Hiroshima blooms again-25 years later
HIROSHIMA, Japan (UPI) Trees and flowers would never grow again and there would be no more of Hiroshima's famous oysters. That was what many Japanese people thought 25 years ago.
Hiroshima city, situated in the western part of Japan's largest island of Henshu, was wiped out by the blast of the world's first atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945.
Those who survived the holocaust not only believed that plants would never grow again, but that the city would remain an uninhabited, ruined waste for a long time to come, if not forever.
There were more than 340,000 persons in Hiroshima—24,000 of them residents—when a formation of three B29s arrived over the city that August morning. The skies were clear and sunny.
One of the B29s stopped its engines at an altitude of 27,800 feet and released its one bomb.
The three aircraft quickly departed leaving behind them a trail of thick red columns of flames and an awesome mushroom shaped cloud.
In the stricken city below, buildings and houses were flattened and bodies of people and animals burned.
To this day, nobody knows for sure how many people were killed and injured. Estimates of the dead ranged from 80,000 to 200,000. The injured totaled more than 100,000.
America dropped another Atomic bmb on Aug. 9,1945 on Nagasaki,the southern Japanese port city,home of opera's Madame Butterfly.
Japan surrendered to the United States and its allies on Aug. 15, 1945.
The scars of the bombings can hardly be seen today in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
Hiroshima, reduced to ashes 25 years ago, is very much alive with a population of 560,000. It is the seat of the Hiroshima prefectural government and produces a great quantity of oysters from its scenic inland sea.
Hiroshima also is the home of a professional baseball team, the Hiroshima Carps, which plays in a city owned stadium located only a few thousand yards from the spot where the A-bomb exploded.
Hiroshima's name frequently appears nowadays in the economic pages of newspapers, as Japan's third largest automobile maker, Toyo Kogyo, has its head office and plants just outside the city.
And like any other Japanese city of its size, Hiroshima has its share of gay night life. Glittering neon signs light up the city. Japanese visitors and American and foreign tourists coming to Hiroshima in this year of Expo '70 have no difficulty finding out where bars and night clubs are situated.
Taxi driver Keichi Taguchi
talks readily enough about the lures and pitfalls of the night life—including a warning to strangers to beware the bar girls. "Many girls working in the bars and cabarets are associated with gangsters," he says. He is less forthcoming about the bombing.
A 57-year-old native Hiroshiman, Taguchi lived through the attack.
"Many people in this city don't talk about the genbaku (atomic bombing) anymore," he said. "They don't care to."
Taguchi was lucky. He suffered only a "falling out of my hair." He regrets he wasn't more foresighted when the war ended.
"If I were smart," he said, "I would have bought land and I would be rich today. But many people said at that time that the city would be no place for people to live. You could have bought land for practically nothing then. But today it costs more than a million yen ($2,777) a tsubue (4 square yards) in the heart of the city."
A park studded with green trees and benches by the river in the center of the city provides a comfortable outdoor resting place for citizens of Hiroshima. On sunny days girls in miniskirts stroll in the park while men sit on the benches to play shegi (Japanese chess).
This is the Hiroshima Memorial Park. It was above this park that the A-bomb exploded.
The bare iron frame dome perched atop what used to be the three story Hiroshima industrial exhibition hall stands across the river from the memorial park as one of the few physical reminders of the bombing. The city also maintains the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, where broken rocks, stones, torn clothing and photographs of people burned in the blast are on display.
CHICAGO (UPI) — The Rev. Jesse Jackson, head of Operation Breadbasket, said Sunday night "gun happy and mace happy" police were mistreating innocent blacks in their search for killers of two white policemen cut down by sniper fire near a public housing project Friday.
Search continues for Chicago killers
"I'm out here walking these streets because I don't want innocent men and women—average black people—killed because somebody has to draw blood for revenge," Jackson said.
Kaoru Ogura, director of the museum, said the exhibits "touch the hearts" of people who come to see them—an average of 5,000 to 6,000 a day by his estimate.
"And I think it would probably be like lighting a match to the stem on a piece of dynamite if someone is killed here in the Cabrini homes tonight."
"Some people leave the museum with feelings of shock after learning the horror of war," he said in an interview. "Many young Japanese who never experienced war depart with conviction that there should be no war.
Authorities said the shootings apparently stemmed from a "peace party" being held by two street gangs in a vacant apartment in the Cabrini homes.
The conversation at the party,
John T. Cartan, commander of police homicide, said a murder warrant had been issued for John Veal, 17, leader of the Cobra Stones street gang.
"The police are so gun happy and mace happy they are just knocking people over in the hall (of the project) and are going to kill somebody," Jackson told newsmen.
Three youths have been charged with murder in the deaths of Sgt. James Severin, 38, and Patrolman Anthony Rizzato, 37, and police
were seeking a fourth suspect.
Sidney Bennett, 18, and George S. Knights, 23, were held on a murder charge without bond. A 14-year-old juvenile also was charged.
Four of the men who accompanied Jackson to the North Side Cabrini Green housing project area were arrested but only one was charged—with unlawful use of weapons and failure to signal, police said. Jackson went to the police station where the men were released.
"Thus, I believe Hiroshima has played a role for peace in the world. Like other students, those in Hiroshima University are opposed to all wars and not just against the nuclear weapons."
Police said they have received "hundreds of tips from anonymous callers" in connection with the police deaths.
Dr. Lucius Hoyt, a general practitioner from Reynolds, Ill., said he thought the display at the museum "is very well put together."
police said, turned to shooting policemen. An open window provided a clear shot to Severin and Rizzato. Neither man ever pulled his pistol.
Belsky said the survivors come to the commission voluntarily and they get physical checkups free of charge. "Some come because they feel 'America owes it to me'," he commented.
He said from time to time the commission finds something it had not found before. "In a very recent review," he said "we found that perhaps young people—children at the time of the bombing who received high doses—might risk having cancer sooner than would be expected for their age. This was not known 10 years ago."
"The reason is that these people who are survivors represent a very unique situation which we hope will not be repeated," he told UPI. "At the same time those who come here seem willing to help the world discover what if any new late effects there are."
Severin and Rizzato, who volunteered for a "walk and talk" patrol designed to improve community relations were gunned down Friday night on a grassy field near the Cabrini Green public housing area. They had organized a baseball game in the same area.
tal in the city, there are 147 people who are hospitalized with diseases connected with the bombing.
The three suspects were arrested less than 24 hours later in the vicinity of the Cabrini homes, police said.
Dr. Joseph L. Belsky, chief of medicine, sys the study at the commission must continue.
Rizzato and Severin were shot in the back by a high powered rifle.
Hundreds of policemen swarmed the area following the shooting, but were pinned down by more shooting before being able to get the wounded policemen out of the area.
And on the other side of the city, on a hill, a team of American and Japanese medical experts continue to engage in research on latent effects of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
"It reports fairly," he said after seeing the exhibits during a visit to Hiroshima. "There's nothing nice about the atomic bomb and you cannot make anything nice out of it. Yet it's part of war and there is nothing nice about war."
These physicians are working for the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, a joint operation by the governments of the United States and Japan.
Authorities said the residents of the area "were immeasurably helpful, and the prime factor in solving the crime."
Few turn out at Nazi rally
Former Midwest Nazi Party Leader Frank Collin, 25, who reportedly was booted from the Party after his father said there was Jewish blood in the family, blamed the small turnout on a light rain. The American Nazi Party has changed its name to the White People's Socialist Party.
CAIRO, Ill. (UPI) — Thirty-one persons, including six plain-clothes policemen, two newsmen, nine juveniles and four alleged Nazis, turned up Sunday for a rally at which a former Party head attempted to recruit new Party members.
The four Nazis—Collin of Olympia Fields, Otto Voda and Robert Gawryla of Chicago and George Karras of DeKalb—said they would return to Cairo in two weeks.
"We only want to present our program to Cairo," Collin said. "If the people here reject us after we present it, then that's your business."
10 KANSAN July 21 1970
SALE
We can help him find you with our newest and most adorable fashions-choose your length. (A small deposit will hold your back to school wardrobe until needed.)
Cool Summer Fashion $ \frac{1}{2} $ OFF & MORE DRESSES SLACKS SKIRTS SHORTS PURSES
Remember we have a date for the Sidewalk Bazaar—Thursday, All Day-Downtown Lawrence!
922 Massachusetts the VILLAGE SET VI 2-1400
While Hiroshima gives the outward impression that effects of the bombing have practically vanished, there are some people who still suffer from it.
The nickname of North Dakota is the Flickertail State.
At the Japan Red Cross Hospi-
BAZAAR DAY SPECIALS
Our Famous $9.00 Mexican Tire Tread SANDALS
Three Patterns To Choose From. Soles Are Guaranteed For 30,000 Miles
Other Men's Sandals Were $6 to $11 $3 - $4.90 - $6.90
813 Mass. St. Phone VI 3-2091