After the Manchurian Incident, the Shanghai Incident, and the outbreak of the full-scale war between Japan and China, the Japanese army and navy launched an attack on the northen Malay Peninsula and attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 8, 1941 (Japan time). Japan rushed into the Greater East Asia War (the Pacific War). In Hiroshima, a center of military affairs since the Sino-Japanese and the Russo-Japanese wars, military installations were expanded and various heavy industries developed rapidly.
In 1942, a Marine headquarters (under the command of Lieutenant General Fumio Saeki) was set up in Ujina, and related units were placed on the coast around Hiroshima City. Later, when the atomic bomb was dropped, these units, located about 4 kilometers away from the city, escaped destruction. They sent out relief squads and took a very active part in aiding the wounded, clearing the dead bodies and cleaning the streets.
In 1944, U.S. forces occupied Saipan, the last strategic point of the Japanese army on the south Pacific front, and established an air base from which to attack the mainland of Japan. In November full-scale air raids were begun, devastating the cities of Japan one by one.
Under such conditions, Hiroshima City began the evacuation of students above the third grade of elementary school and of other citizens whose presence was not essential. With the threat of incendiary bombings, demolition of buildings to make fire lanes was carried out on a wide scale. For the demolition of buildings, volunteer army corps in various places, organized according to the National Volunteer Army Conscription Law, and mobilized students of various middle schools and girls' schools were gathered to engage in the work each day.
An evacuation plan for citizens was made in preparation for the outbreak of a major conflagration caused by air raids. The evacuation destination of each neighborhood association was specified in advance in order to avoid confusion. The evacuation of people that had been organized at the outset of the air raids was prohibited near the end of the war in order to secure personnel necessary for air defense.
On August 6 1945, one atomic bomb instantly destroyed almost all of the houses and buildings in Hiroshima.
They caught fire immediately
and were reduced to ashes. In the case of wooden houses, those which
were within one kilometer of the hypocenter were smashed at the moment
of the explopsion. Those in the area between one kilometer and
two kilometers from the hypocenter were completely destroyed. Those in
the area two to three kilometers away were severely damaged. Even houses
three to four kilometers from the center of the explosion were badly damaged.In the case of reinforced concrete buildings, the roofs of those near the center of the explosion collapsed. Some of the buildings were flattened and became piles of rubble.
A fierce fire followed destruction by the violent blast caused by the explosion. Every building within one kilometer of the hypocenter was totally destroyed by the fire whether it was wooden or reinforced concrete. The buildings located one to two kilometers from the center were mostly destroyed by the fire, and those two to three kilometers from the center were partially destroyed.
Hiroshima Prefectural Government Hall, which was a wooden building 900 meters from the hypocenter, was flattened and burned. Hiroshima City Hall (1.2 kilometers from the center) also caught fire and the entire building was gutted, although the main shell of the hall which was reinforced concrete, was left standing.
Mayor Awaya died at his home and a great many officials were killed in their offices. The A-bomb destroyed all levels of administration, transportation facilities, including railroads, the communication system, journalism, offices, factories of private and public corporations, and all other facilities. The total destruction of these facilities caused such great confusion that it was utterly impossible to grasp the number of dead and wounded.
Army troops deployed around Hiroshima Castle, which was the center of Hiroshima as a military city, were nearly annihilated. On the evening of August 6, Vice Inspector General Hattori of the Chugoku District Superintendent's Office, Director of Hiroshima Prefectural Police Ishihara, and Governor Takano, who had returned from a business trip, gathered at Tamon-in Temple at the entrance to Hijiyama Park. They formed both a temporary prefectural government office and a temporary air-defence headquarters. Thirteen hours later they reported the disastrous situation and asked for help from the central government and other related organizations. Therefore relief activities on the day of the explosion were limited to the Akatsuki Corps sent from Ujina, naval personnel sent from the naval base at Kure, and a few small hospitals which survived the disaster.
