Bells of the same origin tolled in unison at Duluth’s Enger Park and nearly 6,000 miles away atop a hillside memorial in Ohara-Isumi City, Japan, on Sunday afternoon, as the sister cities celebrated the International Day of Peace.
The two communities have made an annual tradition of marking Sept. 21, a date set aside by the United Nations to promote peace between nations and individuals, but this year marked a particularly significant anniversary in the healing of their relations.
Sixty years ago, Duluth granted a request from representatives of Ohara for the return of a Buddhist temple bell that had been brought to the Northland as a war trophy.
The 640-pound bell cast in 1692 once called people to worship at a now-
defunct temple called Choeji. But Ohara residents were compelled to relinquish the historic bell to Japan’s ravenous war machine.
As World War II ground on, Japan grew desperate for materials that could be made into weaponry and ammunition. Even sacred and beloved items were offered up as scrap to be melted down in order to sustain the nation’s war effort.
The Choeji bell appeared destined for the same fate when it was taken down and handed to government authorities in 1940. But through some strange fortune, the bell survived the war.
As members of a post-war occupation force sent to Japan, the crew of a Navy cruiser, the USS Duluth, discovered the ornate bell resting with other sundry scrap metal items at a naval yard in Yokosuka.
They claimed the bell as a spoil of war, taking it on an unlikely trek from its original place of worship to a U.S. warship. The temple bell would make the journey back to the United States, where the ship’s captain presented the bell to Duluth Mayor George W. Johnson in January 1947 as a World War II keepsake.
The bell was placed on display in the Duluth City Hall. But in 1954, Duluth received a letter from Glenn W. Shaw, cultural attaché of the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, informing local officials of Ohara’s desire to see the bell returned.
Duluth officials were receptive, as indicated by Mayor George D. Johnson’s response at the time.
“They should have it back,” he told the Duluth Herald. “To us it is just a war trophy, but to them it is a tradition that has existed for more than 2½ centuries.”
Wendy Wennberg, an active member of Duluth Sister Cities International, described the decision to return the bell as a tremendous act of good will.
“To get it back probably seemed like a miracle,” she said. “When they lost that bell, it must have felt like they’d lost a part of their soul.”
Ohara’s head magistrate penned a letter of thanks, informing Duluth that the bell would be given a new name.
“By calling the bell the American-Japanese Peace Bell, we shall make it a symbol of good will between two nations and bear your friendship in our minds forever,” he wrote.
“It was a powerful thing for Duluth to return that bell, and out of appreciation, they sent us a replica,” Wennberg said.
Duluth and Ohara Isumi-City officially became sister cities in 1990, and one year later a replica of the original bell arrived in Duluth. It was installed in what is now a Japanese-inspired garden at Enger Park, where a crowd of peace advocates gathered Sunday.
The Rev. Bruce Johnson of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Duluth offered an invocation before the ceremonial ringing of the bell.
“May this bell’s voice resonate in our deepest selves, calling forth from each one of us an echoing response, as we commit ourselves to the relief of suffering, the building of community and the establishment of justice and equity in the world,” he said.
