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'I met the man who destroyed my city': Hiroshima survivor tells of unique meeting with pilot on 75th anniversary of bombing

A man stands next to a tiled fireplace where a house once stood in Hiroshima - AP Photo/Stanley Troutman, Pool, File
A man stands next to a tiled fireplace where a house once stood in Hiroshima - AP Photo/Stanley Troutman, Pool, File

Koko Kondo was eight months old when the atomic bomb detonated above Hiroshima and had such hatred for one of the crew of the US bomber that carried out the first nuclear attack in history that she says she wanted to kick or bite him when she first met him as a girl aged 10.

That loathing evaporated on the set of the US television programme “This is Your Life” when Captain Robert Lewis, co-pilot of the Enola Gay, looked at her with tears in his eyes.

Now 75, Kondo was at home in Hiroshima when the bomb exploded, sending a mushroom cloud towering over the city and killing around 90,000 people in a flash. Her mother later told her that she crawled out of the rubble of their house with Koko in her arms to find the entire city around them on fire.

The "Enola Gay" Boeing B-29 Superfortress lands at Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands, after the US atomic bombing mission - Japan Hiroshima Anniversary QA
The "Enola Gay" Boeing B-29 Superfortress lands at Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands, after the US atomic bombing mission - Japan Hiroshima Anniversary QA

Her father, Methodist minister Kiyoshi Tanimoto, described running into the inferno in search of his family and describing seeing people with the skin hanging from their bodies “like a procession of ghosts”.

The family remained in Hiroshima after Japan’s surrender, with her father helping local people to rebuild their lives and their communities. One of her earliest memories, she told Australia’s ABC news, was a group of teenage girls attending a sermon at her father’s church. Some of the girls could not close their eyes. The lips of others had melted into their chins so they could not close their mouths.

Ms Kondo said that growing up, she had a desire for revenge on the crew of the Enola Gay.

Koko Kondo gives an interview in which she spoke of her determination to find the crew of the Enola Gay - Eugene Hoshiko /AP
Koko Kondo gives an interview in which she spoke of her determination to find the crew of the Enola Gay - Eugene Hoshiko /AP

In 1955, she got that chance. A phone call from the producers of “This is Your LIfe” led to the entire family flying to the US for an episode of the show dedicated to Lewis.

“What could I do?” she told ABC. “I wanted to run to the middle of the stage and give him a punch, a bite or a kick”.

And then she saw the tears well up in his eyes.

“I thought he was a monster, but monsters don’t have tears”, she said. “When the adults were still talking, I looked inside of my heart.

“I don’t know why I did it, but I tried to walk around the stage to him”, she added. “I wanted to touch his hand and [as I did] he caught my hand very tightly”.

Koko Kondo prays at the cenotaph for the atomic bombing victims - Eugene Hoshiko /AP
Koko Kondo prays at the cenotaph for the atomic bombing victims - Eugene Hoshiko /AP

It was at that moment that she changed, Ms Kondo said. She still regrets that she was too young to communicate with Capt. Lewis, who was later treated for “mental anguish” and died in 1983 aged 65.

The horror of that day still affects thousands of people to this day, with Hiroshima on Thursday marking the 75th anniversary of the event for which it is unfortunately synonymous.

The sound of tolling bells echoed across the city of Hiroshima shortly after 8 am as Japan marked the anniversary of the first atomic bomb to be used in war.

Ceremonies to commemorate the estimated 140,000 people who died in the initial blast or who later succumbed to horrific injuries, including massive doses of radiation, were scaled back out of concern for the remaining survivors being exposed to the coronavirus, although city officials said they were committed to going ahead with the event.

Monks beat hand drums as they pray before the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima - DAI KUROKAWA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock /Shutterstock
Monks beat hand drums as they pray before the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima - DAI KUROKAWA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock /Shutterstock

Addressing the ceremony Kazumi Matsui, mayor of Hiroshima, said, “On August 6, 1945, a single atomic bomb destroyed our city. Rumour at the time said that nothing would grow here for 75 years. And yet, Hiroshima recovered to become a symbol of peace”.

The mayor also repeated the annual request for the elimination of atomic weapons worldwide, saying, “Hiroshima considers it our duty to build in civil society a consensus that the people of the world must unite to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons and lasting peace”.

Women pray in front of a cenotaph for the victims of the bombing at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima - DAI KUROKAWA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock /Shutterstock
Women pray in front of a cenotaph for the victims of the bombing at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima - DAI KUROKAWA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock /Shutterstock

He also called on the Japanese government to ratify a 2017 UN treaty to ban nuclear weapons, a step that Tokyo has yet to take as it relies largely on the nuclear-armed United States for its national security.

Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, said in his speech that all countries must work hard to “remove a sense of mistrust through mutual involvement and dialogue”. He added that as the only nation in the world to be the target of nuclear weapons, it is Japan’s “duty” to continue efforts to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons.

An elderly man holds up a sign that reads 'Don't let children cry because of adults' war' as he queues in line to pray at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima - DAI KUROKAWA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock /Shutterstock
An elderly man holds up a sign that reads 'Don't let children cry because of adults' war' as he queues in line to pray at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima - DAI KUROKAWA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock /Shutterstock

The atomic bomb - nicknamed “Little Boy” was dropped at 8.15 am on August 6 by the US Air Force Superfortress Enola Gay and detonated about 2,000 feet almost directly above the distinctively shaped Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, a structure now known as the Atomic Bomb Dome and registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The uranium bomb detonated with an energy equivalent to more than 14,500 tonnes of TNT, emitting intense neutron and gamma radiation that was lethal to a radius of 1 mile. US military surveys shortly after the war determined that 4.7 square miles of the city had been destroyed.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows before the Memorial Cenotaph to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing - PHILIP FONG  /AFP
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows before the Memorial Cenotaph to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing - PHILIP FONG /AFP

Residents observed a minute of silence at the precise time that the bomb exploded before hundreds of people took it in turn to approach the arched memorial with an eternal flame that is the centrepiece of the city’s Peace Park. Most placed flowers on the memorial, bowed and lingered for a few moments.

Elsewhere, people made offerings of intricately folded origami cranes that have become a symbol of the anti-nuclear movement in the city. Later in the day, people floated paper lanterns bearing the names of some of the victims on the Motoyasu River, which runs alongside the Peace Park.

Visitors and mourners have brought offerings of Sadako origami paper cranes to mark the event - RUNGROJ YONGRIT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock /Shutterstock
Visitors and mourners have brought offerings of Sadako origami paper cranes to mark the event - RUNGROJ YONGRIT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock /Shutterstock

The bombing of Hiroshima was followed three days later by the detonation of another nuclear weapon, “Fat Man”, on the city of Nagasaki. That weapon, a plutonium bomb, killed a further 75,000 people. Japan announced its surrender on August 15, 1945.

According to the Japanese government, there are 136,682 survivors of either the Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombs still alive today, down by 9,200 from last year’s anniversary.