Leather Belt

Takao Nakamura (then,14), a second-year student at Municipal Junior High School, was exposed at Koami-cho, where his student mobilization group was assisting building demolition. When he did not come home, his mother, Masako, set out on a desperate search for Takao at dawn on the 7th. Learning that he had already died at his refuge site, she went there and searched through the corpses lined up for cremation until she found her son's transformed body. She recognized Takao by his work clothes, which had been made from a uniform belonging to his father, who had died during the battle of Iwo Jima. She also recognized this leather belt, Takao's keepsake of his father.

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