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Julian Ryall

Shigeaki Mori, the Japanese atomic bomb survivor whose hug with then US president Barack Obama at a 2016 remembrance event in Hiroshima went viral globally, has died at the age of 88, just days after warning that the world seems on the brink of another nuclear catastrophe.
Tributes have been coming in since Mori died in Hiroshima on Saturday, with many pointing out that as well as being a survivor of the world’s first atomic weapon, he was also a keen amateur historian who attracted attention in the US for his dogged research into 12 US aircrew who were imprisoned in the industrial city and were among the tens of thousands killed in the blast on August 6, 1945.
It was this 40-year project that brought Mori to the attention of American filmmaker Barry Frechette, who put him at the centre of his award-winning 2016 documentary Paper Lanterns.
That, in turn, brought him to the attention of the US government, according to Emi Doi, a Tokyo-based journalist who has interviewed Mori and Frechette about the documentary.
“No US president had ever gone to Hiroshima to mark the anniversary of the attack before Obama, and even he was not expected to go there during his trip to Japan,” Doi said.
“A few days before the annual memorial, Mori told me himself that he did not expect to attend and that he was going to watch it on television,” she said. “But I was watching it, and suddenly I saw him sitting there. I am sure that Mori’s story moved the heart of Ambassador [Caroline] Kennedy and Obama, and they arranged for him to be there.”

In his speech, the president referred to the US troops who had died in the bombing alongside Japanese victims. Obama’s comments were built on the story that Mori had painstakingly pieced together, which had altered the perceptions of some proponents and opponents of the decision to drop the atomic bomb.
Mori was 8 when the bomb was dropped on his hometown, about 2.5km (1.6 miles) from the centre of the blast. He recalled the explosion throwing him into a stream, with debris engulfing him.
“It was so dark that when I held my hands up about 10cm in front of my face, I couldn’t see them,” he said in a 2016 interview.
“The blast was unbelievable. I saw things around me being lifted into the air by its power. I thought the Earth itself had exploded. It was a miracle that I was not injured.”
Kayoko Mori, his 83-year-old wife, is also a survivor of the bomb.
On August 9, 1945, the US dropped a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, killing tens of thousands of people. Japan surrendered to the Allies the following month, marking an end to World War II.

After the war, Mori was unable to realise his dream of becoming a history professor but never lost his passion for the past.
In the 1970s, he stumbled upon the story of a US bomber that had crashed in neighbouring Yamaguchi prefecture in the closing days of the conflict. The six surviving crew members of the B-24 Liberator “Lonesome Lady” were later taken to a police station in Hiroshima, where they were held with three men from the US bomber Taloa and three other Americans who had also been shot down.
All 12 men died when the “Little Boy” detonated above Hiroshima, along with as many as 166,000 Japanese citizens and troops based in the city.
Over the following decades, Mori was able to track down relatives of the dead men. In 1999, he attended an event where a brass plaque honouring the men who died in the city’s police headquarters was unveiled.
Despite US presidents visiting Japan frequently in the years after Tokyo’s surrender, none before Obama had paid their respects at Hiroshima, possibly out of concern that it might be interpreted in the US as an apology over the bombing.
“Obama’s speech on that day moved the hearts of the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Doi said. “There was still anger about what had happened in 1945, but a lot of that melted away and turned into greater respect and understanding.”
The most powerful image of the day, one that flashed around the world, was when Obama approached Mori, who was too overwhelmed with emotion to speak. In a remarkable moment of humanity, the president embraced the tearful Mori and held him for a brief moment.
“It was from the bottom of the heart on both sides and moved everyone who saw it,” Doi said.

In a social media message, Frechette paid tribute to Mori, saying: “I am heartbroken to learn that Mr. Mori has passed away. All our love is with Kayoko and their family. To say we were blessed to have him in our lives is an understatement. The world was a better place because of him and Kayoko.”
The message was accompanied by a photo of Frechette with Mori and the producers of Paper Lanterns taken at the United Nations in New York, where it was screened in 2017, in an event organised by the Japanese mission to the UN and the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs.
Mori’s book, The Secret History of the American POWs killed by the Atomic Bomb, was published in 2008. He was awarded the prestigious Kikuchi Kan Prize for his research in 2016.
Kayoko Mori told the Yomiuri newspaper that her husband had been “a man of tenacity who never gave up easily”. She recalled that he was occasionally criticised for researching “soldiers from an enemy country”, although he always replied that today “there was no friend or foe”.
In his last interview, on March 3, Shigeaki Mori expressed deep concern about the state of the world and feared that the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine were spiralling out of control.
“Things are getting worse,” he said. “It would not surprise me if, at any moment, nuclear weapons are used again.”


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Earlier this month, Shigeaki Mori warned that the world was at risk of another nuclear attack over the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine


Earlier this month, Shigeaki Mori warned that the world was at risk of another nuclear attack over the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.


Japanese atomic bomb survivor who hugged Obama in Hiroshima dies at 88

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Earlier this month, Shigeaki Mori warned that the world was at risk of another nuclear attack over the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine

Earlier this month, Shigeaki Mori warned that the world was at risk of another nuclear attack over the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine