(29)What sort of damage was inflicted on Chugoku Shimbun by the atomic bomb?

The building was destroyed by fire, and 113 staff were killed

Chugoku Shimbun's headquarters, which is now located in Dobashi, Naka Ward, was in Kaminagarekawa at that time, near the present-day Mitsukoshi department store. That location was about nine hundred meters east of the explosion's hypocenter. There were two reinforced-concrete buildings there -- an older three-story building used for newspaper production, and a newer seven-story building that also had some tenants.

The burnt shell of Chugoku Shimbun's old building stands amid the devastation (photo by Mitsugi Kishida, August 9, 1945)

According to Osamu Heya, 57, chief of the Readers' Information Center, at 8:15 on the morning of August 6, 1945, there appear to have been only seven staff members on duty in the building. Few people were there at that time because no evening edition was being published, and because an all-clear had been sounded, so some employees had headed home, while others were on their way to work. Altogether at least 113 employees were killed, including those who were killed instantly and those who died later. This was about one-third of the company's entire staff.

The building didn't collapse but was engulfed in flames, and all of the company's production resources such as printing presses and paper were destroyed.

I examined some microfilmed issues of the Chugoku Shimbun that were published immediately after the bombing. Surprisingly, there was an issue dated August 9, only three days after the bomb struck. How could they publish a newspaper then, without printing presses or paper?

Mr. Heya explained that other newspaper companies printed the issues dated August 9 through September 2. Chugoku Shimbun had previously signed agreements with other newspaper publishers to take over printing in case of air raids or other disasters. After the bombing, they asked six companies, including papers in Osaka, Fukuoka and Shimane, to help with production. On August 9, 100,000 copies were delivered to Hiroshima Station from Osaka and Fukuoka for distribution in Hiroshima Prefecture, while another 162,000 copies were delivered directly to sellers in Yamaguchi Prefecture and northern Hiroshima Prefecture. In total, 262,000 copies bearing the Chugoku Shimbun nameplate were dispatched from other companies.

Shinichi Ueda, 93, former chief of the newspaper's Midorimachi sales agency, was one of those who rushed to the Hiroshima Station platform on August 9 to pick up his newspapers. Before the bombing, circulation had been about 380,000. Clearly there was a shortage of copies, but surviving newspaper staff and agency employees worked hard to get information to the people. Some copies were posted on the walls at aid stations in the city.

At the same time, preparations to resume the company's printing operations were starting. Just four days before the bombing, as a precaution against air raids, a rotary printing press had been moved into a shed in an old pasture in the village of Nukushina, now part of Higashi Ward.

Company historical documents reveal that about thirty to fifty surviving staff members gathered in Nukushina just after the bombing. Most of them had been exposed to the bomb, and some were injured.

They started with the electrical wiring, then set up the press (which had never been used before), gathered up ink, rolls of paper and other supplies that had been stored in other areas, and established a darkroom for film processing in an air-raid shelter. These intense efforts bore fruit less than a month later. Using this single rotary press, production resumed on September 3.

Seiso Yamada, 79, who worked for Chugoku Shimbun at the time, recalls, "We were short of personnel, fuel and communications. In such a state, even now I wonder how we managed to publish a newspaper." (Toshiko Bajo, staff writer)