Flame from Hiroshima atomic bombed ruins to be installed at Pearl Harbor ceremony

A symbolic flame that has been kept alive since the aftermath of the 1945 US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima will be installed at a memorial in Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, at a ceremony next month.

The plan to split the "flame of peace" and bring it to a site related to the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack was proposed by the kin of Sadako Sasaki – an atomic-bomb victim – in an attempt to foster lasting peace between Japan and the US, Kyodo News reported on Sunday, citing a family member of Sasaki.

Sasaki died at age 12 of radiation-induced leukemia a decade after the bombing of Hiroshima.

The flame will be transported in a special container on a Japan Airlines aircraft.

The ceremony is scheduled to be held on May 24, with participants including descendants of former US President Harry Truman, who ordered the atomic bombings of Japan, and wartime Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo.

The "flame of peace," which has been kept alive in Yame city of Fukuoka prefecture, is believed to have been taken by Tatsuo Yamamoto from the smoldering ruins of Hiroshima.

Yamamoto, who died in 2004 at 88, kept the flame burning in his home before it was moved to a peace tower in Yame in 1968.

In 2021, Sasaki's nephew, Yuji Sasaki, learned about the "flame of peace" and put in motion the plan to take it to Pearl Harbor.

"This will be a significant opportunity to resolve issues between Japan and the United States," said Masahiro Sasaki, the older brother of Sadako and himself an atomic bomb survivor.