Hiroshima Radio Station Aired the Day After Atomic Bombing
August 8, 1945, was the day of calamity for the people of Hiroshima as an atomic bomb was dropped at 8:15 a.m. that day directly killing 80,000 and 160,000 by the end of the year due to injury and radiation.
A radio broadcaster of the Hiroshima Radio Station (now NHK Hiroshima Broadcasting Corporation) on duty that morning was about to read an airâ€raid alarm when the bomb fell instantly destroying the entire facilities. The staff rushed to a nearby sub-station 5 kilometers north, fixed it operational and managed to announce the Governor's official notice the following morning.
The Hiroshima Central Broadcasting Corporation was opened in 1928 as a radio broadcasting station. Apart from regular news, radio gymnastic exercises, cooking and music programs, the station had facilities to repair radio receivers. The war started, recreational programs gave way to war information, air raid alarms, etc.
NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) Hiroshima Broadcasting Station planned published an 8-pagemanga brochure portraying how the staff of the Hiroshima Radio Station struggled to keep on broadcasting in an emergency.
Entitled "Radio Station on Scorched Ground" the manga vividly tells how the station staff tried to restore radio facilities amid turmoils. A member of the staff chagrins: "If only we had broadcast that air raid alarm 5 minutes sooner!"
7,000 copies of "Radio Station on Scorched Ground" are distributed free primarily to school children on excursion tour of Hiroshima. Takaaki Morikawa, 76, whose father appears in the manga as a radio technician, remarked, "I felt like visiting my old home. A very touching story. I wish youngsters will read this manga."
NHK Hiroshima will rerun a drama "The First Tramcar Ran" on October 1, a story of how the teams in Hiroshima resumed operation three days after the day of A-bombing.
News Source: Asahi Shimbun