MIYAZAKI Yuji

A third-grade student at Shiroyama Elementary School, Yuji was close friends with his neighbour Saito Takeo, a schoolmate one year his junior. Takeo remembered Yuji as mature and good at his studies.

Growing up, the boys enjoyed playing together at shrines and hunting for small crabs in Nagasaki’s Urakami River, using a morsel of food tied to a string as bait. Their mothers were also friends.

The Miyazaki family had a relatively large house, and kids from the neighbourhood would gather there to study.

In July 1945, the month before the nuclear bombing, Takeo and most of his immediate family left Nagasaki for his father’s hometown in Miyazaki Prefecture. Their house had been demolished to create firebreaks to mitigate damage from potential air raids. Although Takeo didn’t have the chance to say a proper goodbye to Yuji, his friend soon sent him a letter.

“Takeo-chan, did you arrive safely?” Yuji wrote, just days before the nuclear bombing. The letter was accompanied by a photo of Yuji; his mother, Tsuneko; his five-year-old brother, Tsuneji; and his three-year-old sister, Yasuko.

The four were at home when the nuclear bomb exploded above Nagasaki on 9 August. All were killed. Tsuneji’s remains were never found. The bodies of Tsuneko, Yuji and Yasuko were later cremated in the house’s garden.

Takeo regrets not having had the chance to farewell Yuji before he left. In addition to his good friend, Takeo also lost his 14-year-old brother, Kin’ichiro, and his eight-year-old cousin, Miyoko, among other relatives.

Roughly 1,400 of Shiroyama Elementary School’s 1,500 students were killed in the nuclear bombing. Although school was not in session at the time, many lived nearby. More than 80 per cent of those in the Shiroyama neighbourhood – located close to the hypocentre – had died within one year of the bombing.

Years later, Takeo donated his photo of Yuji to Shiroyama Elementary School’s peace museum, which is housed in a part of the original school building preserved after the bombing.