Presentation Date: July 22, 2004
Takashi Tanemori
* Was at "Ground Zero" in Hiroshima on 8-6-1945, * The Only Family Survivor of the Atomic Bomb Explosion * Born in Japan 1937 within a Samurai family
* Was at "Ground Zero" in Hiroshima on 8-6-1945
* The Only Family Survivor of the Atomic Bomb Explosion
* Came to America for Revenge - Ended-up Loving America and Became Patriotic Citizen
*Founder, Silkworm Piece Institute Written by Col John Crump
Hiroshima Peace Warrior
Takashi Tanemori's Journey After the Atomic Bomb
On August 6th, 1945, Hiroshima was a bustling city port, home to more than 336,000 people and a key city supplying the Japanese Army. At 8:15 that morning, the explosion of an atomic bomb dropped by an American B-29 bomber changed everything in Hiroshima. There was a flash in the sky...
"...Of such intensity I covered my eyes, and through covered eyes I saw the pure white... Then, dead silence. If you could drop a pin in the four square miles of Hiroshima City, I think you could hear it." Takashi Tanemori was an eight year old boy playing a game of 'hide-and-seek' that morning about seven tenths of a mile from a bridge on the Ota River designated "Ground Zero" for the atomic airburst. Though his entire family was killed by the bomb - -either immediately or only days later - - the youngest Tanemori survived the blast, the radiation, and the fire that bomb produced.
Takashi was born in 1937, the son of Sadao Tanemori and his wife. The Tanemori family was of samurai lineage dating to the Tokugawa shogunate. The marriage of Takashi's father and mother came without the blessing of either family. In Japanese tradition, the lack of a family blessing leads to misfortune. For the Tanemori clan, such "misfortune" resulted in the birth of three daughters. When Takashi's mother became pregnant a fourth time, the midwife prayed to the statue of Buddha. This time, a son was born, and he was named Takashi.
Simply being the firstborn male in the family did not make life's path smooth for the young boy. He was challenged by being left-handed. Even extreme measures such as tying his left hand behind his back did not change Takashi's primary use of it. The Tanemori's lived on a campus in downtown Hiroshima, not far from one of the forks of the Ota River which creates a delta there. Takashi remembers his father as a proud samurai who led an independent life relative to the highly conforming traditions of common Japanese.
An example of his independence revolved around a pledge most Japanese made of their sons' lives to the glory of Emperor Hirohito. Takashi says his father made no such pledge, "He always spoke non-violence. Honor everything living. Be true to yourself, no matter the consequences."
But the explosion that August morning was to change all for Takashi. After the initial super-brilliant flash over Hiroshima, Takashi says he experienced a vacuum of silence.
"Then, I could begin to hear a rumbling sound in the distance... getting closer and louder... louder and closer. And then, an explosion took place, as if the entire sound of the universe returned, collided. "I don't know whether my eardrums broke or not. It was such a shrieking, heavy, drumbeat sound that exploded." The next thing Takashi knew was intense heat, as if he was inside an oven.
"I was gasping for air... all the oxygen seemed to burn. I was like a goldfish in a glass bowl, jumping up trying to catch a breath of air. I could feel the heat, just scorching the throat. Then, it was so pitch dark I couldn't see my hand... until I could begin to see the red, orange, black - - the fires leaping like a serpent's tongue.
"In the midst of all this I could begin to hear the scream of my classmate, Sumiko, one of my best friends who lived two houses down."
Takashi heard her cry his name, then cry for water and for her parents. He also heard a cry for help from his best friend Taro, before both of the other children were engulfed by fire. Takashi remembers calling for his father's help.
Takashi says he recalled a soldier digging him from rubble and carrying him to safety, amidst the inferno Hiroshima had become. The soldier carried Takashi down the streets to the river, joining thousands of people burned, scarred, crying for family members - - many pleading to soldiers be put out of their misery. On the sandy beach of the river, the survivors repeatedly cried for water. Hours later, it rained. Takashi remembers the water from above was black - - large oily drops of black rain. The soot from Hiroshima's atomic holocaust was trapped in a downpour, soon raising the river and sweeping people from its banks. "In the midst of all the confusion, the soldier who had been clutching me tightly and asking me my father's name, screamed out at the top of his lungs, 'Mr Tanemori, Sadao Tanemori, Sadao....!"
Takashi says he doesn't know how long it was before the soldier handed him over to his father. He says the young warrior looked at Takashi's father and said, "I wish you the best, and longevity. I must return to the base. I have a duty to perform." The soldier left, and Takashi and his father spent the next couple of days avoiding fires raging in and around Hiroshima, before starting out on foot to a village about sixty miles to the northeast, where his mother's family was living. Following the river, the two found no bridges still intact. Takashi says they finally made a crossing on a bridge of bodies, from people who had perished trying to cross the swollen river.
"A bridge is very symbolic to me, extending one place to the next, one's suffering to hope." Takashi's father died about six weeks after the bombing. The night before he died, Takashi's father asked him to live before his children the way he had, teaching them the lessons learned from his parents, the code of the samurai. Takashi's father told his son, "I am going to see your mother. Takashi, learn to live for the benefit of others first. Then we all benefit." Takashi says his life became that of a street urchin. Food was scarce, and waste sites and garbage cans amidst the rubble of postwar Japan offered little sustenance.
Today Takashi says, "I never missed a meal. I just postponed it." There is an extraordinary depth of feeling about extending oneself through a meal. "If you are able to share your food, I think you are sharing your heart." But fifty years ago, the young boy suffered abuse at the hands of fellow Japanese who showed no mercy for orphans. This, too, fueled what had become a driving need to revenge his family's death.
Eight years later, Takashi was finishing his ninth grade education. Looking for a job to pay for his studies, Takashi went to the city of Kobe, where he says he was amazed by the affluence of occupying American troops.
"Everyone told me they had money trees, growing on every corner of the street. I was working as a house boy in a pawn shop. I didn't call it a pawn shop, I called it a financial firm. I was working from five in the morning until ten at night, six days a week, making thirty cents a day. I saved enough money for one year, just enough to buy some real shiny, squeaky shoes, a symbol of achievement in Japan. But in America, squeaky shoes are a sign of cheap shoes. That's quite a different culture, isn't it?"
Takashi's purchase gave him pride, but also brought trouble. The owner of the pawn shop immediately noticed the shoes, wondered how Takashi could afford them, and accused Takashi of having stolen money to pay for them. He requested a confession. Takashi says the shop owner's wife knew the young man had saved the money, but Takashi chose to falsely confess rather than have her confirm his honesty. Feeling shame and disgrace among his fellow Japanese, Takashi says he attempted suicide. The depth of his depression strengthened Takashi's vow to avenge America for his family's death. He made an oath on his father's grave he would go to America to do so.
In June of 1956, at the age of 18, Takashi immigrated to the United States, and found himself in the dust and desolation of a migrant labor camp in Delano, California.
"I thought I was living in the poorest, worst conditions in Japan. But when I came to live in the labor camp, I knew I was surely a crazy guy.
"While I was in the camp I was accused of being a Jap, who sneak attacked Pearl Harbor. But worse than that, I got food poisoning." Takashi was taken to a hospital, where it was learned he was a Hiroshima survivor, and it was suggested he might have radiation illness. "Medical authorities" decided Takashi should be examined, and that led to stays at five hospitals in the next six months, as a 'guinea pig' to study the effects of radiation on the human body.
The final three months were at a state mental institution in Modesto. There, Takashi's ten feet-by-ten feet room was sparse, with only a small barred window high on one wall. "The bed's four legs were fastened to the floor, the toilet seat was fastened. The only thing that was movable was the mattress and the blanket and the sheet. There was no door knob inside. There was a trap door - - the doctor and nurse would come, peeking, taking notes on my reactions.
"Some nights, two o'clock in the morning they came, turning on bright lights, sort of mercury lights. And it was a rude awakening. I'd wake up and it reminded me of the flash on August sixth." Takashi painfully recalls spinal taps, sometimes as often as three times a week. He remembers being carried to a room by two male nurses, strapped to a table and wired for electrical shock treatment, which made his body twist and contort when the current passed through. Straight-jacketed, he was kept in isolation for hours on end. "The physical pain I was able to bear, but the mental, emotional, pain I wasn't able to. Through the little tiny window I was able to see the sky. I'm pretty sure my father was watching me through the window. His honorable son, kept in isolation, kept in a mental institution, being treated as crazy."
Takashi says he could only cope with the daytime by crawling under the bed, putting the corner of his blanket in his mouth to muffle his cries so his father could not hear him. He believed only the darkness of night brought freedom from his father's watchful eye. The isolation and torturous treatment finally ended when a nurse by the name of Mary Furr began taking care of him. Several days passed before Mary was able to touch Takashi's hand. But when that happened, Tanemori says his heart immediately started to thaw. Mary allowed Takashi into the mental institution's yard, where he picked flowers for her. He also watched longingly as a white butterfly fluttered from the yard over the fence and away from the institution. Takashi imagined he was that butterfly. Soon, under Mary's care as his legal guardian, he was allowed to leave, to live with the nurse and her husband. Discovering Mary was a Christian and a Baptist, Takashi sought to emulate the nurse's humanitarian ways. Through Mary, Takashi learned unconditional love and to live for hope.
In the spring of 1960, Takashi came from Turlock to Hayward to visit Highland Park Baptist Church, to hear Mitsuo Fuchida - - the naval captain who led Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Takashi had been invited to dinner with the pastor of the church, and Fuchida - - who, after the war, had chosen to become not only a Christian but also a minister. Takashi says most of the discussion at the pastor's table in Hayward revolved around the Pacific War. As the talk continued, Takashi recalls becoming increasingly angry, so angry that he excused himself from the table to a restroom, where he forced himself to lose his entire meal.
"I was that angry at Mitsuo Fuchida..." "But that night I returned to service and saw something I never saw before. Only about 80 or 90 people were in the church... all Americans...and they all went up to embrace Captain Mitsuo Fuchida. And they were all crying. I was standing against the wall, and no one had acknowledged I was even there.
"I had lost my family and was suffering...all because of Pearl Harbor. These people who claim they are Christians, they have love for others, and have been taught to extend their hand to the needy. "I was mixed-up, confused." Takashi says the incident forced him to refocus his vow of revenge.
Takashi says while he was studying in Minnesota, he focused on the history of relations between the United States and Japan. During research in the library, he found a letter written by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the American most responsible for the recovery and remolding of postwar Japan. The letter, dated December 8, 1949, requested an American missionary to share God's love and grace with the people of Japan. That letter, says Takashi, was another step in his journey from revenge to forgiveness. His studies led to ministry, which lasted two decades, ending when his congregation rejected him as their spiritual minister. So, he turned to reaching the hearts of Americans through their stomachs - - becoming the owner of a Japanese restaurant. But four years later, after suffering two heart attacks and a divorce, Takashi was again searching for meaning and purpose in life.
On August 5, 1985, Tanemori says he was driving to San Francisco to make one of what Takashi calls his 'payback speeches'. Takashi says over the years he frequently spoke to groups of his loss of family to the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
Crossing the Bay Bridge to Treasure Island on that August day, Tanemori noticed the San Francisco skyline filling with clouds - - reminding him of the mushroom shaped cloud of debris at Hiroshima.
"I wasn't able to drive the car I was crying so much. I just put on the brake, barely enough to exit onto Treasure Island. There, forty years of my life returned, as if I was watching movie. I would once again face the reality - - revenge. I had made a vow to my father's grave that I would avenge his death. But there was Mary, her love brought me to where I was. Confusion." On Treasure Island, Takashi says he had a vision. In it, were his three children. His youngest, his then nine year old daughter, was saying, "Daddy, I know you're trying to get even with the American people. But if you do that, they're going to try to get even with us... Daddy, is that what you want? Daddy, is there any other way?"
"Then I saw Mary in the clouds, and the scene of the hospital - - who took my hand, who took me outside the building, who told me to chase the butterfly. I saw Mary, who set me free.
"I heard the voice of my father, 'Takashi, have I not taught you to learn to live for the benefit of others...' I was so confused - - revenge or reconciliation. Just then a white single butterfly flew in the car's open window. It landed on the dashboard, fluttered its wings and disappeared into the blue yonder. At that very moment, once again, I heard the voice of my father, saying,' Takashi, know who you are. Follow the light in your heart, no matter what. Takashi, remember my word."
"That very moment I felt a heavy load being taken from my shoulders, as though my eyes were opened. Tanemori says in his talk that day at St. Mary's cathedral he asked for forgiveness from the audience for the revenge he had carried in his heart. It was the first time in his life he'd publicly denounced his vow, a vow he could no longer hold because he saw it threatening the lives of children, his and others'.
Since then, Takashi Tanemori has had other major battles. In 1987 he began to lose his eyesight, soon requiring a white cane and guide dog. About six years ago he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. After four surgeries the cancer is gone.
Today, Takashi's purpose in life is exposing and defeating what he has come to know is mankind's greatest enemy - - fear and hatred that cause darkness in the human heart. As founder of the Silkworm Peace Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to international peace, he fosters forgiveness and helping others overcome barriers.
Takashi Tanemori says he still has vivid memories and scars from the Hiroshima bombing. They have taught him how precious life is, and how important peace and forgiveness are to preserving life.
More info: www.silkworm.org