At 9:30 am, we had a fascinating talk by Professor Werner Sollors titled “John Hersey’s Hiroshima”.  It was based on the article written by Hersey about six of the survivors of Hiroshima and published by the New Yorker.  The magazine made the decision to devote the entire issue to that single article, which was later published as its own book.  It created quite an international stir causing people to question again the decision for the bombing.

After lunch on board, we divided into two groups.  One went to the Peace Memorial and the Mazda Museum and factory.  We went with the group to the Peace Memorial Park & Museum (http://hpmuseum.jp/) and then the Hiroshima city center.  The Peace Memorial documents the atomic explosion that ravaged the city on August 6, 1945.  The park contains the A-Bomb dome (former Industrial Promotion Hall, and the only building at ground zero whose framework survived), the Peace Bell, and the statue to a girl, Sadako Sadaki, who made origami cranes in the unfortunately futile hope of surviving her cancer.  In the park there is a cenotaph containing the names of all the known victims with a flame burning which is to be extinguished when the last nuclear weapon on earth has been destroyed.  The museum had many different displays showing the long-term effects of the bomb, cancer being one of the diseases that continues to plague the area.  The A-Bomb killed 80,000 people directly and destroyed about 69% of the city’s buildings.  By the end of the year, radiation and injuries brought the total dead to 90,000 to 140,000.  One of the reasons for Hiroshima’s selection by the Enola Gay was the presence of the Second Army, the Chugoku Regional Army, the Army Marine Headquarters, and large depots of military supplies.

After the Peace Park, our group went to the Hiroshima Prefectural Museum of Art (http://www1.hpam-unet.ocn.ne.jp), opened in 1968, and the adjacent Shukkei-en Garden (started in 1620, and rebuilt after the bomb).  We couldn’t take many photos in the art museum, but were able to take a few, such as the large Salvador Dali.  As you can see below, the garden was spectacular.

Tonight was the captain’s welcome dinner, and Tom and I were lucky enough to be seated at the captain’s table.  Captain Haken Gustavsson was a delightful and very funny dinner companion.

Here are photos from the ship:

These photos are at the Peace Memorial Park & Museum:

Here are photos from the Hiroshima Prefecture Museum of Art and Shukkei-en Garden, followed by a photo from dinner: