a day ago
News in Easy English: Fukuoka remembers bombing that killed over 1,000 people 80 years ago
FUKUOKA -- About 110 people met at Fukuoka city hall on June 19. They came to remember a big bombing that happened in Fukuoka 80 years ago. That bombing killed or hurt more than 1,000 people in the city.
On the night of June 19, 1945, many American planes dropped bombs on the city. These bombs caused big fires. Many buildings and homes burned. About 1,000 people died or went missing.
Many people tried to hide in the basement of a building used as a bank. But that night, bombs made the building lose electric power. Because of that, doors in the basement could not open, and 63 people who could not leave died there from heat and fire.
Yoshitaka Mizobe, now 85 years old, came to this year's memorial. He was a child in Fukuoka at the time. He and family members often hid from bombs in the bank's basement. On the bombing night, after dinner, they went into the basement once, then came out again. Soon after that, an air raid happened. They wanted to go back in, but a fireman said, "You cannot go inside now." His mother led the family away from the fires, so they stayed alive.
Yoshitaka's father, Kahei, was not there because he was fighting in the war on Guadalcanal, an island far from Japan. Sadly, he died at age 33 in the fighting.
Yoshitaka now often visits schools to tell children what happened. He wants young people to understand how terrible war is.
At the memorial, Yoshitaka said, "War can never be right. Sad events like this must not happen again." He added, "Even now, wars happen and take many lives. We must talk about these sad experiences to younger people."
(Japanese original by Shizuka Takebayashi, Kyushu News Department)
Vocabulary
bombing: when bombs are dropped during war or fighting
memorial: a special event or place to remember people who have died
basement: a room under the ground, usually below a building
air raid: when airplanes drop bombs from the sky
