Sadao Hirano

This year, 2024, marks the 79th year since World War II ended.  During the war, it is estimated that between 50-80 million people, including civilians, were killed worldwide, and 3.1 million people in Japan. (Wikipedia)  Since then, war has continued in many parts of the world.  However, Japan has never been involved in a war in the 78 years since World War II ended.  No Japanese has killed anyone, and no Japanese has been killed in a foreign country.  In peacetime, if you kill one person, you are caught by the police and put in prison.  But in war, the more people you kill, the more heroic you are regarded.  Isn’t that abnormal?

Japan’s annexation of Korea in 1910 was Japan’s first attempt to colonize other countries.  From there, Japan kept on expanding and ended up fighting against the Allies, including the U.S.A, and the U.K.  In the 12 years between my birth and the atomic bombing, Japan was at war the entire time from the Manchurian Incident, the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War.  They were totally reckless and foolish wars to start.  Some people tried to stop war from progressing, but it is very difficult to stop a war once it has started.  In the end, the Pacific War dragged on until the atomic bombs were dropped on the two cities.

It is said that 60% of the soldiers sent to war died of starvation because they were not supplied enough food.  In Japan, young men were drafted into the army, while women and children were mobilized to work in factories or forced to do farm work.  Farmers were forced to give away their harvest and did not have enough to eat.  Even children were made to devote their entire lives to the war effort.  And if our homeland became a battlefield, no one, not even women and children, would escape the ravages of war.  War must never be waged!