Nagasaki Peace Park

Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Sun 5 Nov 2017 23:17
Nagasaki Peace Park
 
 
 
IMG_0085
 
We both left the A-Bomb Museum feeling incredibly wrung out. We left by the back entrance as the route suggested and rode a lift down a layer, out in to the bright sunshine opposite the People at Peace Memorial.
 
 
IMG_0086
 
A little girl holding up a dove.
 
 
IMG_0087
 
A very dramatic piece.
 
The inscription reads: The women at home prayed for victory as their men departed for the battlefields, but then the blood of countless peoples was shed on the vast continent and the far away islands. Finally, in 1945 as the war escalated, it brought tragedies of the Okinawa Islands followed by the inhuman atomic bomb attacks over Hiroshima on the 6th and Nagasaki on the 9th of August.
Ah! on that unforgettable day, in an instantaneous blast of indescribable heat, the bodies of tens of thousands of men and women, mothers and children were hideously torn and burnt to death.
After more than forty years, the agony continues even yet. Danger signs of a second nuclear war permeate our very existence. The earth stands at the brink of total oblivion.
We must not allow any more war! Nor the use of atomic weapons! Let us guard our precious green earth and preserve all life of every kind.
We erect this relief, still hearing the bursting cries of that day of each of those women long silenced in death. Bringing together all the turmoil from the depth of their tortured hearts and minds, we pledge ourselves never to repeat that disaster.                August 1, 1987
 
 
IMG_0090
 
A Monument for Korean Atomic Victims.
 
The inscription reads: This monument has been dedicated to the more than 10,000 Koreans who were victims of the atomic bombing in Nagasaki. A group of Japanese raised the funds to erect the monument and we make the following appeal while remembering the tragic loss Koreans were forced to live and die.
On August 22, 1910, the Japanese government put into effect a declaration to annex Korea and to colonize the nation under the strict and complete rule of Japan. Koreans were deprived of the liberty to live as free citizens within their own country and their human rights were grossly neglected. Man were drive (sic) in Japan having no recourse to live in Korea. The total number of Koreans, most who were forcibly brought to Japan and put to slavery, is believed to be 2,365,268 according to the Home Ministry. Of those, approximately 70,000 were located in Nagasaki Prefecture just before the Japanese surrender in World War II. At that time, over 31,000 Koreans lived in and around Nagasaki and were engaged in forced labor under atrocious conditions.
On August 9, 1945, America dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki and some 20,000 Koreans experienced the blast of the bomb and were exposed to the radiation. More than half of these people were instantly killed.
Here we apologize to Korea and the Koreans for the immeasurable suffering that we inflicted upon them during those tragic years; threatening them with the sword and the gun, colonizing and annexing their peninsula, bringing them against their will and abusing them in slavery and finally for the catastrophic way they had to die under the atomic bomb/ We strongly appeal for the total abolition of nuclear weapons from the face of the earth, and we hope for the peaceful unification of the Korean nation.
August 9, 1979
The Nagasaki Association to Protect Human Rights of Koreans in Japan.
Wow, (other than the “Man were drive” mistake with the translation) what an incredible thing to read and type here. The first time we saw plastic water bottles we questioned why, unsightly.......a list of thoughts. We were told the commonest thing that initial survivors craved was water, so offering this water is an act of kindness. (Many people, who appeared untouched after the bomb blast perished, some in days, weeks and some in years).
 
 
IMG_0091
 
Up above us, the lift we had used and a statue of a lady.
 
 
IMG_0092  IMG_0093
 
We see a picture of just after the bomb and today.
 
 
IMG_0094  IMG_0095  IMG_0096
 
We moved closer to this memorial, lovely to see a family feeding birds. A very powerful memorial.
 
“Atomic Bombing 50th Anniversary Commemorative Projects Monument”
When considering the present prosperity and peace of Japan and the development of Nagasaki, we must never forget the fact that about 70% of the victims of the Nagasaki atomic bomb, which exploded over this city at 11:02 a.m., August 9, 1945, were children, women and senior citizens.
Created by Nagasaki-born sculptor Naoki Tominaga, this monument expresses the horror of the atomic bombing, prays for the repose of the souls of the victims from whose noble sacrifice the buds of peace grew, and – through the form of a stricken child sleeping in her mother’s warm embrace – reaches with great motherly compassion and pleas for eternal peace toward a prosperous Japan of the 21st century.
Embodied in the monument is the sculptor’s reminder that the child is like Japan on the day of the atomic bombing, while their mother represents the support provided by the countries of the world in Japan’s efforts to build the peaceful nation that it has become today.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing the hypocentre area was refurbished and designated as a “prayer zone” a place to pray for the repose of the atomic bomb victims, to inform the world about the horror of the atomic bombing and to appeal for the abolition of nuclear weapons for the realization of lasting world peace.
This monument was erected here as the “Atomic Bombing 50th Anniversary Commemorative Projects Monument” to enhance and strengthen the hypocenter area’s role as a “prayer zone” and a hub for world peace.
Mayor of Nagasaki
July 1997
 
 
IMG_0099
 
IMG_0100  IMG_0101
 
Stone Lanterns at Shotokuji Temple
 
Located about 1.5 km south-southeast of the hypocenter, Tennozan Horinin Shotokuji Temple was founded in the year 1626, and this pair of stone lanterns was later donated by faithful parishioners.
The atomic bomb explosion at 11:02 a.m., August 9, 1945 crushed the main hall (made totally of fine keyaki wood) and toppled almost all of the statues and gravestones in the temple compound. Only these stone lanterns remained standing.
Donated to Nagasaki City as reminders of the devastation caused by the atomic bombing, these lanterns were erected on the present spot in February 1949.
Nagasaki City installs this plaque to pray for the repose of the souls of the people who died here and to ensure that this tragedy is never repeated.
March 2004.
 
 
IMG_0103
 
IMG_0104
 
IMG_0102
 
The Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki.
Nagasaki is a port city located on the westernmost extremity of Kyushu Island and surrounded on three sides (east, west and north) by verdant mountains. The city grew and flourished around a beautiful natural harbor stretching like a long fiord into the East China Sea. It was this harbor that greeted Portuguese ships in the 16th century and for more than 370 years until the atomic bombing watched a colorful and turbulent history unfold.
Early in the morning on August 9, 1945 the B29 bomber “Bockscar”, loaded with an atomic bomb, lifted off the runway at Tinian Air Base in the Mariana Islands and flew toward Kokura, an industrial center on the northern coast of Kyushu Island and the primary target for the world’s second atomic bombing. When the airplane reached the sky over Kokura, however, cloud cover prevent visual sighting. After circling three times, it changed course for the second target: Nagasaki.
Flying over this city, the bombardier of the Bockscar spotted the sprawling buildings of the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Arms Factory through a crack in the clouds and released the airplane’s fatal cargo from an altitude of 30,000 ft. (about 9,000 meters). With a blinding flash of light and an earth rending roar, the atomic bomb exploded 500 meters above Matsuyama-machi in the northern part of Nagasaki.
 
 
IMG_0109  IMG_0110
 
Memorial directly below the hypocenter. (Part of cathedral to the right).
 
 
IMG_0107 
 
IMG_0106
 
 
IMG_0112
 
IMG_0111  IMG_0114
 
Urakami Cathedral Wall Remnant
 
IMG_0113
 
 
IMG_0115
 
We reach the red ‘You Are Here’ box.
 
 
access_map  IMG_0117
 
We leave this area (the black hypocenter obelisk behind and to our left). Following the signs we will have to follow the river, cross it, and walk up the steep path to the main Peace Park (middle of picture above the trees).
 
 
 
 
ALL IN ALL SO MUCH TO REFLECT UPON
                     VERY MOVING AND SO SAD THAT SO MANY SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS WERE HIT