Students of Denshukan High School in Yanagawa, Fukuoka Prefecture, have investigated the history of a cenotaph for past students of their school who were mobilized during World War II.
They compiled stories and records to remember 17 students from their school who had lost their lives in air raids.
Having learned that memories from the ravages of war existed so close to them, the students also began working to reinstate a memorial service for the war dead.
It had been held at the school until 2015, when it stopped as the people involved grew too old.
On Aug. 7, 1945, near the end of World War II and a day after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, U.S. bombers attacked a munitions factory and other places in Omuta, Fukuoka Prefecture.
One day after the air raids, the Nishinippon Shimbun carried an article with the headline “40 fighter bombers in Omuta.”
The article said, “Damage was kept to a minimum thanks to the work of our superior air forces and volunteer corps who protected the factory from the air raids.”
However, 17 students from the prewar Denshukan middle school who had been mobilized to work at the factory actually died in the attacks.
Their deaths were kept confidential at the time.
Natsumi Matsunaga, 16, a second-year student at Denshukan High School, and other students first got the chance to look into the cenotaph as part of a class to conduct research related to the history of the school, which last fiscal year marked 200 years since being established.
Matsunaga said she didn’t know there was such a cenotaph at her school and saw it for the first time in January.
She also read condolence messages that classmates of the air raid victims had offered during a memorial service held in 1954, which are displayed at a museum inside the school.
The vivid words mourning the victims of the Omuta air raids, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and grieving over those whose lives had been treated like “guinea pigs” for weapons development, deeply affected Matsunaga.
“They went through hardships that we can never imagine today,” she said, adding that she started to think more people should know about them.
Mutsumi Machitori, a teacher who supported the students’ research activities, advised them not to rely on the internet but to go out and listen to people’s stories.
Matsunaga and other students researched the Omuta air raids at a library, and went through old newspaper articles to find people related to the mobilized students who died in the war and then visited them.
One person they interviewed was Michiharu Kabashima, 91, of Yanagawa, a graduate of Denshukan whose friend died in the air raid.
Kabashima shared with them how he spent his days as a student during the war and how he felt at the time.
He said there were few classes held and that they had been busy participating in military training and labor services, instead.
He added that he could see from the school the mushroom cloud on the day of the Nagasaki atomic bombing, and that he enjoyed learning English from U.S. soldiers after the war.
The students, who had never heard such wartime stories even from their grandparents, were overwhelmed listening to such accounts that revealed the realities of war.
“I was shocked to hear firsthand stories that don’t appear in textbooks,” Matsunaga said.
Riana Tashima, 16, said, “I learned there were victims of war who used to go to the school I go to now.”
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in mind, Kabashima said to the students, “Issues of discrimination and human rights, which still remain today, eventually lead to war. Please learn from history and never start a war again.”
Nanami Fukuoka, 16, said, “I’m determined to think of (the issues) as my own problem.”
At the same time, the students feel they are running out of time to hear such stories, as the people who experienced the war are only growing older.
They conducted a survey among the high school’s students to look for graduates with wartime experience.
In late March, they compiled reports on Kabashima’s accounts and their interview of a journalist who wrote an article on the cenotaph, then displayed them at the school.
At the end of the reports, they wrote a message: “We want to take action! We want to hold a memorial ceremony at the cenotaph.”
Matsunaga and others hope to ask for cooperation from various parties so that the memorials can be resumed.
They resolved to think of the relationship between their school and the war as their own issue and work to prevent society from starting new wars.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.