surviving death
"I learned that the nuclear weapons which gnaw the minds and bodies of human beings should never be used. Even the slightest idea of using nuclear arms should be completely exterminated from the minds of human beings. Otherwise, we will repeat the same tragedy. And we will never stop being ashamed of ourselves."
-Hiroshi Sawachika, 1986
-Hiroshi Sawachika, 1986
"I've been living on dragging my body full of sickness and from time to time I wonder if it is worth living in such hardship and pain and I become desperate. But it's time I manage to pull myself together and I tell myself once my life was saved, I should fulfill my mission as a survivor in other words it has been and it is my belief that those who survived must continue to talk about our experiences. They hand down the awful memories to future generations representing the silent voices of those who had to die in misery." -Akihiro Takahashi, 1986 |
Excerpts of Japanese eyewitness accounts of the bombing of Hiroshima are below. These heartbreaking stories illustrate the reality of the physical and emotional suffering produced by the atomic bomb.
An air-raid warning was issued...and after the warning was lifted, as I opened the window, there came the flash. it was so bright, a ten or hundred or thousand times brighter than a camera flash bulb. The flash was piercing my eyes and my mind went blank. The glass from the windows was shattered all over the floor. I was lying on the floor, too. When I came to, I was anxious to know what happened to my daughter, Yatchan…I made my way to a train station near Hiroshima. I saw a young girl coming my way. Her skin was dangling all ever and she was naked...But my mind was full, worrying about my daughter.
...I didn't see the Mushroom cloud. I was trying to find my daughter…Then, the black rain started falling from the sky…It was like a heavy rain. I stayed awake all night waiting and waiting for her, but she didn't come back. About six thirty on the morning of the 7th, Mr. Ishido came around. Mr.Ishido came up to me and said, ``Quick! Get some clothes and go for her. Your daughter is at the bank of the Ota River.''…I hurried as fast as I could…I couldn't tell who was who. I kept wondering where my daughter was. But then, she cried for me, ``Mother!'' I recognized her voice. Her face looked terrible. And she still appears in my dreams like that sometimes. When I met her, she said, ``There shouldn't be any war.'' I was all by myself, and I didn't know what to do. There were maggots in her wounds and a sticky yellowish pus, a white watery liquid coming out her wounds and a sticky yellowish liquid. I didn't know what was going on. [I tried to remove the maggots] but her skin was just peeling right off. The maggots were coming out all over. I couldn't wipe them off. I thought it would be too painful. I picked off some maggots, though. She asked me what I was doing and I told her, ``Oh, it's nothing.'' She nodded at my words. And nine hours later, she died. I was holding her in my arms all that time, on my lap. When I held her on my lap, she said, ``I don't want to die.'' I told her, ``Hang on Hang on.'' She said, ``I won't die before my brother comes home.'' But she was in pain and she kept crying, ``Brother. Mother.''…Around early October, my hair started to come out. I wondered what was happening to me, but all my hair was disappearing. In November, I become bald. Then, purple spots started to appear around my neck, my body and my arms, and on the inner parts of my thighs, a lot of them, all over, the purple spots all over my body. I was shivering and I couldn't consult the doctor. I still had a fever when I was admitted here for a while, but now I don't have a fever so often. …[My son] became neurotic and killed himself, finally, by jumping in front of a train in October. I was left alone…I'm ready now to be summoned by God at any moment. But God doesn't allow me to come his side yet. If it were not for the war, my two children would not have died. If it were not for the war, I wouldn't have to stay at an institution like this. I suppose the three of us would have been living together in happiness. Ah, it is so hard on me. -Kinue Tomoyasu I was in my office. I had just entered the room and said "Good morning." to colleagues and I was about to approach my desk when outside it suddenly turned bright red. I felt very hot on my cheeks…I felt weightless as if I were an astronaut. I was then unconscious for 20 or 30 seconds. When I came to, I realized that everybody including myself was lying at one side of the room. Nobody was standing. The desks and chairs had also blown off to one side. At the windows, there was no window glass and the window frames had been blown out as well. I went to the windows to find out where the bombing had taken place. And I saw the mushroom cloud over the gas company. The sound and shock somehow suggested that the bomb had been dropped right over the gas company…In a few minutes, I heard my name called. I was told to go to the headquarters where there were lots of injured persons waiting. I went there and I started to give treatment with the help of nurses and medical course men. We first treated the office personnel for their injuries. Most of them had broken glass and pieces of wood stuck into them…Afterwards, we heard the strange noise. It sounded as if a large flock of mosquitoes were coming from a distance…We saw that citizens from the town were marching towards us. They looked unusual. We understood that the injured citizens were coming towards us for treatment. But while, we thought that there should be Red Cross Hospitals and another big hospitals in the center of the town. So why should they come here, I wondered, instead of going there. At that time, I did not know that the center of the town had been so heavily damaged. After a while, with the guide of the hospital personnel, the injured persons reached our headquarters…many of them had badly burned. As they came to us, they held their hands aloft...the room filled with the smell that was quite similar to the smell of dried squid when it has been grilled. The smell was quite strong. It's a sad reality that the smell human beings produce when they are burned is the same as that of the dried squid when it is grilled. The squid - we like so much to eat. It was a strange feeling, a feeling that I had never had before. I can still remember that smell quite clearly…When I felt someone touch my leg, it was a pregnant woman. She said that she was about to die in a few hours. She said, "I know that I am going to die. But I can feel that my baby is moving inside. It wants to get out of the room. I don't mind if I had died. But if the baby is delivered now, it does not have to die with me. Please help my baby live." There were no obstetricians there. There was no delivery room. There was no time to take care of her baby. All I could do was to tell her that I would come back later when everything was ready for her and her baby. Thus I cheered her up and she looks so happy. But I have to return to the treatment work. So I resumed to work taking care of the injured one by one. There were so many patients. I felt as if I was fighting against the limited time. It was late in the afternoon towards the evening. And image of that pregnant woman never left my mind. Later, I went to the place where I had found her before, she was still there lying in the same place. I patted her on the shoulder, but she said nothing. The person lying next to her said that a short while ago, she had become silent. I still recalled this incident partly because I was not able to fulfill the last wish of this dying young woman.
[I treated] at least 2 or 3 thousand on that very day if you include those patients whom I gave directions to. I felt that as if once that day started, it never ended…It was the longest day of my life. Later on, when I had time to reflect on that day, I came to realize that we, doctors learned a lot through the experience, through the suffering of all those people. It's true that the lack of medical knowledge, medical facilities, integrated organization and so on prevented us from giving sufficient medical treatment. Still…I learned that the nuclear weapons which gnaw the minds and bodies of human beings should never be used. Even the slightest idea using nuclear arms should be completely exterminated the minds of human beings. Otherwise, we will repeat the same tragedy. And we will never stop being ashamed of ourselves. -Hiroshi Sawachika We were about to form lines facing the front [at our school], we saw a B-29 approaching and about fly over us. All of us were looking up the sky, pointing out the aircraft. That was the moment when the blast came. And then the tremendous noise came and we were left in the dark…I was actually blown about 10 m. My friends were all marked down on the ground by the blast just like this. Everything collapsed for as far as I could see. I felt the city of Hiroshima had disappeared all of a sudden. Then I looked at myself and found my clothes had turned into rags due to the heat. I was probably burned at the back of the head, on my back, on both arms and both legs. My skin was peeling and hanging like this. Automatically I began to walk heading west because that was the direction of my home. After a while, I noticed somebody calling my name. I looked around and found a friend of mine who lived in my town and was studying at the same school. His name was Yamamoto. He was badly burnt just like myself. We walked toward the river. And on the way we saw many victims. I saw a man whose skin was completely peeled off the upper half of his body and a woman whose eye balls were sticking out. Her whole baby was bleeding. A mother and her baby were lying with a skin completely peeled off. We desperately made a way crawling. And finally we reached the river bank. At the same moment, a fire broke out. We made a narrow escape from the fire. If we had been slower by even one second, we would have been killed by the fire. Fire was blowing into the sky becoming 4 or even 5m high. There was a small wooden bridge left, which had not been destroyed by the blast. I went over to the other side of the river using that bridge. But Yamamoto was not with me any more. He was lost somewhere…I felt like my body was burning all over…I found my grandfather's brother and his wife, in other words, great uncle and great aunt, coming toward us.
Afterwards I was under medical treatment for one year and half and I miraculously recovered. Out of sixty of junior high school classmates, only ten of us are alive today. Yamamoto and Hatta soon died from the acute radiation disease. The radiation corroded the bodies and killed them. I myself am still alive on this earth suffering after-effect of the bomb. I have to see regularly an ear doctor, an eye doctor, a dermatologist and a surgeon. I feel uneasy about my health every day. Further, on both of my hands, I have keloids…My four fingers are fixed just like this, and my elbow is fixed at one hundred twenty degrees and doesn't move. The muscle and bones are attached each other. Also the fourth finger of my right hand doesn't have a normal nail. It has a black nail. A piece of glass which was blown by the blast stuck here and destroyed the cells of the base of the finger now…I've been living on dragging my body full of sickness and from time to time I question myself I wonder if it is worth living in such hardship and pain and I become desperate. But it's time I manage to pull myself together and I tell myself once my life was saved, I should fulfill my mission as a survivor in other words it has been and it is my belief that those who survived must continue to talk about our experiences. They hand down the awful memories to future generations representing the silent voices of those who had to die in misery. -Akihiro Takahashi I held [my son] firmly and looked down on him. He had been standing by the window and I think fragments of glass had pierced his head. His face was a mess because of the blood flowing from his head. But he looked at my face and smiled. His smile has remained glued in my memory. He did not comprehend what had happened. And so he looked at me and smiled at my face which was all bloody. I had plenty of milk which he drank all throughout that day. I think my child sucked the poison right out of my body. And soon after that he died. Yes, I think that he died for me.
-Eiko Taoka |
One of my classmates, I think his name is Fujimoto, he muttered something and pointed outside the window,saying, "A B-29 is coming." He pointed outside with his finger…All I can remember was a pale lightening flash for two or three seconds. Then, I collapsed. I don t know much time passed before I came to. It was awful, awful. The smoke was coming in from somewhere above the debris. Sandy dust was flying around. I was trapped under the debris and I was in terrible pain and that's probably why I came to. I couldn't move, not even an inch. Then, I heard about ten of my surviving classmates singing our school song. I could hear sobs. Nobody came to help…The sky over Hiroshima was dark. Something like a tornado or a big fire ball was storming throughout the city. I was only injured around my mouth and around my arms. But I lost a good deal of blood from my mouth, otherwise I was OK. I thought I could make my way out. But I was afraid at the thought of escaping alone. We had been going through military drills everyday, and they had told us that running away by oneself is an act of cowardice, so I thought I must take somebody along with me. I crawled over the debris, trying to find someone who were still alive.
Then, I found one of my classmates lying alive. I held him up in my arms. It is hard to tell, his skull was cracked open, his flesh was dangling out from his head. He had only one eye left, and it was looking right at me. First, he was mumbling something but I couldn't understand him. He started to bite off his finger nail. I took his finger out from his mouth. And then, I held his hand, then he started to reach for his notebook in his chest pocket, so I asked him, I said, ``You want me to take this along to hand it over to your mother?'' He nodded. He was going to faint. But still I could hear him crying out, saying ``Mother, Mother'' I thought I could take him along. I guess that his body below the waist was crashed. The lower part of his body was trapped, buried inside of the debris. He just adhered to go, he told me to go away. It still appears in my dreams. I felt sorry for him, but it was the last time I ever saw him…I went to the river. I had to push the bodies aside to drink the muddy water. We didn't know anything about radioactivity that time...I looked up. I saw the cloud, the mushroom cloud growing in the sky. It was very bright. It had so much heat inside. It caught the light and it showed every color of the rainbow. Reflecting on the past, it s strange, but I could say that it was beautiful. Looking at the cloud, I thought I would never be able to see my mother again, I wouldn't be able to see my younger brother again. And then, I lost consciousness. When I came to, an old soldier was looking in my face. He gave me a light slap on the cheek and he said, "You are a lucky boy." But I couldn't stand for about a year. I was so weak. My hair came off, even the hair in my nose fell out. My eyes, I lost my eye sight, probably not because of the radioactivity, but because I became so weak. I couldn`t see for about three months. But I was only thirteen, I was still young, and I was still growing when I was hit by the A-bomb. So about one year later. I regained my health. I recovered good health. Today I am still working as you can see. As the director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, today, I am handing my message over to the children who visit. I want them to learn about Hiroshima. And when they grow up, I want them to hand down the message to the next generation with accurate information. I'd like to see him conveying the right sense of judgment so that we will not lead mankind to annihilation. That is our responsibility. -Yoshitaka Kawamoto I was in the second year of junior high school and was mobilized work with my classmates at the Eba Plant, Mitsubishi shipbuilding. On the day when A-bomb was dropped, I happened to be taking the day off and I was staying at home. I was reading lying on the floor with a friend of mine. Under the eaves I saw blue flash of light just like a spark made by a train or some short circuit. Next, a steamlike blast came…my friend and I were blown into another room. I was unconscious for a while, and when I came to, I found myself in the dark. Thinking my house was directly hit by a bomb, I removed red soil and roof tiles covering me by hand and for the first time I saw the sky. I managed to go out to open space and I looked around wondering what my family were doing. I found that all the houses around there had collapsed for as far as I could see. I heard somebody shouting ``Help! Help!'' from somewhere. The cries were actually from underground as I was walking on. I'd just dug out red soil and roof tiles by hand to help my family; my mother, my three sisters and a child of one of my sisters. Then, I looked next door and I saw the father of neighboring family standing almost naked. His skin was peeling off all over his body and was hanging from finger tips. I talked to him but he was too exhausted to give me a reply. He was looking for his family desperately. When we were escaping from the edge of the bridge, we found this small girl crying and she asked us to help her mother. Just beside the girl, her mother was trapped by a fallen beam on top of the lower half of her body. Together with neighbors, we tried hard to remove the beam, but it was impossible without any tools. Finally a fire broke out endangering us. So we had no choice but to leave her. She was conscious and we deeply bowed to her with clasped hands to apologize to her and then we left. About one hour later, it started raining heavily. There were large drops of black rain. I was wearing a short sleeve shirt and shorts and it was freezing. Everybody was shivering. We warmed ourselves up around the burning fire in the middle of the summer.
The fire [was not extinguished] by the rain…All the houses along this river were blown by the blast with their pillars, beams and pieces of furniture blown into the river or hanging off the bridges. The river was also filled with dead people blown by the blast and with survivors who came here to seek water. Anyway I could not see the surface of the water at all. Many injured people with peeled skin were crying out for help. Obviously they were looking at us and we could hardly turn our eyes toward the river. We took care of the people around us by using the clothes of dead people as bandages, especially for those who were terribly wounded. By that time we somehow became insensible all those awful things. -Akira Onogi I noticed the flashing light. It was not really a big flash. But still it drew my attention. In a few seconds, the heat wave arrived. After I noticed the flash, white clouds spread over the blue sky. It was amazing. It was as if blue morning-glories had suddenly bloomed up in the sky. It was funny, I thought. Then came the heat wave. It was very very hot. Even though there was a window glass in front of me, I felt really hot. It was as if I was looking directly into a kitchen oven. I couldn't bear the heat for a long time. Then I heard the cracking sound. I don't know what made that sound, but probably it came from the air which suddenly expanded in the room. By that time, I realized that the bomb had been dropped. As I had been instructed, I pushed aside the chair and lay with my face on the floor. Also as I had been instructed during the frequent emergency exercises, I covered my eyes and ears with hands like this. And I started to count. You may feel that I was rather heartless just to start counting. But for us, who observed the weather, it is a duty to record the process of time, of various phenomena. So I started counting with the light flash. When I counted to 5 seconds, I heard the groaning sound. At the same time, the window glass was blown off and the building shook from the bomb blast. So the blast reached that place about 5 seconds after the explosion. We later measured the distance between the hypocenter and our place. And with these two figures, we calculated that the speed of the blast was about 700 meters per second. The speed of sound is about 330 meters per second, which means that the speed of the blast was about twice as fast as the speed of sound. It didn't move as fast as the speed of light but it moved quite rapidly.
There is a path which leads by here over there…When I looked down on the town from the top of the hill, I could see that the city was completely lost. The city turned into a yellow sand. It turned yellow, the color of the yellow desert. The smoke was so thick that it covered the entire town. After about 5 minutes, fire broke out here and there. The fire gradually grew bigger and there were smoke everywhere and so we could no longer see towards the town…The smoke from the fire, it was like a screen dividing the city into two parts. The sun was shining brightly just like it was a middle of the summer over here on this side. And behind the cloud on the other side, it was completely dark…You could see the black rain falling. It was a black and sticky rain. It stuck everything. When it fell on trees and leaves, it stayed and turned everything black. When it fell on people's clothing, the clothing turned black. It also stuck on people's hands and feet. And it couldn't be washed off. I couldn't be washed off…The atomic bomb does not discriminate. Of course, those who were fighting may have to suffer. But the atomic bomb kills everyone from little babies to old people. And it's not an easy death. It's a very cruel and very painful way to die. I think that this cannot be allowed to happen again anywhere in the world. -Isao Kita When the bomb struck, we were all in the big room…we saw a yellow ray of light from the north of the city hall and we heard a big noise. The next moment, our office was totally destroyed. I was standing when the blast hit. Right away, I was thrown about 3 yards together with the desks, the chairs, and even parts of the ceiling. The next moment, it was pitch black. I couldn't see anything.
Immediately after I saw the strange yellow ray, the office was totally destroyed almost instantly, without any warning. It was as if a box of matches has suddenly been struck by a hammer and crushed to pieces. Just a month later, I found many red spots all over my body. My friend said, my friends told me that there must be something wrong with me. I checked these red spots with my fingers. I thought they might be mosquito bites, but they weren't…[The doctor] found out that my white corpuscle account was only 1200, compared to account of 6000 for a healthy man. My wife got uterine cancer in 1949…My daughter who was bombed when she was four years old lived in Hiroshima with us for a long time after the A-bomb fell…When she was in the fourth grade, she began to lose weight. By the second term of her sixth grade year, she became very skinny. She had to stay in bed and she couldn't go to school…Since she was suffering from an illness caused by the atomic bomb radiation, the media including the television, the newspapers, NHK, Chugoku Broadcasting and many others came to interview her. At first she refused to meet the press because she didn't want other people to see her miserable condition. I told her that she was the first A- bomb survivor who suffered from an internal disease caused by the A-bomb radiation. Many other survivors had already died, hiding themselves from the public. I also said that she was the only person who could show the disease and help the other victims in the future. She understood and she decided to talk and to let them take pictures. Finally, at the beginning of February of 1954, she died. If one country drops a nuclear bomb, the other ones would do the same for sure. This is the fact. It will eventually destroy the entire world. -Mamoru Yukihirodit |