(32)Are A-bombed streetcars still in service?

Two trams are still in service as a testimony to the atom bombing

The streetcars that run through the heart of Hiroshima are one of the symbols of the city. Streetcars also happened to be carrying a large number of people on the morning of August 6, 1945. The route of the streetcars was almost the same as it is today. When the atomic bomb was dropped, at 8:15 a.m., it was the middle of rush hour. Seventy of the 123 trams of the Hiroshima Electric Railway were operating on city streets.

Tatsuyoshi Suematsu, head of the Transportation Planning Group of Hiroshima Electric Railway, says two of the bombed streetcars are, in fact, still in operation. This is the 63rd year since the end of the war, so those surviving streetcars need to be serviced with new parts and they lack horsepower, but he hopes they will keep running so as not to forget the yearning for peace. Inside the streetcars are plaques that explain the bombing in both Japanese and English.

I checked the damage on the streetcars.

Hiroshima Electric Railway's 50-year history book (published in 1992) and a book of experiences of A-bomb survivors who were on streetcars (published in 1991) reveal that 22 cars, including those that were in the train shed, were totally destroyed, 23 cars were severely damaged, and 63 cars suffered some damage. In total, 108 cars were damaged, approximately 90% of the entire fleet of 123 cars.

Near the hypocenter, one tram was blown as far as 5-10 meters from the train tracks. One witness recalls, in the aforementioned book, "Suddenly, from the front of the car, the inside turned red like a fireball. The tram was packed and the passengers fell over like bowling pins as they pushed to get out. I was pushed out onto the footboard."

At that time, Hiroshima Electric Railway had 1241 employees. That included about 300 students of a girls'school that the company had trained with the aim of redressing its labor shortage. On August 6, about 950 employees were on duty and 211 of them were killed, including 30 students.

Ms. Sasaguchi shares her experience of the A-bombed streetcar "651," still in service today.

Despite such terrible damage, streetcars started operating again on August 9, only three days after the bombing.

"Our mission is operating streetcars so we couldn't rest when they were brought to a halt by the atomic bomb," recalled Yukiharu Nakagawa, 79, who was in charge of maintaining the system's power lines. Despite a severe lack of labor and equipment, the workers were motivated by their determination to resume streetcar services in the city.

On the morning of August 7, about 50 workers gathered spontaneously at the head office of the company. More than 90% of all 102,400 meters of power lines were damaged. Other power lines were sent from private railway companies in Kochi and Ehime prefectures and Kure City's streetcar company, but these resources were not sufficient, so workers used trucks to pull power lines out from under the debris.

The Japanese military cooperated by using tanks to remove streetcars from the tracks. Hiroshi Kono, 83, who was working as a streetcar driver and collected accounts from students of the girls'school for a book called "The Girls Who Made the Streetcars Run," thinks the reason the military assisted with this effort was due to their preparations for the decisive battle on the Japanese mainland. At the time, the Japanese Second Army had its headquarters in Hiroshima and streetcars were important to the army since they were responsible for the transportation of soldiers and supplies.

When the streetcars resumed operating, they ran free of charge. Satoko Sasaguchi, 77, who was working as a conductor, was a first-year student of the girls'school. Before she began her shift, she was told not to take fares from passengers, so she got on the streetcar without her money bag. She clearly remembers that a middle-aged male passenger smiled at her and said "Thank you." She recalls, "I didn't ask why they decided not to take fares, but I think everybody wanted to help each other through that difficult time." (Kensuke Murashima, Staff Writer)