ROYAL VISIT TO HIROSHIMA

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25377, 27 December 1947, Page 7

ROYAL VISIT TO HIROSHIMA

JAPAN’S EMPEROR ACCLAIMED LOYALTY AND AFFECTION DEMONSTRATED (Fiom Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, December 9. On Sunday I saw the most astonishing sight I have seen since I entered Japan with the first occupation forces, in August, 1945, writes Jack Percival, correspondent in Japan of the “Sydney Morning Herald.” It was aiso a significant spectacle, demonstrating the strength of Japanese loyalty to the Emperor and personal affection lor Hirohito.

There were 129,558 casualties when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima (more than 78,000 killed, nearly 14,000 missing, more than 9000 seriously injured, and nearly 28,000 injured). Nearly 70,000 houses and buildings of various kinds were demolished Or shattered.

Yet on Sunday, when Emperor Hirohito, on his first tour in the British Occupation Area, visited the city of horrors, 500.000 people lined the streets 12 deep and gave him the most rousing welcome he has so far received. I saw aged men and women who had been carried from their houses sitting on the kerb with tears in their eyes; I saw men and women, their backs, chests, and faces covered with keloids, who led a ringing series of “banzais.’* I saw lines of schoolchildren stretching along the roadsides Time after time the crowds broke the barriers, and it seemed that tha cars in the procession would be overturned.

Hirohito was more nervous than I have ever seen him before. His head was shaking as if he had palsy, and he was faltering in his steps. He raised his hat to the crowds and spoke feelingly and with smiles to war orphans who assembled on the roadside wearing their fathers’ ribbons. Kiyoshi Kikkawa, one of the most badly-burned victims of the atomic bombing, who is regarded as No. I patient at Hiroshima’s Red Cross Hospital, did not have the honour of meeting the Emperor, but he said he wanted to visit New York so he could parade the streets with his shirt off and let the populace see his keloids. i Crowds Wait in Cold Before Hirohito entered Hiroshima crowds started to assemble in the freezing cold of the early morning. Men, women, and children, using small brooms, cleaned the streets over which his maroon-coloured Benz would travel, and filled in potholes on 20 miles of road so that his journey would be comfortable. His luggage was loaded on special hand trolleys covered with brand-new white silk sheets. The highlight of the Emperor’s visit to Hiroshima came when he stood on a special dais at the City Hall. On this daife, overlooking the whole wrecked city, was a desk with a glasscovered map of the city. Beside the map was a pair of binoculars, and next to them a new purple silk handkerchief for cleaning the lenses. Hirohito neither looked at the map nor used the glasses. At the end of the description of the bomb’s toll he solemnly thanked the people of Hiroshima for their reconstruction efforts and for their efforts to reconstruct Japan into a peaceful nation. The Emperor’s five-hour visit to Hiroshima cost 3,000,200 yen. At its conclusion he boarded the luxurious royal train and started his journey to Kure, headquarters of the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces in Japan. During his train journey the whole length of the track was lined with hundreds of thousands of Japanese. At Kure he was received by another huge , crowd. Hirohito’s tour of Hiroshima waß witnessed by 14 British and Aknerican correspondents and photographers, all of whom consider that it was his most successful tour. Thus far, correspondents, allied political observers, and intelligence officers who witnessed the tour have unanimously concluded that, firstHirohito is stronger in the hearts of his people than ever before, second, that he was greeted with fanatical adoration by a people who have no - idea that they have been defeated.