The last tomato - Hiroshima told in his own words: (3)

　
(3)

From around spring, the number of airplanes which came flying over Hiroshima increased gradually. When the day broke, the radio said "Western army area headquarters announcement ...... Now, enemy aircraft carriers are present , on the ocean far from the Tosa bay."

If enemy planes approached over the Tosa bay as it is, they said, "enemy planes are now flying on the sky of the Tosa bay, to Shikoku now." and then an air defense alarm was announced.

Enemy planes came across Shikoku and were north to the Iyo-Nada in the In-Land sea between Ehime Prefecture, Hiroshima Prefecture, and Yamaguchi Prefecture. Then, an air-raid alarm came out to Hiroshima. The siren of all elementary schools in the city resounded to all over city.

Furthermore, when the radio announced "Eenemy planes invaded over the Hiroshima bay", we could see the formation of several tens of ship airplanes like deep-black cloud, which were coming to fly over the far distant islands.

Most formation consisted of from ten to twelve or thirteen ship planes. They came repeatedly, carried out nose diving toward Etajima and the Kure naval port on the other side of Ninoshima just visible in our view , dropped bombs and depth charges, and then returned back.

Since Hiroshima was a military city where western army area headquarters were placed during the war, it was also a fort base. In order to meet enemy planes, many anti-aircraft gun and machine gun were arranged at the islands inside the bay.
On the othe side, since Kure very close to Hiroshima was the greatest naval port in Japan, the main warships of the Japan navy had almost entered the port. If a formation came, an artillery shell would be showered all at once from warships and also from the ground.

Airplanes flying at high speed were not hit easily. However, some airplanes were occasionally hit and crashed. They could be seen dropping down with all the fire. Although it was usual that we had air raids almost every day, I felt why there was no large-scale air raid in Hiroshima, which some other cities suffered very much.

The air raids to the Japan mainland by the U.S. Forces started in 1944. In 1945, in March, there was the big air raid to Tokyo by the large formation of 334 planes of B29. And then all the big cities such as Nagoya and Osaka became exposed to air raids.

Near Hiroshima, Kure, Iwakuni and Tokuyama, etc had suffered air raids with large-scale. Hiroshima was a town which had the history. The Imperial Headquarters were placed not only during the Pacific War but also in the Meiji era when already Nissin and the Russo-Japanese War occurred. It was also a very important city for military use and had many military men.

The horse was also one of the important arms in those days. Hiroshima was also one of large military bases from which they carried out military men, horses, arms and foods. The harbor called Ujina is located in present Minami-ku. And in the evening every day, military ships went out emitting smoke from this harbor, cruising from Hiroshima to Yamaguchi, crossing the Bungo channel toward China and the south direction, and across the Kanmon strait,to the Korean Peninsula or old Manchuria. The military ships which were running in the Hiroshima bay could be seen also from my house.

Etajima with the old famous Naval Academy can be seen over the Hiroshima bay just opened in front, and on the opposite side is Kure, where the base of the Maritime Self Defense Force is located still now.

Since Hiroshima was such an important military city, I felt that it was a city exposed to bombing more easily than any other cities. I wondered that there was no large-scale air raid. The reason was clarified after the War.

In order to clarify the effect of an atomic bomb, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States had forbidden bombing with iron bombs or firebombs to four cities, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Kokura and Niigata, which would be atomic bombing targets later.

I had another thing which I understood later. I had collected a leaflet for U.S. Armys propaganda before atomic bombing. When I went to sea near my house to get short-necked clams, then I got the leaflet which included a map of Japan having the mark of "?" around Hiroshima. I felt something strange and it has worried me ever since then. However, I have never imagined that "?" meant an atomic bomb.

(To be continued)