96-year-old Wataru Ogawa. Ogawa's brother-in-law Kazumi Ogawa, who passed away in 2012 at 83, constructed a single-story building for the museum on unused land on the pear farm that he ran. He had moved to Brazil after surviving the bombing of Nagasaki and saw the museum as conveying the belief that 'we must never repeat the misfortune caused by war.' The group acquired 80 panels from Nagasaki of photographs of children with burn scars from the atomic bomb and other items for display in the 420-square-meter structure. The area around the museum was dubbed 'Peace Bell Park.' Wataru Ogawa shared his wartime experiences with about 5,000 visitors annually at the museum, with his third son Naoki, 54, serving as his Portuguese interpreter. In the summer of 1945, Ogawa was a student at the naval engineering school in Otake, Hiroshima Prefecture, where he witnessed the devastation caused by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. At war's end, he returned to his hometown of Nagasaki, which had suffered a similar fate. Shortly after, his hair began to fall out in clumps. Elementary and junior high school students would listen intently to Ogawa's emotional account of the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bringing some to tears. He vividly described the procession of bloated bodies floating down the river, and a childhood friend, reduced to little more than a skeleton, saying with his last breath, 'I can't go on anymore.'Following the fire that destroyed the museum in 2016, the local community quickly banded together to start planning the reconstruction. After a series of meetings with Frei Rogerio municipal officials and other parties, Naoki Ogawa and other second-generation Japanese-Brazilians finalized a project plan in 2020. The plan included financial support from the city and others for rebuilding the museum and constructing an adjoining international exchange facility. Construction was started in April with the goal of completing and reopening the museum by the end of this year. Efforts are currently underway to gather exhibits for display and to prepare materials with cooperation from local universities. 'At a time when there are ongoing wars [around the world], I hope that this will once again become a place where the plea for peace can be spread,' Wataru Ogawa said. Naoki Ogawa's oldest son, now 23, was born on Aug. 9 — the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki — and named Hirakazu using the kanji characters for 'peace,' most often read as 'heiwa.' 'It was my destiny to inherit the desire for peace from the atomic bomb survivors,' Hirakazu said. According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, there were 66 survivors from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings residing in Brazil as of the end of March.


Nikkei Asia
a day ago
- Nikkei Asia
MacArthur's legacy weighs heavily on Japan -- 80 years on
U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur signs Japanese surrender documents on Sept. 2, 1945, aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. © AP ANDREW SHARP TOKYO -- Time has stood still on the sixth floor of the Dai-Ichi Life building across the moat from Tokyo's Imperial Palace. Behind heavy wooden doors lies an office, preserved since 1945, that houses the desk of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the supreme commander of the allied powers that occupied Japan for seven years after its surrender in World War II. On a visit ahead of the 80th anniversary of the war's end on Aug. 15, the preserved room, which is not usually open to the public, appears like a snapshot of history, providing an insight into the powerful character of the general who played an outsized role in rebuilding a country from the ruins of war. His austere desk lacks drawers, and those facing him in the afternoons would have been met with bright sunshine pouring into their eyes.