３年前 長崎県に引っ越してきてまずビックリしたのは こんな小さな町に自衛隊の基地が３こあることでした。
緑色の平たい大きな車の車列とか ヘリコプターが斜め一列になって飛んでたり。ゆうたんの学校にも お父さんが自衛隊の子多いです。運動神経よさそうです。
第二次世界大戦中、大村には東洋一の大きさと言われた 戦闘機工場がありました。 第２１海軍航空廠です。 長崎だけでなく周辺の県からもたくさんの人が動員され働かされていました。 その規模の大きさゆえに１９４４年秋 アメリカによる激しい空襲を受け、３００から４００人の方々が亡くなりました。
写真は 第２１海軍航空廠本部跡です。壁に残るのは爆撃の跡。大村市歴史案内人養成セミナーで訪れました。 セミナー参加者の中にもここで 学徒動員として働かされていた方々がいて口々に体験を語っておられました。
・・・大村大空襲の時、各地から集められたたくさんの若い人が犠牲になった。近くの海辺にある燃料タンクを攻撃されたために 被害は甚大だった。空爆当時、子供だったので 砲撃のなか工場からかなり離れた家まで危険をかえりみず帰った。 その時 地面にミサイルが落ちて穴ができるのでその穴に隠れて砲撃をかわした。 不思議に爆撃音は聞こえず 爆撃の震動が激しかったことと火薬の匂いを鮮明に覚えている。
私の母も福岡大空襲を生き延びました。福岡市の中心部に住んでいたので大変な思いをしています。 母は今でも戦時中を思い起こさせる芋や南瓜を食べません。
I moved in here about three years ago. I distinctly remember when I felt strange to know this fairly little town had three Japan Self-Defense Forces' bases. As I had not known a bond between Omura City and the military, that fact struck me as a pretty odd thing. However I am always delighted to see the somewhat green and big and flat vans pass by making a long line, or three or four helicopters are going away in a diagonal line in the sky. Well, I'm not like that. Sometimes I look at them just with curiosity. In Yutan's school or his former Kendo Club, many many kids' father are working for the Self-Defense Forces. Judging from their genes, the kids must be athletic. I'm not sure.
During the World War II, in Omura, there once was the most massive factory in the eastern world, as they said, to build battle plane. At that time, numerous number of people were deployed by the government from some prefectures let alone Nagasaki to construct the planes. In the fall of 1944, the huge factory was devastated by a bomb attack, as a result 300 or 400 people were killed. The picture shows a remain of the head quarters in the Navy facilities. Only this part of walls is left there. Can you find the bullet marks in the wall? It's disturbing. I visited there when I took part in a seminar which was organized by Omura City. Perhaps nearly 80 attendees were there some of those had a distinct memory of the bomb attack by the US. Most of them were little children and had been forced to work for the factory during the WW II. Some seniors were telling the personal account about the tragic incident.
... The bomb attack on Omura killed many youngsters. The bombs hit fuel tanks on the bay area and tremendously damaged the facility. The man who was telling this anecdote was just a little boy and somehow he went back home fairly far from the factory in the rain of bombs. He said he fled to home hiding in hollows that were made when missiles hit the ground. He clearly remember the shock came from bomb hitting and the smells of black powder. Oddly enough he didn't recall a sharp explosion.
My own mother survived the bomb attack on Fukuoka. She was an only seven-year-old little girl. The bombs hit straight her dwelling, her father's photo studio and neighborhood. Her school got to be the place to pile up uncountable dead bodies. Even now, my mother never eat sweet potato and pumpkin that remind her of the war. Back then, people had been suffered from starvation, the food was nothing but potato and that sort of things.
