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Kato Shinichi, who covered, wrote and edited "The Centennial History of Japanese Americans in the United States" as editor-in-chief of the New Japan and America Newspaper Company, spent his entire life traveling back and forth between Japan and the United States, including the Pacific War. Given his experience of the atomic bombing, his feelings toward America must have been complicated, but he valued American democracy, recorded the footsteps of Japanese and Japanese Americans who had immigrated to the United States, and devoted the latter half of his life to the peace movement.
Shinichi Kato (from his book "Creating Peaceful Coexistence")
Kato was born in Hiroshima City in September 1900 (Meiji 33). In 1916 (Taisho 5), when he was in his first year at Shudo Junior High School, he was called to Fresno, California by his father, who was already working as a grape grower, and he attended high school there. In 1923, his father returned to Japan, but Kato settled in Pasadena, a suburb of Los Angeles.
He joined the Rafu Shimpo newspaper in 1925, and after working as a reporter for the California Mainichi newspaper for three years, he promoted the industrial union movement for Koreans living in the United States who were being pressured by American capital, and founded the newspaper "Beikoku Sangyo Nippo," of which he became vice president and editor-in-chief. He also served as manager of the Southern California Agricultural Federation.
However, when the Pacific War began, he, who was a company executive, was interned at the Mizra Internment Camp in Montana from February 1941 to June 1942. This was one of the camps administered by the Department of Justice, where "people other than American citizens" who were considered problematic by the U.S. government were interned.
In August 1942, he returned to Japan on the first (wartime) exchange ship, and in September of the following year, he joined the Chugoku Shimbun newspaper in his hometown of Hiroshima, where he was head of the news department when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Just before the atomic bomb was dropped at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, Kato was on his way to work and was reading the morning paper at the end of the line at Koi Station (Nishi-Hiroshima Station) on the Miyajima Line, waiting to transfer to the city tram.
Struck by a momentary, pale blue flash and a roaring sound, he immediately headed to the Chugoku Shimbun office in the city, then returned to his home in Hirara Village (Hatsukaichi City). The horrific scenes he saw and heard during that time were later described in a book titled "Walking through the living hell of the atomic bomb - an old journalist's experience of the pikadon."
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Hearing the death cries of the soldiers crying out "Soldier, give me water," he could do nothing but apologize in his heart and rush forward. "I jumped over charred corpses, half-dead victims of the atomic bomb, and bicycles with burning tires..." "Middle school boys and girls who had been unable to escape in time were unable to bear the heat and, begging for water, piled on top of each other in the tank, dying like red, bloody octopuses, some of them raising their fists high in the air as they died in agony..."
It is also likely that American soldiers fleeing from the crashed American plane were captured by the people.
"...A large man with a red, blistering face was tied to a utility pole with wire, and people passing by were throwing bricks and pebbles at him, saying something."
His wife and children at home survived, but his younger brother died three days later. After the war ended, he was called upon to act as a guide and interpreter for two Swiss representatives of the International Red Cross who accompanied the American atomic bomb inspection team, and he walked around the horrific scene many times. Then, one month later, his younger sister passed away, leaving behind the last words: "Brother, please avenge your death."
After the war, he served as deputy chief of the editorial department and deputy chief of the cultural affairs department, but when the company's employees' union was formed, he was appointed as its first chairman. In April 1949, at the request of then-Governor Kusunoki Tsuneo, he served as the first chairman of the Hiroshima Prefecture Public Relations Committee and also as Secretary General of the Hiroshima Prefecture Headquarters of the United Nations Association of Japan.
At the time when the Cold War between East and West had begun and the threat of nuclear war had become a real concern, Kato, who had experienced the atomic bombing and longed for world peace, became involved in the movement to establish a world federation to avoid such conflicts. In November 1952, he served as Secretary General of the World Federation Construction Alliance's Asian Conference held in Hiroshima.
In April of the following year, 1953, he returned to the United States and became involved in cultural and economic exchange projects between the United States and Japan, and later became editor-in-chief of the New Japan-America Newspaper Company in Los Angeles, where he worked on "The Centennial History of Japanese Americans in the United States." In 1967, when the company closed, he returned to Japan again, served as chairman of the Hiroshima Prefectural Council for World Federation, traveled overseas to preach world federalism, and became the representative of the Hiroshima Union of Global Citizens in the "Global Citizen Movement" advocated by U Thant, the third Secretary-General of the United Nations.
During his lifetime, Kato advocated, "There is no country that can maintain peace on its own. The philosophy of peace in the 21st century is interdependence. All mankind is one family..." and "Have the United Nations create a people's conference. Abolish nations and make the world into one federation. Direct military spending to the development of solar energy and increased food production..." (Chugoku Shimbun, May 26, 1978).
In 1978, he attended the "Great Mobilization for Survival" held by a civic group in New York in conjunction with the First Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on Disarmament, carrying portraits of his younger brother and sister who had died in the atomic bombing. His former feelings of revenge against America had been transformed into energy for the peace movement.
In addition to his involvement in the peace movement, as a former immigrant to the United States himself, he was also one of the founders of the Hiroshima North American Club, which served as a liaison between Hiroshima people living in the United States, and he worked hard to make it easier for them to return home from their emigration.
He died of a cerebral infarction at his home in Hiroshima on February 9, 1982, at the age of 81. As a journalist and peace activist, he lived a passionate life of action and idealism. (Titles omitted)
reference:
"Creating Peaceful Coexistence" (1971, by Shinichi Kato, published by the Association of Earthlings)
"Flow" (1954, written by Tetsuo Murakami, published by Tomoko Murakami)
"Chugoku Shimbun Hiroshima edition dated May 26, 1978"
"February 10, 1982, Chugoku Shimbun, Shinichi Kato's death announcement"
*From the editorial department: If any of our readers know anything about Shinichi Kato's family, please contact Discover Nikkei. We will use your information as a reference for future interviews. Contact: Editor@DiscoverNikkei.org
© 2014 Ryusuke Kawai
