Walking to zero

A take on the Hiroshima bombing

Walking to zero

 

It was a fine August morning, a Monday. Grandfather Ichiro woke early, cast a weather eye outside. He was pleased to see that after two days of rain only a few light clouds scattered a blue sky. Ichiro had arranged to collect his two grandchildren, Kenjo and Shika, from his daughter’s house a short distance away. Kenjo and Shika would have an early breakfast and then the three of them would walk down to the fish market beside the river. Ichiro was looking forward to the trip and he knew the children would be excited.  Their father was in the army and was posted nearby at the castle but they saw him rarely. Since his wife died just last year Ichiro was pleased to help his daughter with the children. It was a pleasure and a support for them all.

 

The city had been woken before six am by the air raid sirens but thankfully the all clear had been sounded just after seven. Ichiro reached his daughter’s house a few minutes after the all clear.

‘Good morning Narumi.’ He called to announce his arrival.

Narumi opened the sliding door to allow him in.

‘Good morning father. I thought you would have to cancel your visit to the fish market but it should be safe now.’

‘Don’t worry, Narumi - for some reason the Americans have decided to leave us alone!’

 

The children were just finishing their breakfast of sticky rice with a meagre flavouring of grilled fish and pickle. Wartime rations were very scant. 

‘Put your bowls and chopsticks in the washing bowl, wash your hands and then say your prayers at the shrine. Don’t forget to pray for your father and grandmother!’

‘Are you managing all right Narumi?’  Ichiro asked his daughter with concern. ‘Of course,’ she smiled, ‘don’t worry father - we all have to do our bit for Nippon.’

A few minutes later the children came to the door.

‘We can’t wait to see all the fish at the market grandfather.’ He smiled at them.

‘Next year you’ll be at school, Kenjo. We’ll not be able to visit the market together.’

Narumi came to the door and kissed both the children. ‘Be on your best behaviour for your grandfather!’

‘Don’t worry mother, we’re always good.’ They all laughed but they were indeed always good children.

 

Ichiro took one grandchild in each hand and they set off slowly down the street towards the city centre and the river beyond. Narumi looked wistfully at them. Her father was looking his age now and seemed more stooped that usual. It seemed no time since he had been a young man and she remembered him taking her and her two brothers to see the fish at the market. She shook her head nostalgically and went back inside to continue with housework.

 

The street they walked down was lined with tightly packed traditional houses of wood with tiled roofs.  The city had been awake for some time now and the streets were becoming busy with children going to school and workers walking or cycling to offices and factories. Ichiro and the children reached the area of small shops and businesses around the city centre. In this area the pavements were bustling with many people going about their business and the road was busy with handcarts, a few ancient cars and small trucks. Shopkeepers were bringing out their goods to display on the stalls outside their shops.

 

‘Are you going to get us a treat today Grandfather?’ They both knew he always did.

‘Do you think you deserve one?’

‘Yes Grandfather,’ they chorused in unison, ‘we’re always good!’

‘We would like an orange, please!’ Ichiro smiled. The children were not greedy. His daughter had brought them up to be respectful.

Now they turned into the busy main street leading to the river. Larger stores and offices lined either side of the street and the children were always excited to see the trams gliding down the street under the overhead wires.

‘Time for your treat, children!’ He laughed as he saw them looking this way and that for a fruit stall. ‘We are going to ride in the tram down to the river.’  Kenjo and Shika’s mouths fell open.

‘A tram ride, Grandfather?’ Kenjo eventually found the power of speech.

‘Look, here is one coming!’ Ichiro held their hands tightly and they climbed on board.

‘Upstairs?’ A wasted question of course! Ichiro paid the ticket collector a few coins and they climbed up the stairs. They were only going three stops but of course the view was better and shaking of the tram on the rails added excitement.

‘Thank you Grandfather!’ They beamed up at Ichiro. ‘We’ll remember this for ever!’

Now they were within a few yards of the Motoyasu River and the fish market with its exciting varieties of multicoloured fish. 

They paused for a moment in front of the stone wall outside the bank.

‘Hold my hands children - I don’t want to lose you!’

‘Grandfather, look!’ Shika pointed up into the blue sky. Ichiro and Kenjo peered up, squinting their eyes against the sun.  ‘There’s a plane! Is it American?’

‘It’s too small to make out. It is flying from the east but don’t worry, it can’t be American - the siren hasn’t sounded!’

They watched intently and then suddenly Kenjo, who had the sharpest eyes said, ‘look, there’s a ……………………………..

 

 

 

 

A few months later Norman and Bill, two young British men in their early twenties arrived in Japan. They had spent the last few years as Royal Marine musicians aboard a British battleship. When the war finally ended, the battleship, HMS Anson, was posted to the Japanese port of Kure.

 

One day when the two men had some leave they decided to visit the nearby city that had been the subject of a severe bombing attack. They had heard about the attack on the radio and wanted to see the devastation for their own eyes. Bill and Norman travelled the short distance to the city by train and were then given a lift to the city by some American soldiers. As they approached the outskirts one of the Americans warned them, ‘be prepared for what you are about to see!’

 

Norman had witnessed the destruction caused by German air raids on Plymouth but nothing prepared them for what they witnessed as they looked over the city.  ‘It’s like pulling back a curtain, Bill, but there is nothing but rubble!’  Norman gasped in shock!

‘If this is a curtain then it’s a window into hell Norman - I’ll never forget this as long as I live!’ Bill replied in a quavering voice. Then, overcome by the enormity of it all, the two young men just stood and gaped.

 

After a few minutes Bill and Norman start to walk slowly towards the centre of the city along a road from which the rubble has been cleared. Apart from three small shells of concrete buildings the city was completely flattened but to describe it as a city would be a great feat of imagination, for unlike a normal city there were no people and there were no buildings.

‘The only good thing about this is that the war is finished!’ Bill said in an effort to make some sense of what he was seeing.

‘That’s true, Bill, and at least the people here would have known nothing about it!’

‘Yes, but what about the poor Japs living further out. There must be thousands with injuries and terrible burns. What I’d like to know is where they all are?’

‘They say that there were thousands of soldiers in the city but we all know that most of the dead and injured were civilians.’

 

‘Look Norman,’ Bill pointed to a few ramshackle huts tucked in beside some rubble. A handful of Japanese civilians sat in front of the huts, dressed in rags with dirty bandages covering burns.

‘They want food! Let’s give them our lunch Bill.’ The two young pals passed over the sandwiches and biscuits they had brought whereupon the two women, the elderly man and the child showed their great gratitude with numerous bows.

 

As they walked on they passed two American marines sitting in their jeep at an intersection. The sergeant spoke to them. 

‘Hi guys, you’re Brits aren’t you? Are you down at Kure? What do you think of all this?’

‘It’s hard to take in but did we really need to do this to end the war?’

‘Only God knows! But as they say, the world will never be the same!’ Bill replied.

‘I just hope I’m not around for the next war - next time it won’t just be the Americans that will be able to do this.’

‘Yes, that’s true, but what about our children?’

Norman shook his head. ‘You know, Bill, if you haven’t seen this place with your own eyes no one will understand what’s been done here.

 

As they walked on along the street they followed the tramlines, buckled from the unimaginable heat. Further on Bill spotted the twisted remains of a motorcycle that had been welded by the heat to the bent and melted metal stump of a lamppost.

 

Finally Bill and Norman approached that point which had been the centre of the city. They could see the blasted ruins of a single concrete building

with a crazily twisted metal cupola etched against the blue sky. The two men stopped close to the Motoyasu river which had been reduced to a mere trickle. Behind them a stone wall had somehow survived.

 

Norman turned and time stopped as something unimaginable caught his attention. Bill also turned to follow Norman’s gaze. The two men gaped and tears streamed down their cheeks as the enormity of what they had just witnessed in the ruins of the city was reduced to human terms.

 

On the wall behind them they could see a dark stain - the blurred but unmistakeable imprint of an adult holding the hands of two small children. One child’s arm was clearly pointing to the sky.

 

 

 

From the moment the bomb was dropped from the American B29 bomber, Enola Gay, gravity took over and it fell for 44seconds before detonating at a height of 1900 feet over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. A blinding flash of light and heat almost instantaneously seared the city, charring anything close to the detonation and starting numerous fires further out, leading to an all consuming firestorm. Seconds later a blast wave rolled out over the city crushing flesh and pulverising buildings in it’s path. An estimated 80,000 died in the initial attack with perhaps the same number again dying in the weeks and months to come.

 

The two young British sailors were my father Bill Graham and his pal Norman Lewis. Neither spoke to their families about their visit to Hiroshima. Bill passed away just into the millenium. Norman continued to hold his tongue until the seventieth anniversary of the atomic bombing came when he decided to break his silence and speak about his experiences on that day.

 

Alan Graham, March 2016

 

Reviews

[Kathy Van Kurin]

'Walking to zero'
Alan Graham,
Thankyou so much for sharing this wonderful story.
Words leave me. I don't have anything to say
as my head is lowered with sadness at what happened in Hiroshima. Your father was brave to share. Your way of telling the beginning with the end is enough.
Bless you for giving this event a place once again for readers.
You did good.
Kathy

[alanwgraham]

Thanks Kathy, for taking the time to find this story and read. It is important to remind the younger generations about these events. It was an emotional piece for me to write knowing that my dad had never been able to speak about it.
I hope you are well.
Regards,
Alan

[Kathy Van Kurin]

Your welcome Alan. You have done a wonderful job in using your writing gift with this sensitive issue and the people affected.
Bless you.

[The Last Dragoon]

The story is good, and the two parts linked together well.

But stories of the War, and the atomic bombings in particular, are shoal waters for most writers, obviously because WMD are incendiary words these days, but mostly because of the history overlay of 70 years. By 2017, atomic bombs had held billions hostage, and even now, the Pakistan-India conflict is nuclear cold with a good reason being that neither has first strike counter force ability, in the twisted language of the cold war. In '45, the air war against Japanese cities/industries had been going on for six months, with about 40 burned down. While the H and Nag. bombs were bad, they were on the the upper end of the scale of destructiveness but not at the apex, with several other raids being worse. And that context is rarely discussed. The context includes war in China with China suffering killed, on average, 200,000 each month since the war began in July of '37.

So you could easily take the same story structure but with the first part taking place in a Chinese village that will be there the next day because of events over Hiroshima.

For the record, I note that postwar investigation by the Army shows the Japanese would have surrendered before the invasion, but only because of the ongoing air war. had Hiroshima and Nagasaki been visited by ordinary B-29 raids, along with four or six or ten other cities between August and November, the Japanese would have thrown in the towel.

And there were all kinds of reactions, back in '45. I have absolutely no doubt your father was profoundly moved by the destruction. My father, USN, would have been in the invasion fleet and was overjoyed he wasn't. More so my mother, who would have her husband returned safe after four years of wartime serve (an who already lost a brother in the Philippines).

All that said, I think your writing is superior, and I've enjoyed several stories. I also have one featuring an interrogation, with a different take, called "Sentimental Journey", which you might enjoy.

[alanwgraham]

Thanks for looking at this and your very pertinent comments. You are completely correct in what you say about the ending of the war and then the post war nuclear stand off. I have focussed on the story I discovered about my dad and the significant point that he never mentioned it (as many did not). Thanks again for sharing your own bit of family history.
Regards,
Alan

[The Last Dragoon]

Thanks.. I was worried that I'd come across as heavy handed preaching. the author George MacDonald Fraser (Flashman series) has some interesting and unusual things to say about the atomic bombings in his quasi-autobiographical account of the war, Quartered Safe Out Here. he was a lance corporal in the Burma theater at the time.

[alanwgraham]

Thanks. I'll have a look for that. I'm aware the writing about real life events both historical and present day can be a minefield.
Alan

[Duncan Brown]

Come come come come........................

[alanwgraham]

Thanks for taking the time to read this and your rather enigmatic review.
Cheers.
Alan

[Clyde Grauke]

This is a horrific story well told. You were brave to tackle it. Your sequencing and style help the reader look this reality full in the face. I particularly like the way you take the time to build the identification with the Japanese family before reaching the ground zero and before zooming back out through the equally human story of your father, the impersonal technicality of the bomb, and the way you as a writer were brought in to carry this very human story forward.

[alanwgraham]

Thanks Clyde. I am just about to contact my dad's friend Norman to see whether he approves!

[Stan Lee]

Wow, that's pretty intense stuff. Thanks for sharing this important story.
Great descriptions, well told, well done. :)

[p lawrence]

Fascinating story, Alan. I had several uncles in the war, both in Europe and the Pacific. They're all gone now, but only one of the four ever spoke about the fighting. The others would simply shake a head and raise their newspaper. Very well told. Nice job.

[Samuel Dickens]

Very well done. You're an excellent story-teller, possessed of great writing skill. War... ugh. As you so well demonstrated with the Japanese family, our supposed enemies are not monsters, but people just like us, deserving of life. If mankind had any sense, he would never, ever go to war.
I guess she's long gone now, but there was a writer here a few years ago who had a story about the shadow, too.