News-Info-Alerts

Re: US Hiroshima POWs Honored

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: August 06, 2002

"Hiroshima historian honors U.S. POWs who died in bombing

By Greg Tyler and Chiyomi Sumida, Stars and Stripes Pacific edition

HIROSHIMA, Japan — Shigeaki Mori, a 64-year-old Hiroshima historian is memorializing the victims of this city’s atomic bombing — the American victims.

For the past 25 years, Mori has tracked down the families of 11 American prisoners of war who died in the blast during their internment.

Mori’s persistence will pay off Aug. 6 as Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba officially acknowledges another of the 11 victims — Petty Officer 3rd Class Norman Brissette of Lowell, Mass.

The acknowledgement will come in a ceremony at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park marking the 57th anniversary of the 1945 bombing. The mayor will add Brissette’s name to a book of victims.

Each year, the mayor adds names to the book, which lists 221,893 people, according to Hiroshima City’s Atomic Bomb Victims Affairs Department.

On July 28, 1945, two B-24 bombers were shot down by the Imperial Army during an air raid mission, Mori explained. Fifteen crewmembers successfully parachuted from the planes. All 15 men were captured.

Three pilots were taken to Tokyo for interrogation, and a fourth went to Ofuna, near Tokyo, as a POW. The other 11 remained jailed at Hiroshima’s Chugoku Military Police Headquarters, where they were exposed to the radioactive blast nine days after their capture.

Mori said the military police headquarters was only about 1,300 feet from the bomb’s hypocenter. Brissette and Sgt. Ralph J. Neal were taken to a clinic in the Ujina district.

“Brissette survived 13 days after he was transferred to this makeshift clinic,” Mori said. “They were cared for … by 10 American aviators who were captured and taken to the city on Aug. 8, two days after the drop of the bomb. “With scarce medical supplies, all they could give to the wounded men was morphine,” he said. Both men died Aug. 19.

During the past year, Mori located Brissette’s sister, Connie Provencher, 69, of Dracut, Ma.

“He is quite the historian,” said Provencher. “He wrote to me and sent me some articles about what happened. I think it’s quite admirable he would take the time to do this work.

“It is gratifying to me that they are recognizing my brother. He was only 19 when he died fighting for his country. He died from the bomb’s radiation, and it was an excruciating death,” she added.

The bomb also could have killed Mori, had it not been for an odd twist of fate, he said.

“I attended a school located next to the military police headquarters where the Americans were held,” Mori said, who was seven years old at the time.

“I really don’t remember the reason, but only a few days before the bomb was dropped I moved to a new school in the suburbs,” he added, which prevented him from being exposed to the blast.

During his research, Mori discovered the Americans’ deaths were not properly honored. In 1994, Mori had an idea for memorializing the Americans.

“There are more than 300 memorials erected all over this city at spots where people were exposed to the radiation and died,” he said. “But there was nothing to recognize and honor these Americans who were also the victims of the bomb.”

The next hurdle was funds for a memorial. He learned that installing a memorial on the exterior wall of the building where the military police headquarters was once located would cost $6,000. So, in addition to his main job, Mori took a part-time position as a night security guard.

“After working every day without sleeping, my body became so confused, and unable to tell whether it was day or night,” he recalled. On July 29, 1998, he finally dedicated the memorial — a copper plaque, 24 inches tall and 20 inches wide — bearing two pictures of the U.S. aviators and a photo of the leveled city.

During this year’s memorial ceremony in Hiroshima, thousands of new names will be added to the two-inch thick book listing those who perished, including Brissette’s.

Provencher, Brissette’s sister, said she won’t attend but is pleased the recognition will take place. “My brother will forever be young because he gave us all of his tomorrows,” she said.

© 2002 Stars and Stripes"