A shell fired from a U.S. naval warship disrupted life Sunday in Hamamatsu, an industrial city in central Japan. Officials issued an evacuation advisory to 12,000 residents, blocked traffic in the area, and stopped passing bullet trains, affecting 11,000 passengers.
For a brief moment, Japan 2013 was thrown back to Japan 1945 — the year the shell was fired.
A full 68 years after World War II ended, the Japanese are still uncovering with some frequency bombs and shells from the intensive American pounding of the country, particularly during the final year of hostilities. Between April 2012 and March 2013, the Self Defense Forces handled 1,430 cases of bomb disposal nationwide, according to the defense ministry.
The Hamamatsu shell in focus Sunday — 153 centimeters long, 40 centimeters in diameter, weighing 860 kilograms — was discovered on June 4 at a JR Tokai maintenance facility while the plant was undergoing renovations. It was the second U.S. military shell found there this year, following a similar discovery in February.
Having lived with the unexploded shell there for more than six decades, officials decided they could wait a few more months to schedule its disposal. They fixed Sunday, Nov. 10 as the date to remove the shell from the factory. The plan was to transport the shell to a beach four kilometers away, to be safely detonated. Residents in the area of the route were advised — though not ordered — to evacuate. Central Japan Railway Company, or JR Tokai, ceased its 21 bullet train services for about 40 minutes Sunday morning, affecting 11,000 passengers.
The bomb was transported on a back of an SDF truck to the beach, buried in the sand and safely disposed, said Toru Kaneshima, a spokesman for Hamamatsu City.
According to the SDF, the explosive was identified as a shell fired from a U.S. navy warship around 1945. Records show that around midnight on July 29 of that year, eight naval ships fired 2,000 shells at Hamamatsu City, causing 170 deaths, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
The ministry notes on its website that Hamamatsu was likely targeted as it hosted for air force facilities and had many factories for war industries. In addition, the city was on the path of the U.S. forces’ entry to mainland Japan. U.S. attacks from air and sea were carried out 27 times against the city, causing 3,000 casualties in Hamamatsu.
Since 1990, Hamamatsu has discovered six such American duds and disposed of them at the beach, include the two this year.