My name is Touji Shinich, and I was born in 1929 in Himeji City, Japan. I have six siblings: four brothers, two sisters. Three of my brothers joined the military. I grew up in a family of farmers. At that time in Japan, food was scarce. I can remember our family being mandated to give rice to the country because all the farms were suffering. Even at my school they would use the yard to grow pumpkins and other foods.
In 1944, at the age of 15, I started work at a Konishi aircraft factory. It was a milk factory, but when the war came it was converted. There were many other employees, and we worked all day and night. On average, we constructed about one fighter aircraft per day. We then sent the plane to our local naval base on three horses.
On June 22nd, 1945, our supervisor at the factory was telling us about the war, and how Japan was losing. He told us we had to pick up our pace and make as many fighter planes as possible to help our country. Around 9:30AM, I heard what sounded like sirens in the distance. I soon realized the sound came from fighter jets. We were ordered to immediately leave the factory and we did.
As soon as I we left the factory, I saw six B-29 fighters making a formation overhead. One plane flew over me, descended down to about 25 meters and dropped bombs. The plane then flew away. 5 minutes later, another six jets came and dropped more bombs.
They were huge explosions. People were running away, but after multiple bombs, everyone was too scared to move for fear of finding their way into a bomb's trajectory. No one was climbing, running or even screaming. I saw hundreds of wounded, powerless people. Some started to pray.
The formations came six times, all with bombs. Everything around me was completely destroyed, including the factory. Looking around, all I saw was debris and a few trees that weren't toppled over. I thought I was going to die, because I had nowhere to run.
The entire morning, I was at the river, watching our factory burn. By 2:30PM, the factory employees regathered and my youngest brother came looking for me. He had a lentil box lunch my mother had made. I shared the lunch with my friends, who were all grateful.
One friend was so thankful he wrote "thanks for the white rice" on my New Years cards for the next 20 years. The trauma of that event seemed to bring us together, as we became very close friends. I was so thankful to my mother for making the rice, and my brother for bringing it to me.
In the time after the bombing, our priority was cleaning up the area. We were cleaning the debris and finding bodies strewn about the area. Luckily, my dormitory was fine. I stayed there for a little longer, but sadly my dormitory was destroyed by another B-29 bombing. That one destroyed over 4,000 houses.
I knew Japan was significantly weakened by these bombings and the rest of the war's circumstance. I felt helpless. It was a scary summer.
On August 15th, 1945 I was at my parents house, listening to the radio. They broadcast that the war was over, and we had lost. I knew that moment was coming, but I still felt terrible about it because I didn't know what the future held. We all thought there was a chance we would still face attacks from America and be killed. One of my brothers was killed in the war, but my two other brothers came back. After the war, I helped my parents on the family farm for four years. My parents then moved to the countryside, where they stayed for the rest of their lives.
In 1951, I started work as an inspector for a steel company. I stayed there for 38 years. After that, I worked for the Hyogo Profecture as a civil sovereign for 4 years.
My up-close reminder of life's fragility instilled me with an earnest desire to live. For the rest of my life, I've appreciated every single day like it could truly be my final one.
