Hiroshima and Tadanoumi: The unknown history of Japan's 'wartime capital' and 'Poison Gas Island'

During WWII, Hiroshima suffered atomic bombing by the United States. Every year, the city holds a peace memorial ceremony to mourn the victims and pray for peace.

However, what Japanese officials seldom mention is that Hiroshima was the most important military-industrial city and military port for Japan's aggression and military expansion in modern history as well as serving as Japan's "wartime capital." It is little known that military command centers, troop training grounds, large-scale munitions factories, military supply docks, and production bases for chemical weapons had been located in the city.

Okunoshima is a remote island 80 kilometers away from Hiroshima. In November 1928, the Japanese Imperial Army established its first chemical weapons factory there, named "The Tadanoumi Weapons Factory." Between 1929 and 1944, this factory produced over 6,600 tons of toxic chemicals prohibited by international conventions, such as mustard gas and lewisite, accounting for 90 percent of total production of toxic chemicals in Japan. The island came to be known as "Poison Gas Island." To cover up the production of toxic chemicals, the Japanese government once erased the island from published maps.

The vast majority of toxic chemicals produced on Okunoshima Island were loaded into chemical weapons and shipped to China. During its war of aggression, the Japanese army used chemical weapons on countless Chinese, in flagrant violation of international law. There were 1,241 documented instances with precise records of time, location, and casualties.

When the Wushe Incident erupted in Taiwan against Japanese colonial rule in 1930, the Japanese army used tear gas and hydrogen cyanide to suppress the civilians. In the Shanghai Battle and the Battle of Xinqiang River, the Japanese army deployed chemical weapons which not only poisoned senior Chinese military commanders, but also resulted in heavy casualties among civilians.

In 1942, the Japanese army launched a poison gas attack on Chinese soldiers and civilians who hid in the tunnels of a village in Hebei Province, causing over 800 deaths. Moreover, Unit 516 of the Japanese invading troops, known for chemical warfare, collaborated with the notorious Unit 731 specializing in biological warfare, conducting chemical agent experiments on live human beings in northeast China and beyond.

On the eve of defeat in 1945, the Japanese army abandoned large quantities of chemical weapons in China's remote mountains and dense forests, even dumping them directly into rivers and lakes. To date, Japanese abandoned chemical weapons (JACWs) have been discovered at over 200 locations across 18 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in China.

At least 2,000 Chinese have been harmed by these abandoned chemical weapons since the end of the war. On August 4, 2003, five abandoned chemical barrels were unearthed at a construction site in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang Province, leading to one death and 43 injuries. In July 2009, at Binhai New Area in Tianjin, a dredging vessel accidentally inhaled a JACW shell during operation, resulting in the poisoning of five workers onboard. Subsequently, over 600 JACWs were recovered from the relevant area.

Although Japan committed to destroy all abandoned chemical weapons in China after the Chemical Weapons Convention took effect in 1997, the Japanese government has yet to provide effective burial location information. As a result, the total number and specific locations of JACWs remain unknown. Due in part to inadequate funding by Tokyo, the destruction process has been greatly delayed. To this day, a large number of unknown JACWs continue to pose a serious threat to the life, property, and ecological security of the Chinese people.

Japanese militarists, in addition to harming neighboring countries, also brought immense suffering to the Japanese people. During the war, around 6,700 Japanese workers, including approximately 1,100 teenage students, were mobilized to produce chemical weapons on Okunoshima Island. Most were unaware of the true nature of their work. They labored under poor protective measures, and were subjected to strict surveillance, and prohibited from disclosing the island's secrets. Together with around 800 workers engaged in post-war dismantling operations, around 7,500 people suffered varying degrees of harm from chemical weapons, with many suffering from chronic bronchitis and cancer. After Japan's defeat, the Japanese authorities destroyed evidence by burning or concealing important documents and dismantling key production facilities and equipment before the Allied forces arrived, and disposed of large quantities of toxic chemicals by burning, burying, or dumping them in the surrounding waters of Okunoshima Island, causing irreversible environmental pollution in the area. In 1988, Japanese civilians spontaneously established the "Okunoshima Poison Gas Museum" on the island to expose this dark chapter of Japanese militarism's production and use of chemical weapons.

A report by Kyodo News at the end of last year revealed that in November 1944, around 160 students from Tadanoumi Girls' High School in Hiroshima Prefecture were assembled on Okunoshima Island to produce "balloon bombs". Reiko Okada, now 96 years old, who was only 15 at the time, told a reporter that it was only after the war that she learned these "balloon bombs" were intended to be launched toward the United States. Upon hearing that six children in Oregon in the western United States had been killed by such devices, she felt a sense of guilt.

Yasuma Fujimoto, who had also participated in the production of toxic chemicals on Okunoshima Island, visited China several times after the war to apologize to the victims of Japanese chemical attacks. Fujimoto stated, "I am a perpetrator who produced poison gas. I'm a criminal." "I will never forget that the poison gas I manufactured was used to kill Chinese people. To forget would be to lose the opportunity to bear witness to history," he added.

However, the Japanese government has consistently downplayed and concealed this history. Instead of repenting of its crimes against humanity, it has promoted Okunoshima Island as a tourist destination, allowing its brutal past to fade from public memory. While the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is praised as a symbol of peace, the nearby "Poison Gas Island" along with the history of crimes perpetrated there, has been systematically downplayed and whitewashed.

On August 6, the Japanese government is expected to hold another memorial ceremony at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park to pray for peace. It is worth bearing in mind that genuine peace requires the courage to confess the dark history of Hiroshima and Okunoshima. It requires sincere apology to the victims of Japanese militarism, and it is essential to check the right-wing forces' attempt at neo-militarism. When Japan depicts itself as a war victim without genuine introspection and confession, its prayers for peace is nothing but ironic.

The author is an observer on international affairs.