The Eternal Flame at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park will be used in a ceremony at Pearl Harbor.

The eternal flame at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, Japan. (Wikimedia Commons/redlegsfan21)

TOKYO - The eternal flame at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Japan, which has been lit since after the 1945 US atomic bombing, will be the source of the flame to be used at the monument in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in a ceremony this month, according to a family member of a victim of the atomic bomb recently.

The plan to divide the "flame of peace" and take it to locations associated with the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack was proposed by Sadako Sasaki's family in an effort to foster lasting peace between Japan and the United States.

Sasaki died at the age of 12 from leukemia due to radiation a decade after the atomic bombing of the western Japanese city.

The fire will be transported in a special container on a Japan Airlines Co. plane, marking the first time in history that members of the public have transported fire in this way, Kyodo News reported (26/4).

The only other time the airline has carried the flame is for the Olympics and Paralympics.

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

The "flame of peace," which has been kept lit in Yame, Fukuoka Prefecture, is said to have been brought by Tatsuo Yamamoto from the still-smoking ruins of Hiroshima.

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

About five years ago, Sasaki's nephew, Yuji Sasaki, learned about the "fire of peace" and began plans to bring it to Pearl Harbor.

"This will be an important opportunity to resolve the issue between Japan and the United States," said Masahiro Sasaki, Sadako's older brother and also an atomic bomb survivor.

Sadako's story of folding around 1,000 paper cranes in the hope of recovering from her illness - because according to Japanese legend, a wish will come true by folding as many cranes as that - has inspired many movements and projects about peace.