Hiroshima Remembers 1945

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30823, 7 August 1965, Page 15

Hiroshima Remembers 1945

(.V Z PA -Reuter—Copyright > HIROSHIMA, Aug. 6. Hiroshima today was a city of memories, sadness and hope as tens of thousands of people stood in silent prayer, remembering its destruction 20 years ago by an atomic bomb. At 815 a m —th time when that atomic flesh enveloped the city and killed an estimated 200.000 people—clus ti'rs of pigeons were released as an appeal by the city for world peace.

A few of the 96,000 "radiated” survivors who still live here stood with new citizens of the reborn Hiroshima heads bowed, as the mournful peal of the peace bell echoed across its mountain-ringed city. in all, some 30,000 persons crowded the broad lawns of the tree-lined memorial park for the commemoration ceremonies. Two 20-year-old girls orphaned by the bomb repre sented the survivors in paying *ribute to the dead by placing t wreath on the cenotaph. During the morning more than 6000 persons placed wreaths on the memorial, containing a tomb bearing the names of identified victims and those who have died

since from the effects of radiation. As the huge rally joined together in the prayer “No More Hiroshima,” the Mayor, Mr Shinzo Hamai. himself a survivor, placed in the tomb a list of 469 names of persons who have died here in the last year from the effects of the blast. Then, facing the silent crowd, Mr Hamai appealed for peace, saying that a nuclear age war would lead to the destruction of humanity. Japan’s chief Cabinet secretary. Mr Tomisaburo Hashimoto. read a message from the Prime Minister, Mr Eisakti Sato. It said that Japan, as the only country to suffer the evil of atomic attack, fervently

hoped for the establishment of world peace. Mr Sato pledged his utmost efforts to realise this objective. As the peace bell pealed out across the city, all public transport came to a halt and people stood in silent prayer In the atomic bomb hospital here, where people still lie in misery, nurses and doctors stood in wards with heads bowed. From noon, a special memorial service sponsored by survivors of the blast, was being held in Hiroshima for the first time since the war. Tonight lighted paper “spirit” lanterns will be placed on rivers flowing through the city in a traditional Japanese remembrance ceremony.