(37)Did Hiroshima receive aid from America in the aftermath of the bombing?

Food and daily necessities given as "reparations"

It might seem a bit strange that America, the country which dropped the atomic bomb, provided aid to Hiroshima. I looked into the matter at Peace Memorial Museum and Hiroshima City Hall and discovered that Hiroshima received "goodwill" aid from many more places than I expected.

In 1947 and 1948, Honkawa Elementary School, Fukuromachi Elementary School, and Ninoshima Gakuen School received packages of school supplies from All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington D.C.

A graduate of Honkawa Elementary School, Genji Higashikawa, 71, recalls that he was happy to receive new notebooks and pencils.

Children sent paintings and Japanese calligraphy back to the church to express their gratitude. Shizumi Shigeto, 56, who is a performing artist living in the United States, produced a documentary film about the paintings to depict the friendship between Americans and Japanese. According to her, the church sent school supplies such as notebooks and crayons, as well as toothbrushes, in seven shipments that weighed a total of 1553kg. The supplies were sent in a spirit of atonement towards Japan. One of the church ministers, learning that schools in Hiroshima lacked supplies, called for donations. Some of these supplies were then delivered to Honkawa Elementary School.

Students at Honkawa Elementary School are pleased to receive pencils and other items from the United States. (Photo taken around 1947, provided by Honkawa Elementary School)

The activities of other organizations, such as the Licensed Agencies for Relief in Asia (LARA) and the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe (CARE, now CARE International), are well-known. Hiroshima and cities like Tokyo and Osaka, which had suffered from air raids, were treated as priority areas for the receipt of aid.

LARA started delivering food and medical supplies to schools and hospitals in December 1946. Dairy cows and goats were included in the aid provided. According to the reprinted edition of a commemorative booklet, which was published by the former Ministry of Health and Welfare (1996), LARA was established in 1946 and comprised a total of 13 American religious and labor organizations.

CARE was founded in November 1945 with the aim of delivering aid to countries whose lands had become battlefields during World War II, such as Germany, France, and Austria. It was made up of 22 American organizations. After the first stage of aid work had been completed in Europe, CARE also began operating in Japan in 1948, providing food and daily necessities.

On the subject of why so much aid came from America, a representative of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Hironobu Ochiba, explained that the United States could afford to provide aid whereas many European countries had been war zones and were in no position to help other countries.

Not just food and daily necessities were donated

Between 1949 and 1953, Floyd Schmoe (1895-2001), an American forestry researcher, built 21 houses called "Houses of Hiroshima" for A-bomb survivors who had lost their homes in the bombing. Hiroshi Maekawa, 77, traveled from Tokyo to Hiroshima to help Dr. Schmoe in his work and he clearly remembers Dr. Schmoe saying that he was building houses to atone for America's sinful act.

Overseas aid also contributed to Hiroshima's reconstruction from the rubble of the bombing.

Peace Bridge and West Peace Bridge on Peace Boulevard were completed in 1952 and cost 110 million yen. Of that sum, 90 million yen came from America in the form of aid grants that had been converted into yen by the Japanese government and accumulated in a fund called "The Japan Aid Collateral Fund of the United States."

In the same year, Hiroshima City Children's Library opened. It was constructed at a cost of 5,260,000, of which four million yen had been donated by an association of California residents.

It is no mistake, then, to say that the American people's desire for atonement and the city's recovery played a part in the reconstruction of Hiroshima. (Kensuke Murashima, staff writer)