Hiroshima was built on a delta formed by deposits of dirt and sand carried from the upper reaches of the Ota River. The city prospered during the Edo period (1603-1867) as the largest castle town in the Chugoku and Shikoku regions. After the Meiji Restoration (1868), the city was born anew as the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture. The land reclamation that had progressed during the Edo period was expanded on an entirely new scale during the Meiji period. Large tracts of land were developed and an outer port was constructed. The industrial economy developed at a rapid pace. In addition, many army facilities were built and the city became an important military center. It also became an important city in terms of education and culture. Many schools were built, including the Higher School of Education which trained teachers. Hiroshima gradually assumed two distinctive images: a military city and an education city.
In the early Showa period, around the 1930s, heavy industries related to the military began to develop. The Hiroshima Bay area, including the navy port at Kure, became one of the few military bases in Western Japan during wartime.
As the city of Hiroshima rode the wave of modernization in Japan, its military and academic character strengthened. During the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the Imperial Headquarters, Japan's supreme military command, moved to Hiroshima to guide the war effort, and Ujina Port, which had been further developed with an outer port, was given an important role by the military. On the other hand, in 1902, the Hiroshima Higher School of Education was opened. It was the second school of its kind to be opened in the country following the one in Tokyo. Many other institutions of higher learning were also established in the city.
Hiroshima became the assembling and dispatching point for army troops during each of Japan's wars overseas, and related facilities were added year after year.
Japan's war on the China mainland was triggered by the Manchurian Incident of 1931 and developed into a full war with China in 1937. In addition, Japan took on the United States, United Kingdom and other Allied Forces when it launched the Pacific War with its attack on the US military base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in December 1941.
All the factories in Hiroshima cooperated with orders from the government and rapidly converted from producing civilian goods to military supplies. The daily life of citizens became difficult and many were mobilized to serve in battle or in military factories.
It was a Monday morning, clear and bright with no clouds. As the midsummer sun climbed into the sky, the temperature rose rapidly. In the middle of the previous night, an air raid warning had been sounded at 12:25 A.M. No attack came, however, and the alarm was finally cleared at 2:10 A.M. After people caught a bit of sleep, another yellow alert was issued at 7:09 A.M. Many retreated again to the air raid shelters. As it was only a single American plane flying over at a high altitude, the alarm was lifted at 7:31 A.M. The residents left the air raid shelters and started off for their jobs.
On this day, many people from surrounding towns and villages had been mobilized to help remove debris from buildings demolished to make fire lanes in the city. Combined with over 40,000 soldiers, the total number of people in the city is believed to have been over 350,000.
Even though it was the middle of August, due to the war, essentially no schools were on vacation and students in middle school and above had to work every day at factories or remove debris at demolition sites. On this day, approximately 8,400 people, including mainly first and second year middle-school students, both male and female, were scheduled to help with building demolition work. Public elementary school students above the third grade had been evacuated to the countryside, and only the youngest children were left in the city. Many elementary schools were being used by the military, however, and the young children studied at temples and other locations.
Events leading up to the Hiroshima A-Bombing
(1945)
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