Fukuyama War Dead Memorial Statue (Mother and Two Children)

The Fukuyama War Dead Memorial Statue, known as "Boshi Sannin-zō" (母子三人像, "Mother and Children, Three Figures"), stands in Fukuyama Central Park (福山市中央公園) in the Kasumi-chō district of Fukuyama City. The bronze sculpture by Imashiro Kunitada (今城国忠) depicts a mother desperately fleeing through flames while with her two small children, three figures in all — a scene based on an eyewitness account from the aftermath of the August 8, 1945 firebombing.

The statue was erected in March 1972 as part of the commemorative projects marking the 55th anniversary of Fukuyama's incorporation as a city. The monument, titled "Tsuioku" (追憶, Remembrance), was proposed in 1969 by the chairman of the city assembly; a statue rather than a stone stele was chosen on the basis of a witness's account of finding, on the morning of August 9, a mother, an infant and a child of about six dead together in a rice paddy in Sumiyoshi-chō.

On the night of August 8, 1945, 91 B-29 Superfortress bombers attacked Fukuyama beginning at 22:25, dropping approximately 556 tons of incendiary bombs over 70 minutes. The raid destroyed about 80% of the urban area, killed 355 people according to the city's roll of the war dead (354 in some accounts), and left over 47,000 homeless. The attack came two days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and one day before the Nagasaki bombing.

A duplicate of the statue was created in 1994 for indoor display at the Fukuyama Human Rights and Peace Museum (福山市人権平和資料館), located nearby in the Marunouchi district. The museum houses permanent exhibitions documenting the Fukuyama air raid, including photographs, survivor testimonies, wartime artifacts, and a scale model showing the extent of destruction.

Every August 8, the annual "Atomic Bomb and Fukuyama War Dead Memorial Ceremony" (原爆・福山戦災死没者慰霊式) is held at the statue site, organized by the Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Movement Fukuyama Promotion Alliance. The ceremony has been held every year since 1954. Participants offer flowers, observe a moment of silence, and renew their pledge for peace.

Fukuyama Central Park itself occupies the site of the former Fukuyama Amusement Park, whose fountain basin served as a desperate shelter during the air raid — civilians plunged into the water to escape the firestorm. The fountain top has been preserved as a separate memorial within the park.