David Frodsham

Our last stop is the infamous city of Hiroshima. Pre-August 1945, it was a castle town turned military garrison, but now there’s not much to see other than the Peace Park, which is what the various Atom Bomb memorials and museums are collectively called. (It may not be strictly true to say there’s not much else to see, as apparently the old castle has been lovingly rebuilt, but we only have a few hours in Hiroshima so can’t confirm that).

The bomb’s epicentre was within a few metres of the target: instead of exploding above a bridge in the middle of the city, it was a nearby government urban planning building. Within 2 km everything was destroyed; within 4 km nearly everything. 92% of the buildings in the centre were destroyed. 140,000 people died immediately or within a few days – 40% of the population – the majority from the initial blast, the rest from the firestorm which raged for 3 days afterwards, and from the radiation carried by the black rain which fell a few hours after the bomb hit. The temperatures generated by the bomb were so high that steel girders of bridges and glass that was not smashed melted, evidenced for example by distorted bottles.

The building at the epicenter eerily survived, because the pressure of the bomb worked differently at that point. Its burnt-out frame has been preserved as the main monument. The museum contains a balanced report of what happened, supported by personal accounts, collections of clothes and other belongings from victims, before-and-after photos, just-after photos, and a fairly cold analysis of how nuclear bombs work and what happens when one explodes. It’s quite a disturbing place to visit.

I learnt a number of things here about Japan, the war and the A-bomb that I didn’t know:
- As a child I was taught that the bomb was dropped because doing so would cost fewer lives overall than an invasion. In fact, the bomb was used because the allies needed to accelerate the end of the war with Japan. Russia had agreed to declare war on Japan 6 months after the defeat of Germany, and that would have led to Russia gaining some say over, or territory in, post-war Japan
- There was a shortlist of targets (including Kyoto of all places) but Hiroshima was chosen because it was believed there were no allied prisoners of war there
- Controversially, there was no warning. Japan had not accepted the earlier Potsdam declaration – which preceded the bomb and came closest to a warning by requiring Japan to surrender unconditionally – because the declaration did not provide guarantees relating to the continuation of the rule of the emperor
- Conventional bombing on Hiroshima was stopped for some time beforehand, so that the precise effects of the A-bomb could be better studied and understood. To the Americans, this was very much a scientific experiment
- Only about 10% of the uranium in the bomb underwent fission
- Hiroshima was completely rebuilt after the war, with even the old road layout being replaced with a new grid system
- The British were the occupiers in post-war Hiroshima, and ran such strict censorship that residents did not really understand what had happened until independence in the 1950s
- China and Japan have well publicized differences over historical facts, and there’s a good example here. In the section on military contextual history, the “capture” of Nanjing (described widely elsewhere of course as the Rape of Nanking) includes the report of the killing of several civilians by the Japanese army. “There are differences about the actual numbers killed; China claims 300,000”, the exhibit says
- The post-war Japanese political system is based on the British model, with a parliamentary democracy and the emperor as a relatively toothless head of state
- 1M people a year visit the Peace Museum, fewer than 10% of whom are foreigners

It’s a sobering end to an interesting trip. We have lunch at a nearby Japanese restaurant with an American flavour: there’s baseball showing on TV screens, the food is definitely ho-hum, but rather charmingly a harpist comes in to play. Baseball and harp makes for a bizarre combination, but it in some way it reflects today’s Japan: a successful mix of the old (in the form of their customs and traditions) and the new.

Some takeaways on Japan: It’s been easier traveling around Japan than we expected. More people speak English than we anticipated and with a combination of gestures, pictures and languages, we were able to get by pretty much in any situation. We would certainly now be prepared to go anywhere in the country and attempt pretty much anything. The people are very helpful, welcoming and service-orientated, even if they can ignore you completely in certain situations. Japan has a well-known chronic traffic problem which seems easy to solve: take half the taxis away (at any one time, seemingly 80% of the traffic comprises taxis, most of which are for hire); it’s a very expensive place (think London plus…) but unlike in Britain, it doesn’t get much cheaper away from the capital. Japan is a great and fascinating country but overall we preferred China (Beijing slightly over Tokyo; Shanghai much more than Hiroshima; Jiuzhaigou over Miyajima; but Kyoto over Xi’an), probably because we are catching China at such an exciting time in its history. So: China 3, Japan 1.

I have written these postcards to record in my own words the section of George’s round-the-world trip that I was fortunate enough to share with him. He’s now off on his own to Peru. As the Kyoto taxi driver said after playing the British National Anthem to us so loudly on his CD player a few days ago: thank you for listening.