In March 1945, American Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers destroy most of Kobe during the close of the Pacific War. Military children of an Imperial Japanese Navy captain, Seita and his sister Setsuko, survive, but their mother is severely injured and later dies. Seita conceals their mother's death from Setsuko to keep her happy. The siblings move in with a distant aunt, and Seita retrieves supplies he buried before the bombing and gives everything to his aunt, save for a tin of Sakuma drops, which he later gives to Setsuko. The aunt convinces Seita to sell his mother's silk kimonos for rice.