Located about 600m from the hypocenter
This statue has no inscription and no name of the author. Alittle girl with bobbed hair in work Pants presses her hands together in prayer, kneeling down in the blaze of the A-bomb. The statue is to pray forthe repose of 1300 pupils' and teachers' souls who died at Yamazato primary school and their families souls and to wish for eternal peace. Dr.Takashi Nagai who took ill from the radiation in those days, suggested building this statue by loyalty of memories, "Living beneath the Atomic Cloud", written by the pupil survivors and the doctors own contribution. The letters of "Peace" and "Statue of The Pupils" in the stone pole nearby were written by Dr.Nagai and carved by Seihichi Ohtsukasa, an engineer at Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyards.
From explanatory board:
| In the end of Worlds War 2, U.S. air planes flew over big cities in Japan and dropped bombs day and night. Therefore,people made air-raid shelters to protect themselves from bombs. On the hill besides the school yard Yamazato, there were 18 air-raid shelters for pupils and neighboring residents. On that day august 9,1945,teachers and neighbors were making a new shelter as usual on the hill side. Suddenly,the A-bomb blast hit their bodies to the ground or the hill and they died of terrible burns of radiation injury around the shelters. This air-raid shelter has remained as the place to keep telling peace and our wish, "May this tragedy never happen again". |
