Eric Billingsley holds one of his candles containing scrap paper from a former origami crane in the town of Kitahiroshima in Hiroshima Prefecture. (Mainichi)

KITAHIROSHIMA, Hiroshima -- A half-Japanese, half-American graphic designer here has been giving handmade candles to relatives of U.S. prisoners of war (POWs) who were killed by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

Eric Billingsley, 43, was driven to make some kind of offering to this particular group of people, after recently discovering that there were also some American victims -- captured in Hiroshima as POWs -- who died as a result of the atomic bomb at the end of World War II.

Billingsley has strong ties to both the U.S. and Japan. His Japanese mother married his American father after first meeting him during a homestay in the U.S. Following their marriage, Billingsley was born in Chiba Prefecture, where he was raised. During his teens, the youngster went over to the U.S. where he worked as a photographer. He subsequently moved back to Japan in 2005 with his wife Maki, 41, and the couple have been living together in Maki's home prefecture of Hiroshima for the past seven years.

The graphic designer says, "Both the U.S. and Japan have elements of tragedy in their respective histories -- something which is symbolized here in the city of Hiroshima. As a Hiroshima resident with parents from both these countries, I started to think about what I could do to help."

These thoughts did not really surface until after Billingsley moved to Hiroshima with his wife. His father served in the U.S. Air Force, and spent time on U.S. military bases in Japan, but the pair never spoke about the war or the atomic bomb. These issues began to really hit home after Billingsley moved to Hiroshima. "Both the U.S. and Japan have managed to overcome the dark aspects of their past, and as a result, it is possible for me to be standing here today," the graphic designer says thoughtfully.

With these empathetic thoughts starting to enter his mind, Billingsley learned that one of his acquaintances received a stack of scrap origami paper from the Hiroshima Municipal Government and used it for masks used in kagura, or Shinto music and dance performances. The paper had previously been used to make origami cranes that went on display at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Billingsley wanted to reuse the paper in some form -- as a gesture aimed toward world peace -- and came up with the idea of incorporating the paper into specially-designed candles. He set about making these candles, using pieces of red and blue origami paper, and has managed to make about 70 candles to date.

Since his recent discovery that American POWs were also killed by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, Billingsley worked with historian Shigeaki Mori, 80, who identified 12 of these POWs, and sent some of his candles to five affected families last month.

One of the recipients replied to say, "This gift is a very appropriate way of comforting the relatives of the victims. It is meaningful that the candles have been made by someone like yourself, who has parents from both the U.S. and Japan."

Given that the candles are handmade, Billingsley can only make about one per day, but he will keep on producing, saying that, "If these candles help someone else out there, then I will continue to make them."