American POW Killed in Hiroshima
Aloysius Kuo (1)
When atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, perhaps there were a dozen of American POW at Ground Zero. They were surviving crew of crashed American Army B-24 Bombers, “Lonesome Lady” and “Taloa,” as well as 10 Navy Aircraft-Carrier Planes raided near the Kure Imperial Naval Base, 20 km from the Hiroshima City, on July 28, 1945. Three POW were brought to Tokyo for interrogation and remaining POW were interned at the Chugoku (Western Japan District) Military Police Headquarters and other various military facilities and met an unfortunate fate.
The only documents concerning American POW were 20 out of 2,313 pictures drawn by the atomic bomb survivors collected by NHK Hiroshima in 1974 and 2002. These 20 depicting American POW pictures, except two (They are NG288-02 and SG-0185 which were duplicated by the author, Aloysius Kuo. A wounded Japanese soldier was the main subject and the American POW was in the background.
It is apparent that half of the POW died instantly in the prison cell of wooden building collapsed and burned. The other survived POW were handcuffed. Some Japanese atomic bomb survivors witnessed that they saw two POW on the Aioi Bridge near the epicenter. The other two POW were on the Western Imperial Japanese Army Headquarters on the Hiroshima Castle Ground, 700 meters from the epicenter. Two were later transferred to the Kure Naval Hospital, met other shot down B-29 Crew, could leave messages to their families in the United States, and died on August 18, 1945, 3 days after the surrender of Japan. (2)
Notes:
(1) The author of this video is Alyoisus Kuo, a retired medical doctor and adviser for the medical sciences section of LinguaHiroshima’s database.
(2) Cartwright, T. C. A Date with the Lonesome Lady: a Hiroshima POW returns. Austin, Tex, Eakin Press, 2002.