With support from the University of Richmond

New perspectives on how history is made

Hiroshima historian returns fragments of shot-down bomber to loved ones in U.S.

The remnants of a U.S. Army B-24 Liberator shot down over Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II were returned to U.S. soil last week.

The pieces of fuselage from the "Taloa" had been kept in a local farmer’s barn for more than six decades. The farmer, who refused to disclose his name to Stars and Stripes, feared being punished for disobeying a Japanese military police order in 1945 to not touch the wreckage.

The Taloa was shot down as it returned from a mission to bomb the Japanese warship Haruna, harbored in Hiroshima.

The homecoming of the fragments was made possible after more than three decades of dedicated research by Shigeaki Mori, 70, a Hiroshima historian and a survivor of the U.S. atomic bomb that incinerated his city. He has devoted himself to honoring Americans who died in his hometown.
Read entire article at Stars & Stripes