The Atomic Bomb Museum, Peace Park and hypocenter are Nagasaki’s most well-known cluster of sites associated with Aug. 9, 1945 atomic bombing but less than 500 meters away there’s another place that’s less known but with its own unique perspective to share. Hidden behind trees on a forested hill just across the Urakami River is Shiroyama Elementary School, the elementary school closest to the hypocenter.

The school began on Apr. 4, 1923 as Shiroyama Jinjo Elementary School though it would expand greatly and streamline its name over the following years. A three-story reinforced concrete building was added in April 1937, the first school building of its kind on Kyushu. In April 1941, in accordance with a new national law the school became Shiroyama National School.

During the war Shiroyama was painted in camouflage and its use was split between the elementary school and the Mitsubishi Arms Factory, which used the second and third floors as an annex as they decentralized the targetable factory. The main factory’s best known historic contribution was producing the aerial torpedoes used at Pearl Harbor.

On the morning of Aug. 9 about 31 school staff and their family members were at work along with 120 Mitsubishi employees. The latter group was mostly comprised of gakuto-doin, teenage high school students drafted to work in munitions factories. Most of the 1500 students enrolled at the school were presumed to be at home when the bomb detonated at 11:02 a.m.

Of those present, 28 school staff members and 103 of the factory employees died; it’s believed about 1400 students in the surrounding neighborhoods died as well.

After the bombing the school’s sports ground would be used to cremate the deceased. Classes resumed full time in November, using borrowed space at another school with 43 students in attendance.

The reinforced concrete building which took an atomic bomb at close range was repaired and put back to use but in time became insufficient for the school’s needs so it was replaced and torn down in the 1980s. A corner stairwell was preserved as a peace museum.

What sets this school and other atomic bomb surviving structures apart and makes them worth seeing is that you can’t recreate them in a purpose-built museum. Wreckage can be displayed at Nagasaki or Hiroshima’s peace museums, but it’s not the same as standing at the place itself. Our guide pointed out the hypocenter hidden behind layers of tall buildings a short distance away. There were people standing were we were when it hit and now this is a place to share those people’s stories.

In particular Vice Principal Arakawa Hideo left behind his thoughts and art work about the school and bombing. Arakawa was in a meeting with the principal in his office when the bomb went off, but he survived and went on become the new principal, helping see it through difficult times.

Though almost entirely bilingual and with an English language handout for the parts that aren’t, I was helped along on my visit by a volunteer guide who spoke both English and Italian. While what’s displayed is self-explanatory and understandable I appreciated having someone who could add more detail.

The museum isn’t artifact-heavy like the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum but the building itself is the primary artifact; with the concrete walls stripped bare bomb-damage blackened wood blocks are visible along the stairs leading to the second floor. Along the stairs and in the halls are many photographs and maps from before and after the bombing along with the personal stories from the war and its aftermath and the school’s overall historic narrative from the beginning to today. The top floor also has a large detailed model of the school as it appeared right after the bombing.

The museum is quick to go through if coming as part of a larger trip to see the atomic bomb-related sites in Nagasaki. Despite its proximity to the bigger and more famous sites which almost every American service member stationed in nearby Sasebo has been to at least once, our guide told us Shiroyama gets very few American visitors. I believe this may be because there’s not much on it as travel destination in English and its location across the river inside school property doesn’t make it an obviously visitable atomic bomb site; I only discovered it accidentally while researching Honkawa and Fukuromachi elementary schools in Hiroshima for those stories.

Shiroyama is free to visit and opened during school hours. There are small monuments and memorials nearby on the school grounds but it is an active school so please be mindful and respectful. On the road leading up to the school are also a set of covered-over air raid shelters which people took cover in during the bombing.

There is no on-site parking but a pay parking lot is at the bottom of the stairs leading up the hill to the school. If arriving by tram, get off at Peace Park and instead of following the road toward the park, go the opposite direction and cross the bridge. Follow this road straight and it ends at the stairs leading to the school on the hill.

ADDRESS
Shiroyama Elementary School Peace Memorial Hall
23-1 Shiroyamamachi, Nagasaki, 852-8021
0958610057
http://www.nagasaki-city.ed.jp/shiroyama-e/index.htm