Mr. Howard Kakita
Amidst the silent crowd of hundreds of engaged students and faculty, Mr. Howard Kakita, a strong-willed yet sensitive 87 year old man, stood behind our school’s booth and spoke from the heart. For the first time, Teens4Disarmament, with much preparation and countless hours of hosting meetings to make this opportunity come true, invited a Hibakusha to speak in front of the whole school, providing our peers and faculty with a living witness to explain the devastating yet personal consequences of that day.
Here is Mr. Kakita’s story:
Mr. Kakita recalled the sunny Monday morning, probably the most beautiful day he remembered in a long time. As he and his brother Kenny walked to school, they were told by several neighboring kids to return home because of a warning that was issued about another enemy aircraft being in the vicinity of Hiroshima.
Warnings like this one were not uncommon and so without a thought, 7 years old Mr. Kakita returned home with his brother, changing out of their school uniform and into their play clothes.
Mr. Kakita stated, “Kenny and I, when we heard the siren, we climbed up onto the roof of our house, watching the vapor trail in the distance coming over. The B-29 always had a nice, beautiful vapor trail[s]. And it was such a clear day you could see it clearly.”
Soon after, Mr. Kakita’s grandmother came out of the kitchen infuriated that the children stood dangerously on the roof. She immediately demanded them to get off and begrudgingly, Mr. Kakita and his brother jumped down, never expecting what would come next.
“Grandmother, seeing that we came off the roof, went back to the kitchen and presumably continued doing the dishes. I (Mr. Kakita) went into a separate structure which we had next to the kitchen or next to the house that housed the bath house, ofuro. Then, the bomb detonated.”
A blinding flash was followed by a rapid cloud of dust and echoing boom after the bomb dropped. With tremendous speed, the impact of the bomb destroyed their city and homes. Being only 1.3 kilometers away from “ground zero,” Mr. Kakita described how the “flash and the boom were less than a second apart.”
Slowly biting his words, Mr. Kakita expressed his fear after witnessing the haunting images of people during the aftermath of the bombing. Mr. Kakita quietly stated, “I saw mothers crying for their lost babies, firestorms that spread across acres of land, and people holding the bottoms of their stomachs as their intestines hung open. I was only 7 years old, but I clearly remember the horrors I felt when seeing these events.”
By now, we could hear sniffling and quiet cries for the audience.
Emphasizing the inhumanity of his experience, Mr. Kakita reinstated the importance of ensuring no one else has to live his experience again. “Please, just like Manon and Kanon Iwata, help promote peace for our world. We need more people like them to be educated about this topic and help advocate for our world with no more Hibakusha.”
After the assembly ended, multiple students came to Mr. Kakita and thanked him dearly for his utmost courage and undying hope for the peace of our future. Later, many students came up to us and asked for our website and social media platforms to engage more deeply with this issue and find ways they can get involved. Brimming with the hope given from both Mr. Kakita and our classmates, Teens4Disarmament, strive to continue spreading Hibakusha stories and grow our movement for meaningful change.