HA Chandu

Chandu was one of thousands of Korean nationals killed in the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. At the time of the attack, he was working with his classmates outdoors to create firebreaks in the southern part of what is now the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

His father and elder sister, Wineon, found his remains the following day. His internal organs had ruptured from his body.

According to Wineon, their parents wept without end.

Soon after the end of the war, Korea regained its independence from Japan, and Chandu’s surviving family members returned to their homeland by boat.

Decades later, Wineon obtained a certificate from Japanese authorities confirming her brother’s death in the nuclear bombing. It used his Japanese name, Kawamura Masao. (Koreans living in Japan at the time were forced to adopt Japanese names.)

“Kawamura Masao, first-year student in the electrical department, Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial School. Mobilised as a student volunteer on 6 August 1945 in Nakajima-shinmachi, Hiroshima City,” the document read.

Wineon had also been a mobilised student. At the time of the bombing, she was working in a factory, and the force of the explosion knocked her unconscious. When she came to, she heard footsteps and someone calling “Get into the shelter!”

Her parents eventually came by truck to collect her. She recalled seeing many badly mangled bodies in the devastated city.

The precise number of Korean victims and survivors of the Hiroshima bombing remains unknown. However, city authorities have estimated the number to be between 25,000 and 28,000. In the attack on Nagasaki three days later, there were some 11,500 to 12,000 Korean victims.

Many were forced labourers, and they faced harsh discrimination on the basis of their nationality.