A personal, historical vignette

By Cainnech Ó Sullibhain

This story goes back to November 1966, when I met Fr. Franciscus Tadashi Hasegawa at the Peace Memorial Cathedral in Hiroshima, Japan.

A few days ago, while looking through some old books, a card fell out of one. I picked up the card and remembered that Fr. Hasegawa had given it to me in November 1966. My thoughts rushed back to the time and the place where I received it. It was with a heavy heart that I was unable to carry out the assignment that Fr. Hasegawa had given me, and felt that I now had to fulfill it in a very different way.

My ship the M/V Nurmahal (London registry) was at Fort Vancouver, Oregon, taking on some cargo. The very next day we sailed down the Columbia River to the open Pacific Ocean. We were on our way to Townsville, Queensland, Australia, with some cargo for Hardangar, in the fjords of Norway, and then for home (England). Midway to our first destination, we found that there was a serious leak at the propeller tail-shaft and were forced to head for the nearest dry-dock. As it happened, the only available dry-dock was in Japan, but this was a floating dock and it was located in Hiroshima, Japan.

On arriving in Hiroshima, I went ashore and wanted to find out more about the atomic bomb damage to the city. I soon found myself at the Peace Memorial Cathedral in Hiroshima, and it was there that I first met Fr. Hasegawa. He was 14 years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and most of the children attending school that day did not survive. It was not that Fr. Hasegawa was lucky he survived, because he had radiation burns on most of his body. When I met him, he was still having skin grafts done every so often. He took me in his car to the actual site where the bomb fell, and to the Memorial Against War nearby. Later, he took me to the Atomic Bomb Hospital, where 80 people were lying in different stages of radiation poisoning, and were dying daily.

I wondered what kind of person it takes to bear so much without complaining? It was indeed an honour to meet and know such a person.

Fr. Hasegawa and I spent three evenings together and I found out a lot about this humble man. When the day came for my departure, I did so with a heavy heart. But Fr. Hasegawa asked me one last favour: would it be possible for me to try and meet Fr. Pedro Arrupe, and carry the news to him of our meeting? Fr. Hasegawa told me the reason why he asked this favour. When the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the first to arrive from Tokyo with aid for the victims was the Basque-born Jesuit priest Fr. Pedro Arrupe, because he was Spanish and therefore a neutral citizen. Fr. Arrupe had nursed the young Franciscus Tadashi Hasegawa with his limited resources, and had brought him and other victims comfort. All this was in spite of the objections of the U.S. authorities, which had made his job much more difficult.

I got to thinking of how I could honour him by doing something uniquely different to keep his memory alive. Fr. Hasegawa died of his radiation burns in 1984. Thus, I created a pyrographic painting of a Japanese Jesus Christ surrounded by the word PEACE in every known language, including Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, Tibetan and Amharic to honour his memory.

Time may pass on, but memories live forever. Thomas Paine’s words — “My country is the world” and “My religion is to do good!” — really do have a meaning. Perhaps that is how I have always seen it.

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Related: Japan, History

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