Sisters Out of Arms

Question: Pearl Harbor National Memorial in Hawaii recently became an official "sister park" with what other war memorial?

Answer: Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, Japan.

Let’s be honest. If you had to come up with the world’s two least likely locations for a sister park agreement, the pairing of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima would be tough to beat.

But on June 29, 2023, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel and Hiroshima Mayor Matsui Kazumi met at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo to sign a Sister Park Arrangement between the Pearl Harbor National Memorial in Hawaii and the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima City. A little refresher …

On December 7, 1941, Imperial Japan attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands, killing 2,403 American military personnel (including 68 civilians), and wounding 1,178. The surprise attack instantly propelled the United States into World War II.

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, killing some 80,000 Japanese civilians instantly, with the death toll rising to about 140,000 by the end of the year. A second bomb dropped on Nagasaki three days later killed an estimated 70,000 people. Six days after that, on August 15, Japan surrendered—and with equal abruptness, World War II was over.

Shortly after the bomb was dropped, President Truman issued a statement to inform the American public about the dramatic conclusion to hostilities. "The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor," part of it read, "They have been repaid many fold."

Politics aside, the two memorials established to honor the lives lost during these pivotal moments in world history are revered in their respective countries. Visits to each one are considered pilgrimages to sacred ground.

The USS Arizona Memorial is the centerpiece of the Pearl Harbor National Memorial on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu. One of the most hallowed sites in the United States, the memorial straddles the midsection of the sunken battleship and honors the more than 900 sailors and marines killed that day—and who remain entombed in its hull.

The centerpiece of Peace Memorial Park, a 29-acre public space in the heart of Hiroshima City, is Genbaku Domu—better known as the Atom Bomb Dome. The city’s Industrial Exposition Hall at the time, it was the only structure left standing near the hypocenter of the blast. Preserved exactly as it stood after the bombing, the Atom Bomb Dome was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.

The idea of designating Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima as "sister parks" didn’t come out of the blue. The path to reconciliation began with Barack Obama—who in May of 2016 became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima.

Actually, two U.S. presidents had visited Hiroshima before Obama—but they were private citizens at the time. Richard Nixon made a trip in 1964, before he became president; and Jimmy Carter visited in 1984, after he was president. An official visit to the site of such suffering was a big deal—so even planning the trip earned Obama high marks for courage. He received an enthusiastic welcome by the Japanese and spoke at length about the human costs of war and the need for peace and nuclear disarmament—but was careful not to apologize for any U.S. actions during the war. The visit was praised by the international news media, including Japan and the U.S. And when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reciprocated with a visit to Pearl Harbor a few months later, the seeds were sown for a permanent link between the two sites.

Not everyone is happy about the "sister park" arrangement, of course. How could they be? The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are perceived very differently in the U.S. and Japan. The majority of Americans view the actions as hastening the end of a costly and deadly war, saving millions of American lives. The majority of Japanese, however, view the actions as unjustified—and also unnecessary, since Japan was about to be defeated. Some believe (and not just in Japan) that the decision to drop the bomb was likely aimed at projecting American power to the world.

Representatives of hibakusha—survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—have denounced the sister park arrangement, pointing out that it is inappropriate to equate the indiscriminate killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians with a World War II attack on a key U.S. naval base.

But there are reasons for optimism. When Obama visited Hiroshima, he made quite an impression with the Japanese by bringing four orizuru (paper cranes) that he had personally folded. He said he had been moved by the story of Sadako Sasaki. In her home about a mile from ground zero, two-year-old Sadako survived the blast unscathed. But having been exposed to such large amounts of radiation, she became sick several years later with a form of leukemia survivors called "A-bomb disease." Believing in a Japanese saying that a person who folds 1,000 paper cranes would be granted a wish, Sadako began folding highly detailed paper cranes from her hospital bed—right up to her death three months later at the age of 12. Her story inspired a peace movement, and she is the model for the statue at the Children’s Peace Monument depicting a girl with outstretched arms and a paper crane above her. Hiroshima receives about 10 million paper cranes each year from around the world. And there’s more to her story …

In 2013, Sadako’s then 70-year-old brother, Masahiro Sasaki, wanted to donate one of her original paper cranes to the Pearl Harbor Memorial. The person who acted as a go-between in discussions with the National Park Service was Clifton Truman, grandson of President Harry Truman—the man who authorized the dropping of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Guests at the official crane-donating ceremony included a Japanese pilot that had participated in the bombing of Pearl Harbor and an American Pearl Harbor survivor—two old warriors who slowly walked onto the stage and shook hands. So perhaps there’s hope for reconciliation between the two "sister parks" after all.

A Few Things You May Not Know About Hiroshima

• Surprising survivors of the blast zone in Hiroshima—Ginkgo Trees: Gingko trees are considered living fossils and grow most anywhere. But still, to find six of them within a mile of ground zero that survived the blast with just mild charring is truly astonishing. Fully recovered, they can still be visited today.


• The official flower for the city of Hiroshima—Oleander: Oleander is the official flower of Hiroshima because it was the first flower to bloom in the city after the destruction from the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945.


• The most destructive WWII bombing attack on Japan—not Hiroshima: It wasn’t Nagasaki either. The U.S. firebombing of Tokyo on March 9, 1945, is considered the deadliest bombing raid in history. Carried out by 334 B-29 bombers, the raid killed more than100,000 people, and injured several times that number.


• The significance of Hiroshima’s "Peace Flame": The Peace Flame located in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park has burned continuously since it was lit in 1964. It will remain lit until all nuclear bombs on the planet are destroyed.


• Japanese man survives bomb in Hiroshima—and Nagasaki: Either the luckiest or unluckiest person on earth, Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip when the first bomb went off. Badly burned, he managed to report back to work in Nagasaki on August 9, when the second bomb went off. The only person known to have survived both explosions, Tsutomu lived to age 93.


• Nuclear weapons and the not-so-Lucky Dragon: On March 1, 1954, the U.S. tested a thermonuclear weapon (one that was 1,000 times more powerful than Hiroshima) on Bikini Atoll, engulfing the Japanese fishing boat Daigo Fukuryū-maru (Lucky Dragon 5) in a cloud of radioactive ash. The incident inspired a fierce anti-nuclear movement—and also inspired the 1954 film Gojira, better known as Godzilla.

Visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park during an optional post-trip extension to Japan’s Cultural Treasures.