Young war victims remembered as Japan tries to pass Pacific War memories on to next generation

July 26, 2015



Young war victims remembered as Japan tries to pass Pacific War memories on to next generation

The summer vacation is a special occasion for Japanese school kids to study about the importance of peace and the preciousness of human lives. The Pacific War, which continued for three years and eight months through the summer of 1945, killed about 800,000 Japanese civilians, in addition to 2.3 million Japanese Imperial Army soldiers. This tells young Japanese that once a war broke out and indiscriminate bombings began, innocent people may also fall victim. Among the noncombatants killed in the war were an estimated over 10,000 children, including infants and elementary school pupils.
The heaviest casualty involving children occurred in Okinawa, the theater of a fierce ground battle fought between Japan and the United States from March to June of 1945. Many children were also killed in U.S. air raids on major cities across Japan and, to be even more tragic, in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. But school kids in small cities and towns were not free from U.S. air raids if they live near military facilities.
The Japanese Army’s Tachiarai Airfield in the northern part of Kyushu, southwestern Japan, was then said to be the largest in Asia and in charge of supporting operations in the Chinese continent and in Southeast Asia, but it was extensively damaged by U.S. air raids on March 27 and March 31 of 1945. Related facilities, including some barracks and aircraft manufacturing and repairing shops, had been relocated to neighboring areas, but these areas were also exposed to attacks mainly by B-29 bombers. As a result, dozens of kids were accidentally killed in a series of bombing and shooting around the airfield.
Displayed on the walls of a round room in the center of Tachiarai Peace Memorial Museum in Chikuzen Town, Fukuoka Prefecture, are the names of about 300 persons who lost their lives in U.S. air operations in the Tachiarai area. Among these victims are 34 elementary school kids, and 31 of them were killed when they tried to take shelter from a sudden air raid in the Tonta-no-Mori forest in Amagi to the east of the airfield on March 27. The remaining three pupils were killed on the same day at the Sangenya-no-Mori forest in Ogori.
The day when the incidents occurred was a closing ceremony day for elementary schools in the area. An early warning rang in Amagi when the school principal was speaking to his pupils at the ceremony. A few minutes later, an air raid warning was confirmed on radio. When pupils hurriedly began to evacuate in groups, a formation of over 70 U.S. bombers and fighters was already approaching the Tacharai area.
One of the groups had to pass an area with military facilities located before reaching their home in the village of Hitotsugi. The group had been led by a male teacher. When the group tried to pass the area, the teacher heard big sounds of explosion and realized bombing had started against areas around the airfield. He decided to take a different route and eventually, took the pupils
to Tonta-no-Mori, but 31 of them were killed there as a few bombs hit the site.
The teacher had retracted his steps before the attack, in search for the kids who separated from the group. When he returned to the site, he found many kids seriously wounded and lying in bloodshed. With his body muddy, he rushed back to the school and reported the incident to the principal.
The incident in Ogori also occurred in a similar situation. The three pupils killed there were on their way home after attending a closing day ceremony. The bodies of two of them were recovered, but a third pupil’s death was confirmed as his cap and other belongings were found hung on a tree.
The two sites, 8 kilometers apart, were actually vacant places in mulberry fields. According to a history book compiled by Ogori City, military supplies had been hid at Sangenya-no-Mori. Further, five wooden mock anti-air guns had been set up nearby.
The teacher who escorted the pupils to Tonta-no-Mori in Amag, currently called Asakura, attended ceremonies in memory of the young victims in later years, but it is said that he appeared “as if he were sitting on thorns,” said a local person who is familiar with the situation.
Tonta-no-Mori is preserved as a park to remember the tragedy. Pupils of a nearby elementary school visit the park on a peace study tour on the very day every year. At Sangenya-no-Mori, a black stone monument is built in memory of the three pupils and four others who lost their lives there. The monument is in the shape of an opened book. Three stars are marked on a corner of the opened page in dedication to the three young souls.
Groups of school boys and girls, accompanied by teachers and others, are seen visiting Tachiarai Peace Memorial Museum during the summer vacation. The museum, opened by Chikuzen Town in 2009, has a collection of over 10,000 war-related items. The facility defines itself as an “information sending base” to hand the war episodes down to the next generation and demonstrate the importance of peace.
One of the bombs dropped on Tonta-no-Mori hit a tall chinquapin tree and burned it down. The charred tree is currently placed as a monument in front of a city library. One day, three pupils were reading speeches in front of the tree. "They will make a speech at the forthcoming peace festival (of the city). So, they're rehearsing it," said a member of the festival organizer. The children introduced themselves as members of the Asakura Peace Kids, a local children's group.
The year of 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the Pacific War. Those who personally experienced the war believe that Japan should take the occasion to reconfirm its commitment to upholding the postwar pacifist constitution. But, as the security environment is unstable in East Asia, the public opinion is divided over the government’s policy of passing a bill to increase Japan’s war preparedness by enabling itself to exercise a right to collective defense.　
The number of elderly war witnesses in Japan is decreasing year by year. How to pass the bitter war memories down to the young generation is becoming an even more important task for Japan in properly positioning itself in the hard international situation.