XIII: Shrines, Temples and Churches
Shinto Shrines
Many historic and deeply revered Shinto Shrines within the city, some antedating the period of the Feudal Lords, were destroyed by the bomb. Typical was Hijiyama Shrine, a good mile from hypocenter. Behind it stood a high hill covered with a park, and into the cliff below, a small hole had been dug and sacred writings and objects of worship carefully buried. When the bomb fell, the shrine buildings were completely overthrown and burned, along with forty or fifty three-hundred-year-old trees. Only stone remained: the torii, lanterns, the carved lions and hand-hewn palisade.
Buddhist Temples
Stone tells the story at the largest Buddhist Temple, also. A tall granite mausoleum still stands with several sections sheared off by the heat and violence of the blast. The Betsuin Temple complex with an aggregate floor space of some 800 mats (about 2,400 square feet) stood about 0.8 mile from hypocenter. The shock wave sent sleeping mats flying into the air. Fires broke out spontaneously here and there, and before one could be quenched, another flared up. One priest was pinned down by a fallen object somewhere on the temple grounds, and fainted. On opening his eyes some minutes later, he was amazed to see that the huge main hall was no longer there. By May of the next year, with the contributions and voluntary labor of members, a temporary sanctuary was erected.
Slightly more fortunate was the Yuishin Temple, some 1.6 miles from the center. Although about 80% of it was destroyed, and spontaneous combustion threatened the remainder, the fires were brought under control and the temple and grounds were used as a treatment center, where some 730 people were cared for. The priest and his family of seven nursed them tirelessly.
School children crying for their parents, people who believed they were dying and were singing the national anthem, last strangled cries — all sounded together, making it a living Hell. In the midst of this hideous confusion, two severely injured women gave birth to babies. Since the water mains were broken, water for their first bath came from an old well.
Daily, between five and fifteen people died. Someone with battle experience helped dig a hole in an adjoining field. Into this kindling was thrown, and bodies laid on planks and lowered in rows on top of it. Opposite their heads on the ground above stood bits of wood inscribed with their names. Then the funeral pyre was lit. The temple family carefully wrapped and marked the ashes and kept them for any members of the family who might come seeking them later.
This went on for about ten weeks, until most of the severely wounded were dead. Even those victims who were able to make their way to the homes of relatives, seem to have lived only two or three months.
Christian Churches
There were thirteen Christian churches in Hiroshima, all of which were either completely destroyed or nearly so. During the war, Christians had been looked upon with scorn by some super-patriotic fellow countrymen, but had kept the faith and maintained a precarious hold on their modest Sunday and Christmas services. The ministers, while continuing their pastoral duties, had also served the city as civilian district officers.
Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto of Nagarekawa United Church was one of these. After a night of warden patrol duty, he was in Koi when the attack came. With the utmost difficulty he pushed his way against the stream of fleeing, naked, slashed and burned victims, back into the city, even swimming the river where there was no bridge. However, it was impossible to get near his church, which lying only 0.5 mile from hypocenter, had been virtually demolished.
Mr. Tanimoto had but one thought, to save the people for whom he was responsible. When he finally reached their designated refuge area in a riverside park, he found that those still living had gathered there. Soon, however, fire came roaring into even this haven and crowding toward the river, the refugees unwittingly pushed many from the bank into the water, where they drowned.
Then using a small boat kept there for emergencies, Mr. Tanimoto poled again and again across the river, carrying people to safer ground beyond. That evening, concerned over the hunger of those left in the park, he and some other survivors went into the burnt-over area and sought out buried stores of rice. This was boiled on the river bank, made into rice balls and distributed.
After several days of such unremitting activity, Mr Tanimoto fell ill, ran a high fever and was prostrate for over two months.
Fr. Hugo Lassalle, Superior of the Jesuit Mission in Japan, writes: "I managed to get down the stairs and got outside alive. But my whole body was covered with wounds and I was bathed in my own blood. Looking around, at first I saw nothing but clouds of dust where our chapel had been. What had happened to the other three fathers? My first thought was that perhaps they were all dead, but soon one came out bleeding from his face, then another, and finally the last. This father collapsed at the entrance, bleeding profusely.
"Then I was called by a student who had discovered that two of our kindergarten teachers were buried under their house. We set to work and with great difficulty got them free. At the same time, two other members of the Mission staff were rescued.
"I tried to extinguish the fire in the kindergarten, but soon found it was already too large and no pump was available. Again there was a call for help and one of the fathers and I rescued a woman caught under her house.
"Then we fathers left and tried to find a way out of the town, but it was too late. The fire was on all sides. We therefore went along the riverside into a park, where we beheld the spectacle of the burning city across the river. It began to rain and at the same time a hurricane came very near us. Fifty yards away we saw trees being broken, and big branches torn off and thrown into the river.
"That night, the two of us most seriously injured were helped into a boat, and at two o'clock in the morning we arrived at the Novitiate in Nagatsuka. There our wounds were treated by Father Arrupe, the Rector. But we two were not the only clients. There were as many as eighty wounded, most of them from burns, whom the fathers and scholastics had picked up from the road, or who had found their way to the monastery. This house and the chapel, four miles from the center of the bombing, had been badly damaged. However, the house was turned into a hospital. The sisters who did social work in the town lost their house in the fires. They, too, found refuge in our house and did wonderful work for the wounded. It opened the eyes of many to what Christianity really is.
"The war was still going on, but when it was announced that the Emperor would speak on the radio, some of us thought it might be the end of the war. Such a thing had never happened before. Those who could walk assembled in the room where the radio was to hear what the message would be. When it was pronounced that Japan had surrendered to her enemies some of the Japanese cried. The surrender was like another atomic bomb: the magnificent edifice of the old Japan was simply smashed to the ground. They who had suffered the atomic bomb without tears, cried at the surrender."