48 Monument erected by Hiroshima Gas Co., Ltd. in Remembrance of Victims of the Atomic Bombing

48 Monument erected by Hiroshima Gas Co., Ltd. in Remembrance of Victims of the Atomic Bombing

Date of completion August 2, 1967

Established by Hiroshima Gas Co., Ltd. 

Shape

About 2 meters high and about 1 meter in diameter, this black granite monument comprises a cylindrical pedestal on which 5 gas lamps rest. 

Motive for the erection

The monument was erected with the prayers of all employees for the victims, and in hope for peace. 

Epigraph

"Monument in Remembrance of Victims of the Atomic Bombing on August 6, 1945 - Hiroshima Gas Co., Ltd." 

Noteworthy characteristics 

1. Damage to the head office building of Hiroshima Gas Co., Ltd.

The company's head office, a ferroconcrete and brick building with 3 stories above ground and 1 story underground, was located where the monument stands today, about 250 meters from the hypocenter. The powerful blast caused the floors and ceilings of each floor to collapse, leaving only the west portion standing. 

2 Employees of Hiroshima Gas Co., Ltd. victimized by the atomic bomb

All 34 volunteer workers of the company were killed while demolishing buildings to create firebreaks in Tenjin-machi and Kobiki-cho area in Hiroshima City.

Of the 35 employees working in the head office, all but a few were killed instantly. Those who barely managed to survive died later. Other A-bomb victims included 10 executives from gas companies in 5 prefectures of the Chugoku region who were attending a meeting in Hiroshima on that day to discuss gas business integration. 

3. Lamps lit with "Fire of Peace" from Hoshino-mura Village

and "Flame of Peace" from Peace Memorial Park

On August 6, 2007, the gas lamps were lit with the "Fire of Peace" from Hoshino-mura Village in Fukuoka Prefecture, where the embers of a fire from the Hiroshima bombing have been kept burning, and the "Flame of Peace," brought from Peace Memorial Park. 

47 Hiroshima Monument for the A-bomb Victims

47 Hiroshima Monument for the A-bomb Victims

Completed : August 5, 1982

Established by : Construction Committee of the Hiroshima Monument for the A-bomb Victims 

In the riverbed of the Motoyasu River near the A-bomb Dome (hypocenter vicinity) were buried many tiles with surfaces melted by the heat ray. When Hiroshima City undertook beautification of the Motoyasu River in 1981, high school students made a call for excavation of tiles and construction of a monument to strengthen resolve for building peace. The monument is inlaid with A-bombed tiles collected largely through the efforts of young people born into a generation that does not know war. 

"When the sky turned suddenly light, my body began to melt. Friends around the world, join in the cry from Hiroshima!" The monument committee created the monument using as epitaph this poem written by Junko Kurata, a second-generation survivor who was then a student at Yasuda Girls High School. It was chosen from more than 2,000 entries by elementary, junior high, and high school students around the country. 

The theme of the bronze statue suggesting the soul of a victim going to heaven is "Wind of No Return." It was created by Professor Hisashi Akutagawa of Hijiyama Women's Junior College. 

 

46 Monument Dedicated to Construction Workers and Artisans

46 Monument Dedicated to Construction Workers and Artisans 

Date of completion August 5, 1988

Established by National Federation of Construction Workers' Unions and Hiroshima Prefectural Construction Workers' Union

Shape

The monument design is an adaptation of the nagare-zukuri roof style seen on traditional Japanese Shinto shrines. The two large Chinese characters, meaning "consolation for spirits" are deeply engraved on the front and back of the monument. Under the two characters are engraved the names of the organizations that erected the monument— the National Federation of Construction Workers' Unions and Hiroshima Prefectural Construction Workers' Union. 

Motive for the erection

This monument, whose purpose is to console the spirits of the construction workers and their families who died as a result of the atomic bombing, was erected in the firm pledge that no more human lives should be sacrificed because of nuclear weapons. 

Epigraph

Front: "Consolation for Spirits" "Monument Dedicated to Construction Workers and Artisans"

Back: "By consensus of all 430,000 members of the National Federation of Construction Workers' Unions, we erected this monument to console the spirits of the construction workers and their families who died as a result of the atomic bombing. It is our hope that nuclear weapons will be completely eliminated from the earth and that a peaceful and prosperous society will be built.

National Federation of Construction Workers' Unions and Hiroshima Prefectural Construction Workers' Union, August 5, 1988" 

Noteworthy characteristics 

1. Numbers of Hiroshima Prefectural Construction Workers' Union members and A-bomb survivor health book holders

When this monument was erected in 1988, the members of the Hiroshima Prefectural Construction Workers' Unions numbered about 12,500 (about 32,000 including family members), of which about 1,500 survivors were A-bomb survivor health book holders.

The total number of A-bomb survivors is still unconfirmed, and the exact number of A-bomb victims in the construction industry is also unknown. 

2. Monuments erected in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

By consensus of all 430,000 members of the National Federation of Construction Workers' Unions, another monument was erected in Nagasaki City on August 8, 1988.  

45 Monument to the Employees of the Hiroshima Post Office

45 Monument to the Employees of the Hiroshima Post Office

Completed : August 1975

Established by : A Group of Employees of the Hiroshima Post Office 

The Hiroshima Post Office was established in 1871 as the core of communications in Hiroshima. It was rebuilt in 1893 as a three-story (plus underground level) modern brick building with a mortar-covered section. It's reputation is apparent in the common phrase of the day, "Number 1, Prefecture Office, number 2, the Post Office". Facing a three-way intersection, it stood next to the spot where a parking tower is located today. Across the street from the parking tower is the Shima Hospital hypocenter plaque. A clock tower stood in the three-story entrance of the post office. Because it was at the hypocenter, it was exposed briefly to heat of 3,000-4,000 degrees centigrade and was dealt a shock of around 30 tons per square meter. The building crumbled immediately. Those inside undoubtedly died without seeing the flash or feeling the blast. By evening that day, unidentifiable white bones and charred corpses lay strewn among the rubble.

At the time, many male employees had been drafted and were consequently in other places. Most of those killed by the bombing were women hired to fill the vacancies, mobilized girl students, and girls from national school upper levels.

On the monument is written: "Monument built for those who died on duty. 288 officers of the Hiroshima Post Office killed in the atomic bombing." However, a newspaper company study in 2000 revealed that eight children and one girl student who were in the day-care room were also killed. 

44 Motoyasu Bridge

44 Motoyasu Bridge 

The original Motoyasu Bridge was built by Terumoto Mori when he built Hiroshima Castle and constructed the castle town 400 years ago. The bridge exposed to the atomic bombing was built in 1926. With spherical ornamental lights topping the main columns on both riverbanks and light posts lining the bridge itself, it was quite modern and stylish for its day. However, when the metal in the lighting fixtures was requisitioned for the war effort, lights were installed instead in stone lanterns. 

The girders withstood the atomic bombing, but the blast pushed the coping stones on the main columns outward and knocked the railings off both sides into the river. From this evidence, people thought that the hypocenter was located on a line extended from the bridge.

The surviving bridge was used for another 40 years after the bombing, but it eventually deteriorated. Construction of a new bridge began in 1989 and was completed in 1992.

The new bridge was designed to resemble the original one. It incorporated four main columns and two pillars from the A-bombed bridge into its design. Two pillars from the old bridge lying to the east of Motoyasu Bridge serve as a historic monument.  

43 Hypocenter/Shima Hospital (A-bomb Disaster Marker)

43 Hypocenter/Shima Hospital (A-bomb Disaster Marker)

The atomic bomb, which was targeted at the T-shaped Aioi Bridge, exploded at 132 degrees, 27 minutes, 29 seconds east latitude and 34 degrees, 23 minutes, 29 seconds north longitude and an altitude of 600 meters. This was the sky above Shima Hospital, located at 29-2 Saiku-machi, Hiroshima City. 

Shima Hospital was built in 1933. It was a modern, two-story brick building distinguished by round pillars framing the entrance and circular windows. 

On the day of the bombing, hospital director Dr. Shima was treating patients away from the hospital and thus escaped harm. The building was destroyed instantly, and the roughly 80 patients, nurses, and others estimated to have been in the building disappeared without a trace.

* Estimation of the hypocenter

The basic data used to make this estimation was the direction of shadows caused by the heat ray. Those directions were plotted on a map, and the point where they intersected was determined to be the hypocenter. 

42 Memorial Tower to the Mobilized Students

42 Memorial Tower to the Mobilized Students

Completed : July 15, 1967

Established by : Hiroshima Prefecture Mobilized Student Victims Association 

To make up for the labor shortage, the government enacted the Student Labor Service Act in August 1944. This act required students in middle school and higher grades to perform labor service in munitions factories and the like. Then, in November, many students were required to participate in tearing down homes and other buildings (building demolition). The purpose was to create fire-breaks to limit the expansion of fire in the event of air attacks. In Hiroshima City, of the roughly 8,400 students in the national upper level schools, about 6,300 died on the day of the bombing.

Most students working at various industries around the city were also killed.

After the war, the government only permitted mobilized students killed in the atomic bombing or in air strikes whose names and date of death were known to be enshrined in Yasukuni Shrine. In response to this, bereaved families began a movement to create a list of the dead and donated funds to build this tower. 

41 Monument to Tamiki Hara

41 Monument to Tamiki Hara

Completed : November 15, 1951

Established by : The Tamiki Hara Committee (The Japan Pen Club and the Hiroshima Literature Association) 

At the age of 40, poet Tamiki Hara experienced the atomic bombing at his birth home in Nobori-cho. His beloved wife had died the previous year. Haunted by loneliness and despair, he nevertheless determined that his mission as a survivor was to continually write works that would convey the disaster of the bombing.

However, when the expansion of the Korean War led President Truman to publicly consider the use of atomic weapons, Hara lost all hope. He took his life, lying down on the tracks of Tokyo's Chuo Line on March 13, 1951. He was 46 years old. 

In November of the year of his death, writers and literary scholars who had been close to Hara built this monument engraved with a poem against the background of a stone wall from the remains of Hiroshima Castle. Sadly, heartless people pelted it with stones, denting the plate. The copper plate on the rear side was stolen. The present monument was restored and moved on July 29, 1967. 

Engraved on the plate of black granite is the following poem by Hara:

Engraved in stone long ago,

Lost in the shifting sand,

In the midst of a crumbling world,

The vision of one flower. 

40 Monument of The Hiroshima District Lumber Control Corporation

40 Monument of The Hiroshima District Lumber Control Corporation 

Date of completion August 6, 1967

Established by Volunteers among executives and regular employees of The Hiroshima District Lumber Control Corporation

Writer of the Epigraph

Keisen Sone

Shape

The characters "Irei" (consoling the souls of the departed) are inscribed on the front of a large fieldstone; the epigraph (in Japanese) is on the back. 

Motive for the erection

The monument was built in prayer for the souls of those who died while on duty, and for everlasting peace in the world

Epigraph

"This dome housed the headquarters offices of 260 staffers of The Hiroshima District Lumber Control Corporation Japan's timber control agency during World War II. Over 100 executives and regular employees tragically died while on duty in and around the dome due to the A-bomb's detonation in the sky immediately above at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945. When permanent preservation of the Atomic Bomb Dome had been decided, at the suggestion of then-president Koichi Tanaka, surviving executives and regular employees gathered and built this monument in prayer for the repose of victims' souls, as well as for everlasting peace in the world. Workers of the two timber control agencies Japan Lumber Corporation Hiroshima Branch and Hiroshima Shipping Timber Co. who died while on duty are honored collectively. 

August 6, 1967. By volunteers among executives and regular employees of The Hiroshima District Lumber Control Corporation" 

Noteworthy characteristics 

1. The Hiroshima District Lumber Control Corporation 

The Hiroshima District Lumber Control Corporation was inaugurated in July 1944 by streamlining local timber control companies in Hiroshima Prefecture. At that time, 260 staff members were working at the headquarters, which had been relocated to the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. 

2. Transition of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall

As the war was prolonged and the situation grew aggravated, the scale of exhibitions in the Hall was reduced. On March 31, 1944, Hall operations were finally discontinued. It was decided that the Hall would be used for government and other public offices, such as the Interior Ministry Chugoku & Shikoku Civil Engineering Branch Office, as well as offices of the Control Union, including The Hiroshima District Lumber Control Corporation. 

3. From the day of the A-bombing to one week later

On the day of the A-bombing, although working hours were set to start at 9:00 a.m., a one hour delay from the usual start because a red alert had been issued the night before, workers from suburban areas arrived at the workplace at 8:00 a.m. as usual. All persons inside the building were killed instantly. 

One week later, The Hiroshima District Lumber Control Corporation placed its temporary offices in Kirin Beer Hall, where it continued its operations until around autumn. 

39 Monument for staffers of the Chugoku & Shikoku Civil Engineering Branch Office who died on Duty

39 Monument for staffers of the Chugoku & Shikoku Civil Engineering Branch Office who died on Duty

[Monument for staffers of the Ministry of Construction (Interior Ministry)] 

Date of completion August 6, 1954

Established by All staffers of the Construction Bureau of the Ministry of Construction Chugoku & Shikoku Regions

Shape

This memorial poem monument (Memorial Mound) is made from a fieldstone (1.2 m in height, 1.5 m wide, quarried in Gohara-cho, Kure City), and a stone inscribed with the names of 52 staffers who died while on duty. 

Epigraph

Poem Monument: "The loss of those sacrificed by the A-bombing is the foundation of a peaceful world"

Back of the monument: "52 former staffers of the Chugoku & Shikoku Civil Engineering Branch Office of the Interior Ministry, while on duty as members of the National Militia Unit, became the foundation of peace as a result of the A-bombing and war damage on August 6, 1945, and now rest in the earth. August 6, 1954. Built by staffers of Construction Bureau of the Ministry of Construction Chugoku & Shikoku Regions" 

Noteworthy characteristics 

1. Persons Who Died on Duty, and Damage

Of 93 staffers of the branch office who were relocated to the rented entire third floor and part of the first floor of Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall (now the Atomic Bomb Dome) 52 staffers (30 males and 22 females among 13 office workers, 32 field workers and 7 missing persons) were killed on duty and 9 were injured, excepting those who evacuated to the official residence in Ushida-cho and other facilities. 

2. History of Memorial Monument (Memorial Mound)

The monument, originally a wooden structure constructed in 1947, was replaced in 1954 with a fieldstone poem monument (gravestone). Although no tombstone can be built on the premises of the Atomic Bomb Dome because it is a designated park area under Hiroshima Peace Memorial City Construction Law, construction of this monument was permitted because it was designed as a poem monument. Then-director Ichiro Abe's memorial poem, "The loss of people sacrificed by the A-bombing……" (in Japanese) was inscribed on the monument. 

3. Meaning of the Epigraph

"Considering people who unfortunately died in the A-bombing, we vow our strong commitment to the building of a peaceful country as the foundation of a gradually reconstructed new Japan, the desire you never realized, so that your ultimate sacrifice will not be in vain. May you rest in peace." (Source: Data of the Chugoku Region Construction Bureau of the Ministry of Construction (present-day Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation Chugoku Regional Development Bureau)) 

4. Memorial Monument Information Stone Pillar

The stone pillar stating "On this site, staffers of the Ministry of Construction (Interior Ministry) died on duty" was established by the Chugoku Construction Kosei Association in 1980.