Charles' Travel Blog

My final stop in Japan was Hiroshima.  It was a very moving moment in my trip.

Seeing the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and the Atomic Dome was solemn.  It is hard to imagine what happened there in 1945.

At the National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, it was a solemn place where you can hear from individuals impacted by the bombing.  It also has a library to conduct research and the ability to look up the names of the victims.

At the Memorial Hall, they had a short film about child soldiers who responded to the city following the bombing.  They were the only functioning military unit near Hiroshima.  The unit was training to be suicide attackers.  They were training to drive a boat with explosives to enemy ships.

They talked about how people were asking for water and they were ordered not to provide any.  One story shared in the video was about how a woman was returning to Nara and had the body of her child.  The child soldier informed her that she could not take her dead child on the train.  The other asked for help and the soldier got permission to cremate the child which he did.  Later, the women as ought out the soldier who helped her to bring her child home to thank him.

It was a moving few days to visit Hiroshima.  It is not something I will soon forget.