You may recall two years ago when I shared with you the story of a business genius, Jujiro Matsuda, a native of Hiroshima, Japan, who is credited with being the founder of Mazda. If you don’t remember the fascinating tale, please allow me to refresh your recollection:
Jujiro was of humble beginnings. In 1931, through sheer determination and business acumen, he oversaw the introduction of the “Mazdago,” a motorized tricycle, manufactured in Hiroshima. Abandoning other ventures, with the release of this primitive vehicle, Jujiro decided to solely focus on motor vehicle manufacturing. It was a wise choice because this “tricycle” eventually evolved into the Mazda vehicles of today.
Production took place in a complex on the outskirts of Hiroshima, which rivaled a small city containing not only the massive factory but also housing (for the employees), a hospital and some stores.
As his models grew more advanced, Mr. Matsuda’s company experienced unparalleled success. In 1945, he planned a massive party to commemorate the company’s achievements as well as his 70th birthday. The birthday celebration was slated to involve the participation of his entire family, business colleagues, local government officials and most importantly his employees.
When the important day arrived, there was one chore that needed to be accomplished first and foremost. It is a Japanese tradition for males to get a haircut on their birthday. So it was that Mr. Matuda could be found waiting for his favorite barber to open shop (in downtown Hiroshima) at 7:30 a.m. Unfortunately, another customer was there as well. It is reported that there was an actual race to the door (which was now opening). Matsuda, arriving a split second ahead of the stranger, stuck his foot in the door first and his birthday day began.
Thirty minutes later, haircut now finished, a freshly coiffed automotive executive was now headed back towards Mazda headquarters 3.5 miles away. At the 1.7-mile mark, at precisely 8:15 a.m. on his birthday morning, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima (Little Boy A-bomb), with ground zero, just 50 yards from the barbershop. Everything and every person within a one-mile radius evaporated instantaneously. Damage and fires extended to 4.4 miles. We know now that the blast and subsequent radiation poisoning killed approximately 135,000 people—about 30 percent of the city’s population.
As you may have surmised, Matsuda’s barber and the man he beat to the barbershop door perished instantly. As for Jujiro, his car, just outside the zone of immediate obliteration, was flipped by the blast. He and his chauffeur were thrown from the vehicle but somehow survived. Clothes torn and bleeding profusely he somehow made it back to his beloved place of business.
Although the majority of his factory and the automotive headquarters itself lay in partial ruin there was enough of a structure remaining to turn the entire enterprise into a makeshift hospital and even a temporary city hall to aid the survivors and provide the foundation for the city’s eventual recovery. Through his efforts, Jujiro saved countless lives and helped comfort hundreds more who were taking their final breaths.
Rebuilding proved to be quite challenging, but rebuild he did. He went on to turn Mazda into a flourishing car company. In return, the company honored him by changing its name to a western version of Matsuda (Mazda). He retired in December 1951 and was proud to witness his son, Tsuneji, succeed him as president. Three months after his retirement and just six years after his 70th birthday, Jujiro Matsuda died at the age of 76. What Jujiro Matsuda accomplished with his remaining years is a direct result of his profound comprehension of how precious the time we have on earth is.
Jujiro Matsuda was not the only person who acted heroically that summer morning, 75 years ago this August. Thirteen-year-old student Setsuko Thurlow was knocked unconscious by the blast. When she awoke, she could hear her dying classmates whisper a barely audible “mother help me.” Simultaneously, an unknown person quietly instructed her to “never give up” and “walk to the sunlight.” Extricating herself from strewn bodies, she crawled and then, on her feet, staggered, into a nightmarish scene. To this day, she remembers vividly her long walk home. She passed a procession of people trudging on the roads, with missing body parts, often holding their eyeballs in their hands. When she arrived home, she witnessed her sister and cousin’s corpses being tossed into a “cremation pit” with hundreds of others.
Setsuko Thurlow survived that terrible day and went on to tell her story thousands of times with the hope that her story would somehow contribute to the effort to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Now 88 years old, her memories still haunt her and more importantly motivate her to speak out against the use of nuclear weapons.
In August of 1945, a Japanese newspaper sent a photographer to memorialize the aftermath of the bombing. However, their work product had to be hidden, since the United States enforced a ban until 1952, on the display of all photographs of the civilian impact from the bombing of Hiroshima. Today, you can see some of those outlawed photos at the Peace Museum in Hiroshima or in the pages of a soon to be released book entitled, Flash of Light, Wall of Fire.
A photographic display is not the only way in which the memory of that fateful day in August is remembered. Every year for the last half century, the survivors of the Hiroshima bombing (hibakusha) meet at the Peace Park to serve as a living testament to the abiding dangers of nuclear war. Their statement is neither political nor hateful. They don’t seek to reprimand the United States nor justify the brutality of Japan towards other nations during World War II. Their only mission is to make the policymakers and politicians of today aware in real terms of the human toll that the use of nuclear weapons produces.
This year, the city of Hiroshima had planned a series of grand events for the attending hibakusha to honor the 75th anniversary of the dropping of the bomb. Given the virus, the schedule was dramatically cut short. Yet, some survivors still did show up. Given the pandemic and the age of the participants, the attendance went from the usual 8,000 to 800 mask-wearing elderly participants.
On that fateful day at the precise moment when Jujiro Matsuda was thrown from his car and Setsuko Thurlow was knocked unconscious, the landscape of Hiroshima was, in a flash, turned instantly into a lifeless wasteland. Oddly, through some quirk in physics, a building at the epicenter of the blast, The Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, remained. That building, along with the Hiroshima wall clock frozen forever at the exact time of the explosion, are maintained today as reminders to the living that we must do everything in our power to avoid nuclear war.
And what about the future? Setsuko Thurlow believes in the power of human stories to inspire people to take up a cause. She has an abiding faith in the future, assuming we put our faith in the young to not repeat the mistakes of the past. I hope she is correct.
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August 27, 2020 at 07:19PM
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A Flash of Light - TAPinto.net
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