Seeking to preserve the memories of WWII bombing the Kamaishi alive

On July 14 and August 9, 1945, Allied forces launched a naval bombardment of a city in Iwate Prefecture in the final stages of the Pacific War, eliminating it in attacks that killed at least 773 people.

Seventy-five years later, memories of the most devastating attack on the Tohoku region fade away as the number of survivors dwindles. But the city of Kamaishi hopes to preserve their stories and lessons learned through its annual exhibition on the attacks.

“The Naval Bombardment of Kamaishi,” an exhibition held at a city-run museum until August 31, houses some 60 exhibits including photographs, short descriptions of historical events, and comics depicting the experiences of war victims.

This year, organizers showed for the first time a set of sliding wooden doors pierced by shrapnel of one of the bombs dropped on the city for the first time. It was donated to the museum after it was removed from a house that was located in Kamaishi during its demolition in March of this year. The wooden doors are displayed next to a heavy, sharp bomb fragment that was recovered from elsewhere.

The first attack was carried out by the US Navy, while the second attack was carried out by a combined force of the US and British navies.

Much of the bombing targeted a local iron factory run by the Japanese Iron and Steel Corporation, now Nippon Steel. But the entire city was burned to the ground.

The Kamaishi Municipal Government has so far identified 773 casualties while a separate survey conducted locally shows that about 1,050 people have died in the naval bombardment.

The damage caused by the bombing of Kamaishi is equal to the repercussions of the bombing of Sendai and Aomori in July 1945, which killed 1,399 and 1,018 people, respectively.

But local civic groups have claimed that the city’s efforts to share stories of the war and stories of bombing victims are not enough, fearful that those memories will eventually fade.

On July 14 this year, 14 groups including the Local Peace Committee urged the Kamaishi Municipal Government to invest in the renovation of the Kamaishi Local War Museum and the Museum of Local History, and to build a memorial in honor of the bombing victims.

Minako Iwabana, chair of the Kamishi Peace Committee, regrets that the city has failed to take measures to highlight the war memories of victims of the 1945 naval bombardment.

“The city has not taken measures to describe and let people imagine how severe the damage the city has suffered,” said Iwabana. “There is no progress in collecting the materials (related to the bombing) or preserving the waste.”

The Museum of Local History has three employees but none of them are qualified to be curators. The museum’s permanent display has not seen major changes over the years and the annual special exhibitions are the only effort to attract visitors.

Keiichi Maikawa, 82, previously confirmed: “The Kamaishi earthquake destroyed the Sanriku earthquake in 1896, another major earthquake on the Sanriku coast in 1933 and the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, as well as two naval bombardments (in 1945).” Head of the City Peace Committee. “Kamaishi who stands today rose from the ashes as it was rebuilt in the aftermath of previous disasters. But Kamaishi’s suffering was not only caused by natural disasters but also by the disaster of man-made war, and we need to pass that history on to the next generation.”

Kenji Sano | KAHOKU SHIMPO

For Kenji Sano, 89, who owns a liquor store in Kamaishi, memories of the naval bombardment that happened when he was 14 are still fresh.

Sano still lives in Omachi, the same area within Kamaishi where his home and family-owned shop were when the US Navy attacked the city.

When the sirens went off on July 14, 1945, Sano ran to a shelter in the park with his mother and three store workers. He remembers the frightening sounds of aircraft dropping bombs, and anti-aircraft guns responded.

“At first I was relieved that the (Japanese) anti-aircraft artillery forces stationed in the port were shooting down American B-29 bombers, and they were doing their best,” Sano recalls.

Soon, however, we started to hear the click more clearly. I thought it was raining but when I peeked outside there were no ripples in the pond in our garden. When I looked back, our house was on fire. We jumped from the shelter. “

Sano, who was a second grader at a local high school, was concerned that he would be killed like a fly by bombers if he got out. He covered his head with a metal wash basin and a pillow and ran across several homes in the neighborhood toward a shelter built inside a large rock on the hill behind their home.

When this shelter caught fire, Sanu went up the hill to escape.

After the bombing ended, Sanu returned to find his house burned down. Much to his dismay, the rare stockpile of the precious sugar, which his family had possessed since they distributed it to neighbors during the war, had turned black in the fire.

Then he went to find his father, who had fled to a pine shed 7 or 8 kilometers away after falling ill, on foot. But it was a living hell with burning buildings and corpses piling up in the streets.

“My father and I thought we were dead, so when we were reunited, we burst into tears,” Sano said. “So far, my eyes are good when I remember that time.”

Sano emphasized that unlike air strikes when bombs stop flying once the attacker has passed, “you never know when the naval artillery attacks will stop.”

He added that it was also frightening that the bombing would come from anywhere.

Just before Sano was two years old, a massive tsunami swept his home in 1933. He vaguely remembers his trembling body with fear as he nursed from his mother’s breast.

Sano also lost his home due to the massive tsunami caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake that struck the region on March 11, 2011.

“My life has been full of disasters. But war is a man-made disaster. Mankind can prevent it. We should never have a war, never again.”

This section presents topics and issues from the Tohoku region covered by Kahoku Shimpo, Tohoku’s largest newspaper. The original article was published on July 20.

Related photos

Sliding door panels, damaged by shrapnel from the bombing, are on display at a local history museum for the first time. | Kahoku Shimbu

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