Hiroshima Day commemoration takes place in Hastings this evening

The event has been held each year, since 2007, by Hastings Against War (HAW) and sees lanterns lit around the boating lake by the War Memorial. The event begins at 8.30pmwith people gathering from 8.15pm.

In past years the ceremony has involved launching traditional Japanese floating lanterns on the main lake in Alexandra Park but increased restrictions since the pandemic have meant that over the last three years the lanterns have been placed round the edge of the water, becoming more conspicuous after sunset.

This year once again HAW is encouraging people to bring their own lanterns. Instructions on how to make them are available on the HAW website (hastingsagainstwar.org). For those who don’t bring lanterns there will be spare ones available on the night.

John Enefer, from Hastings Against War, said: “The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 remain the only occasions when nuclear weapons have been used in war. An estimated 185,00 people died as a consequence of the bombs dropped by the US air force on the Japanese cities, the victims included Koreans who had been forced to come to Japan as labourers and American prisoners of war.

“The official justification for the bombings has always been that they were essential to defeat Japan and bring about the end of World War 2. As early as September 1945 Major-General Curtiss E Lemay of the USAF said ‘the atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.’ Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill, though he didn’t oppose the use of the bombs, wrote: ‘It would be a mistake to suppose that the fate of Japan was settled by the atomic bomb. Her defeat was certain before the first bomb fell.’

“Each year those killed in 1945 are remembered in ceremonies around the world as people affirm such nuclear attacks should never be repeated.”