The bell was rung over and over. Children rang it, politicians rang it, and people who have survived a nuclear bomb rang it. Monday marked the 65th anniversary of the atomic bomb being dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Another city, Hiroshima, was bombed three days before.
It was the first — and last — time that nuclear weapons have been used in war.
A low-key ceremony was held at the Friendship Bell exhibit on Shelter Island to commemorate the lives lost, with speakers delivering messages of peace and hope.
They face the same pressure to preserve aging survivors’ testimonials as those seeking to memorialize other monumental moments, such as the Pearl Harbor attack and the Holocaust.
Participants pushed for nuclear weapons to never be deployed again. One was Akiko Mikamo, whose father suffered extensive burns from the Hiroshima blast. Another was Ikunosuke “Mike” Kawamura, who lost a cousin to the same bombing. And yet another was Fumie Schutt, who was pulled from the rubble in Nagasaki.
More than 200,000 people died from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in Japan. The United States’ leaders said they had little choice but to use the atomic bombs. They wanted to bring a swift end to World War II in 1945 and avoid what likely would have been a drawn-out invasion of the Japanese mainland.
On Friday, dignitaries held a remembrance ceremony in Hiroshima. For the first time, a representative of the United States, Ambassador John Roos, attended.
On Monday, solemn commemorations took place in Nagasaki and towns worldwide.
Here are the accounts of three people who joined a gathering Monday at the Friendship Bell site on Shelter Island.
Ikunosuke “Mike” Kawamura was only 2 years old when the Hiroshima bombing occurred, but the incident made a lifelong impression on him.
He was being carried on his grandmother’s back. He recalls seeing a “bright, red sky.”
“Vividly,” he said, “I remember that.”
He was lucky. Even though he was less than two miles from the blast, he was living on the eastern side of the city, which was protected by a small mountain called Hijiyama.
Kawamura became an executive for Kyocera, the global maker of cell phones, printers and other products. It was the job that brought him to the United States. He lives today in University City.
He has three children, two of whom were born in the U.S.
His family is international now, he said, a reflection of how people across the globe are increasingly connected and need harmony more than ever.
For many years, Kawamura didn’t talk about his experience. In his late 50s, he realized he had to share his story.
“I have had a special experience,” Kawamura, 67, said of his survival. “I now have a mission to spread the word of peace.”
Fumie Schutt was 17 and working in the finance department of a Mitsubishi plant — it was making torpedoes then, not cars — when the atomic bomb devastated Nagasaki.