“Oh, the Hateful A-Bomb!”: Survivors’ Stories from Hiroshima and Nagasaki
collected by John Whitehead
August 6 marks the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and August 9th the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki. Below are some testimonials from hibakusha [bombing survivors] about their experiences.
These stories serve as a reminder of both the evil done in 1945 and the fate that may await all of us if we don’t check the threat of nuclear weapons.
Stories from Hiroshima
The stories and drawings of hibakusha from Hiroshima were collected in Unforgettable Fire: Pictures Drawn by Atomic Bomb Survivors (New York: Pantheon, 1977). The excerpts below describe their experiences from the moment of the bomb’s impact onward:
Haruko Ogasawara:
As I looked up at the sky from the backyard of my house, I heard the faint buzzing of a B-29 but the plane was not visible….I looked up and suddenly saw a strange thing. There was a fire ball like a baseball growing larger becoming the size of a volleyball. And then something fell on my head…
I found myself lying on the ground covered with pieces of wood. When I stood up in a frantic effort to look around there was darkness…When I came to my senses I found my clothes in shreds…
I discovered my mother in a water tank. She had fainted. Crying out, “Mamma, Mamma,” I shook her to bring her back to her senses…
[My sister] was crushed under the collapsed house and only her head could be seen… Mother and I worked desperately to remove the plaster and pillars and pulled her out with great effort. Her body had turned purple from the bruises and her arm was so badly wounded that we could have placed two fingers in the wound. Strange to say, my mother was thankfully not hurt…
We three ran away, heading for Mt. Eba. A crowd of people were running along the street car track. All were wounded. There was a man with his skin trailing; another man was breathing faintly, all blood-stained; a third man had blood spurting out his head…
The sky was red with flames. It was burning as if scorching heaven. (43-44)
Yoshiko Michitsuji:
Everywhere was a sea of fire. No road was open for us anymore except for a narrow path and that was barely passable…We dipped our clothes in the water that was stored in an air-raid shelter and dashed through the fires desperately.
“Awfully hot! Is this the end of my life?…Oh God!…Help me!” I murmured and prayed.
When we managed to come to a safer place…even at this safer place, I found many dead bodies lying in the air-raid shelter, under fallen trees, and everywhere. (29)
Hiroshima Memorial
Terumi Nishida:
A woman with her jaw missing and her tongue hanging out of her mouth was wandering around the area of Shinsho-machi in the heavy, black rain. She was heading towards the north, crying for help. I wonder if she survived. (49)
Masato Une:
A first year junior high school student asked me to give him some water. I heard that if people who had been exposed to the A-Bomb drank water, they would die. So, I would not give him water.
The next day, when I passed by the place, he was lying on the ground dead. I wished then that I had let him drink some water, even if he would have died sooner. I clasped my hands and chanted a prayer to [Amitabha Buddha]. I started to worry even more about my own child, for whom I was looking. He might have died in such a miserable condition or be suffering pain. I left there wiping away the tears which welled up in my eyes.
I heard in the evening that my child had been calling “Daddy,” “Mommy” and that he had taken his last breath alone without seeing us. That was the short life of a thirteen-year-old!
It is twenty-nine years since my son died, and his memory, and the miserable image of the junior high school boy asking for water always haunts me.
Oh, the hateful A-Bomb! (68)
Stories from Nagasaki
Dr. Takashi Nagai, a hibakusha from Nagasaki, recorded the stories of fellow survivors, including his relatives, in We of Nagasaki (1951).
Kayano Nagai:
Dr. Nagai’s four-year-old daughter witnessed the bombing from the countryside outside the city:
All of a sudden there was a great big flash, like lightning. I didn’t know what it was—I was so surprised! Then there was a big noise, then a big strong wind came and pushed me. I was scared. I got on the floor and stayed there with my hands over my ears…
From the other side of the big green mountain [Mount Kawabira] there was a great big red thing like a tree sticking up into the sky. It was a big big tree made out of fire. The top of it kept opening and opening and it looked as if it was alive. It kept swelling and swelling and it went up and up, higher and higher, like smoke from a chimney, all the way up to the sky, and then it kept going up even higher, right past the sky. First it was all red but it began to be different colors—oh, so bright! It made my eyes hurt!
I kept watching it and after a while the colors weren’t so bright any more, then the whole thing turned grayish and spread all over the sky. (11)
Fujie Urata:
As I came nearer to Urakami [a Nagasaki neigborhood], I began to meet many injured people. They must have been workers from the [factory], young men and women, all of them naked…They were stumbling along unsteadily, trying to escape behind Mount Kawabira, weeping crazily, forgetting even to be ashamed of their nakedness. Their faces, necks, and hands were blistered and on some of them I could see sheets of skin that had peeled right off and hung down flapping, all black with dust. The hair of the women was singed and frizzled. Many of these people had been wounded and were smeared with blood.
I tried to find out what had happened to them, and cried “For heaven’s sake, what is it! What’s happened!” Always the same answer—“I don’t know, all I saw was a sudden flash, then everything went to pieces!” Some just stared with blank expressions, unable to answer at all.
Sometimes one of them would stumble in the road and sprawl on his face, lying there without trying to get up. (32-33)
Sadako Moriyama:
Ms. Moriyama took cover, along with teachers and students, in an elementary school air-raid shelter in the city:
I was blown into the far corner of the shelter. I lost consciousness at once. I didn’t see the flash everybody tells about, or hear any noise, or feel any pain.
I came to quickly…A little light was beginning to come in the entrance…I got up and went outside, stepping over the people on the floor. There was no sun. It was like dawn, or twilight, and chilly. Near the mouth of the shelter lay a woman teacher from the school, dead and completely naked. Her body seemed relaxed and her face was peaceful…
Four children were lying in the sandpile…They were all naked and they were skinned. The skin of their hands had been torn away about at the wrists. It was hanging from their fingertips just behind the nails, turned inside-out like a glove. In the dim light I thought I saw many other children lying about the yard. (135-137)
Nagasaki Memorial
Matsu Mariuchi:
Ms. Mariuchi, a member of Nagasaki’s Catholic community, had to care for her pregnant niece, Hatsue, in the aftermath of the bombing:
All of a sudden Hatsue complained of pains in her belly. She groaned, “Oh, oh!” then she gasped, “The baby must be coming!” I rushed out to find a midwife, but what chance was there of that?…
I stood there in the ashes. The sun was going down behind Mount Iwaya and the sky was red as blood…I was standing there all alone when a Mrs. Yamaguchi came along… “What’s the matter?” she asked.
I said, “It’s my niece Hatsue, she’s having labor pains!” Mrs. Yamaguchi cried, “Oh, my! What a fix to be in! I’ve just come from helping a woman. Goodness, how many miscarriages and premature births!” She said it had happened to practically all the women around there. “I guess the atom bomb even killed the babies inside them! What an awful thing! War is war, but after all!”…
I went back to the shelter and found Hatsue sound asleep. Evidently the pains hadn’t come again. I watched her. It was long after dark when she suddenly awakened and screamed, “Auntie Matsu! The baby! It’s stopped moving!…
She sobbed and sobbed, weak as she was. Death had entered Hatsue’s womb and sooner or later it would take Hatsue too. She knew it. She kept praying, “Jesus, Mary, Joseph, I commit my body and my soul into your hands…”
Past midnight I heard a loud sound like a snap—it was the child being born. Before I could light a candle the afterbirth came out and it was all over; there was no bleeding after that. The child was a little boy. There had been one big light and this child was robbed its life before it had even been born. (127-129)
The mother, Hatsue, died shortly afterwards.
Makoto Nagai:
Dr. Nagai’s son reflects on the world after the bomb:
Down to my father’s generation, everybody considered bravery in battle something to be proud of. Everybody admired that and tried to be that way. It’s up to my generation to make the courage to stop war something to be proud of—that’s what we should admire and that’s the way we should all try to be. (29)
=====================================================
For more of our posts on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, see:
“Everybody Else in the World Was Dead”: Hiroshima’s Legacy
The Danger That Faces Us All: Hiroshima and Nagasaki after 75 Years
Rejecting Mass Murder: Looking Back on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Leave a Reply