Hiroshima is an industrial city with vast boulevards and crisscrossing rivers on the Seto Inland Sea’s shore. Although many people only remember it for the horrifying half second on August 6, 1945, when it became the site of the world’s first atomic bomb explosion, it is today a contemporary cosmopolitan metropolis with superb food and a thriving nightlife.
Those expecting to get off the Shinkansen into a pile of blazing ruins will be disappointed, since Hiroshima has all the ferroconcrete and flashing neon of any contemporary Japanese metropolis. Teenagers pour in and out of the station, where McDonald’s and the newest keitai (mobile phones) await; unfortunate salarymen scurry along Aioi-dori to their next meeting, throwing a bloodshot stare toward Nagarekawa’s filthy pubs as they pass. At first appearance, it may be difficult to believe that anything out of the usual has ever occurred here.
Hiroshima was established in 1589 on the delta produced by the Ota River as it flows out to the Seto Inland Sea. Mori Terumoto erected a fortress there, only to lose it eleven years later to Tokugawa Ieyasu during the Battle of Sekigahara, which launched the Tokugawa shogunate. The Asano clan of samurai took control of the territory and governed without incident for the following two and a half centuries. Their successors welcomed the Meiji period’s fast industrialization, and Hiroshima became the region’s seat of government, a major industrial city, and a bustling port.
By World War II, Hiroshima had grown to be one of Japan’s largest cities, as well as a natural communications and supply hub for the military. Thousands of forced workers from Korea and China were transported in, and local kids also spent part of their days working in weapons factories. Residents of Hiroshima must have felt strangely blessed for the first few years of the war, as the city was largely spared by American bombing campaigns; this was done, however, to ensure a more accurate measurement of the atomic bomb’s effect on the candidate cities, which had been narrowed down to Hiroshima, Kokura, Kyoto, Nagasaki, and Niigata.
On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay detonated an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, nicknamed “Little Boy.” At least 70,000 people were killed in the explosion and its immediate aftermath, according to estimates. The majority of the city was constructed of wood, and flames raced uncontrollably over roughly five square miles, leaving a scorched plain with a few scattered concrete houses. Medical care was essentially non-existent, since most of the city’s medical facilities had been placed near the hypocenter, and the few physicians who remained had no clue what struck them. Radioactive elements in the atmosphere caused a toxic “black rain” to fall that evening.
Many survivors started to get unusual diseases, such as skin sores, hair loss, and exhaustion, in the days that followed. Radiation-related illnesses would ultimately kill between 70,000 and 140,000 individuals. The survivors, known as hibakusha, faced tremendous persecution from other Japanese, but have since been in the vanguard of Japan’s postwar pacifism and fight against the use of nuclear weapons.
Given the magnitude of the damage, recovery was delayed, and underground markets flourished in the first several years following the war. However, Hiroshima’s rehabilitation became an emblem of Japan’s postwar pacifism. Hiroshima now has a population of over 1.1 million people. Mazda’s corporate offices are nearby, hence automobiles are a key local business. There are three superb art museums in the city center, some of Japan’s most ardent sports fans, and a broad selection of gastronomic pleasures, most notably Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, the city’s towering contribution to bar food.
Although many tourists, particularly Americans, may be wary about visiting Hiroshima, it is a pleasant, inviting city that is as interested in Western culture as any other city in Japan. Tourists are welcome, and exhibitions about the atomic bomb do not focus on blame or accusations. Keep in mind, however, that many hibakusha still reside in the city, and that the majority of Hiroshima’s young people have family members who survived the bombing. As a result, the ordinary Hiroshima resident is unlikely to like discussing it, but you shouldn’t be afraid to bring it up if one of the talkative men about the Peace Park does.