Sachiyo Awaya hesitated. She and the children had all survived the raid; the refugees were probably exaggerating; anyway, the army in Tokyo said it was unlikely the bombers would return, and if they did, next time they would receive a hot reception.
Awaya was aware that at any moment the connection might be interrupted; telephone operators had the authority to terminate any call which was not of a military nature. The mayor spoke urgently. “The enemy will return. That is the nature of war. You and the children must come here.”
Still, his wife expressed her reluctance to leave Tokyo. He then advanced an argument that he knew she would find difficult to reject. “It is possible that we will all die in the battles to come. If that is to happen, I wish us to die together as one family.”
His wife promised that as a start she would bring their eldest son. The fourteen-year-old boy could continue his education at a school in Hiroshima.
One week later, between 7:30 and 8:00 A.M. on March 19, Hiroshima experienced its first air raid. Four carrier-based fighter-bombers flew across the city. Only two bombs were dropped; one fell harmlessly in a river, the other killed two people and destroyed their homes.
The planes escaped before antiaircraft fire could be brought to bear on them. The incident caused widespread excitement and speculation in the city. Fierce arguments broke out between skeptics and the proponents of the view that Roosevelt had agreed to spare Hiroshima. In the end, the supporters of this theory triumphantly pointed to the fact that the bombers had not made a second pass over the city. The two bombs they had released were dropped in error—that is why they had sheered away. And, to clinch their case, the proponents pointed to an inescapable truth: while there were a number of air-raid warnings in the two weeks that followed, no bombers had come anywhere near the city.
These recent warnings delayed mayoral assistant Kazumasa Maruyama’s regular weekly trip into the countryside to barter for food for his wife and Mayor Awaya.
This morning Maruyama had risen at five and left his wife still sleeping in their tiny bedroom. He listened to the radio before leaving the apartment. The radio was important. Air-raid warnings were broadcast over it. It was the radio, with its first hint of a “strategic withdrawal,” that had prepared listeners for the loss of Iwo Jima.
The newscaster this morning was as confident as ever. The Special Attack Corps, the kamikazes, had yesterday struck another mortal blow against the enemy off the shores of Okinawa. Among their many targets was “the pride of the enemy fleet, the warship Indianapolis.” The name of the ship did not register with Maruyama, but he deduced that behind the blaring words, the radio was starting to prepare its audience for an unpalatable fact: the enemy had reached the shores of Okinawa.
If Okinawa should fall, Maruyama had no doubt, the enemy would then invade Japan itself.
The thought of what that would mean was too horrible to contemplate. The newspapers and radio spoke of American soldiers as “bloodthirsty devils”; perhaps, after all, he had been wrong to support the mayor’s idea of bringing his family to Hiroshima. Perhaps they would be better off near Tokyo, protected by the largest concentration of defending troops.
Still dwelling on the dilemma the broadcast had created in his mind, the mayor’s assistant headed out of the city on foot.
Commodities were more useful than money for obtaining a few vegetables and fruit to augment the legal rations. From today, those rations were to be cut further, the rice portion reduced to three bowls a day for twenty days in any month. No food would be issued for the remaining calendar days. The quality of the rice was so poor that Maruyama would never have eaten it before the war. Fish, the other staple of the Japanese diet, was also becoming scarce. American bombers were systematically destroying the fishing fleet.
Maruyama was warmly greeted at the farm. He was the most important customer among all those who came to offer goods in exchange for food. Soon, Maruyama was sitting cross-legged in his stockinged feet in the farmhouse living room, sipping tea.
Normally the farmer plied him with questions about life in the city. This morning it was the farmer who had information to impart, and he was determined to make the most of it.
Maruyama provided the opening by mentioning that the air raid had made many people nervous in Hiroshima.
“The city will not be bombed again.”
Maruyama smiled wanly, but he knew he must not offend the farmer; he was a touchy man and could sell his produce to whomever he liked. Maruyama said he hoped his host was right and that the city would be spared.
“It will. You see, when the war is over, Americans will build their villas here! It is such a beautiful city.”
Maruyama complimented the farmer on being privy to such interesting information.
“I cannot tell you how I learned it. But I can tell you this, Mr. Secretary, that a client almost as important as you told me.”
Nodding gravely, Maruyama stood up. It was time for business. He opened the bundle of old clothes he had brought. As each item was displayed, the farmer reached into his own sacks and laid out his purchasing price in produce.
Maruyama estimated that, with the clothes, he had purchased enough food for the mayor as well as for his wife and himself for three days—perhaps five if his wife was extra careful. He exchanged deep bows with the farmer, carefully bundled up the produce, bowed a last time, and retraced his steps to Hiroshima.
He had traveled less than a mile when a peasant rushed out of his cottage and shouted that the radio had just announced another air-raid alert.
Unable to resist, Maruyama did his own bit of rumormongering. “Don’t worry. Hiroshima won’t be bombed again. Haven’t you heard? The Americans want to build their villas here! Maybe even Roosevelt will come!”
He walked briskly on toward the city.
29
Group bombardier Tom Ferebee was relaxed as he announced laconically, as he always did at the initial point, that straight ahead and thirty-two thousand feet below he could see the small desert town of Calipatria in Southern California.
Beyond the town lay the Salton Sea and the 509th’s bombing range.
There were now three minutes to go before the brand-new bomber reached the aiming point. It was the first of the replacement aircraft that Parsons had deemed necessary. It had arrived at Wendover on March 9 and had been closely examined by Tibbets, van Kirk, and Ferebee.
The new bomber was different. Though a lot of the armor plating as well as the guns had been left out, it was built more ruggedly. Tibbets admired the reversible propellers. Ferebee liked the quick-action bomb doors; they were designed to close in two seconds after a bomb was released. This would allow the plane to carry out its 155-degree turn even faster. Van Kirk appreciated his navigator’s seat; it was more comfortable than the one he was used to.
A team of engineers and mechanics had flown in with the aircraft. At Tibbets’s request, they had made a number of minor adjustments. But one of the engineers was not satisfied with the way the bombsight gears were working. Ferebee said he could adjust matters after a test drop or two. The engineer fussily explained that was not the way he did things. He put in a monitoring set and was given special clearance to make this one flight to observe the operation of the Norden sight.