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SHINMIYA Yoshimori(SHINMIYA Yoshimori) 
Gender Male  Age at time of bombing 17 
Recorded on 2003.12.11  Age at time of recording 75 
Location at time of bombing Nagasaki(Direct exposure Distance from the bombing hypocenter:1.2km) 
Location when exposed to the bombing Mori-machi, Nagasaki City [Current Nagasaki City] 
Status at time of bombing Employed worker 
Occupational status at time of bombing Mitsubishi Steel Mfg. Co., Ltd., Nagasaki Steel Works 
Hall site Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims 
Dubbed in English/
With English subtitles
Dubbed in English 


Yoshimori Shinmiya was at a steel mill in Morimachi, 1.2 km from the hypocenter. He was 17. It took 4 years to recover from critical injuries. Being a hibakusha led to divorce. Life has been hard.


【residence and work】
At the time of the bomb, I was living in the dormitory at Mitsubishi Steel. My job was machine utility work, mostly lathe and motor repair. Various jobs were handled at my workplace, including installment of new machinery and repairs. It was a big company. From smelters to machines and electricity, I don't think there was a job you couldn't find.


【coming to Nagasaki】
The recruiter said I was dilly dallying. My father was concerned because recruiters usually sent men to coal mines. I had no choice but to go somewhere so I discussed it with my father and decided to take the exam for Mitsubishi at school. There were 5 of us. Well they were short of men, so we all passed.


【morning of the bomb, before the explosion】
We went into work as usual that morning, after breakfast. Just as we were getting ready to start, there was an air raid alert. So we ran up to the hillside. When the alert was called off we all went back down. Our group leader suggested having lunch before going to work, so we started boiling water for tea and so on. A guy named Okita who was a year younger than me had tea duty and was boiling water behind the wall, while I was busily wiping the tables. We were about to eat and just as I stood at the window saying, ""Okita, where's the tea?"" There was a sudden flash of light and I passed out. I only remember seeing the light. I didn't feel the bomb blast and I didn't hear the bang. I just woke up as if it was morning. I looked around and saw fire. A sea of fire. Everything was on fire. There was an air raid shelter 20 or 30 meters away, dug out of rock. The bomb shelter was beneath where Nagasaki's famous One-legged Torii is. I passed it every day, so I knew. That's where I went.


Once I was in, I noticed for the first time that I was injured. Other people too. That shelter was full of injured people. I crouched down and noticed a pool of blood in my hand. I looked, like this, and it was all sticky. My face was covered in blood. I touched my head. Injured there too. In the air raid shelter I heard someone say it was 3 p.m. I had to return to the dormitory. I tried to stand up, but my right leg wouldn't move.


I worked at it until I could finally stand up and then headed back. When I got to the dorm, my heart sank. It had burned down. Dead people everywhere. I can't tell you the misery I witnessed on the way back. Eventually everyone ran, somehow, to the river banks. Two-thirds of them were dead, one-third alive. I had to step over them to get to the dorm. I checked to make sure a person was dead before stepping over him. I was too scared of the ones that moved, to even get close. I was so disappointed when I reached the dorm. I stood at the front door, dumbfounded for awhile.


【scene at the epicenter】
When I passed through the hypocenter, what I wondered was, ""Why aren't there any bodies?""A man who lived near Uragami Cathedral said, ""I saw it. I watched people disappear."" I asked him if they were blown away in the blast and he said they melted. Instantaneously. I see, I thought. Nobody had tidied them up. There just were no dead bodies there to begin with. It made sense.


【during evacuation】
Walking along the train tracks was hard. I said, ""Hey, Matsushita, let's take a rest. I'm dying."" And we crouched down on the railroad. We sat there just gazing at the people going by. For a long time, we did that. As we were doing so, a man with a cane, a piece of bamboo taller than him, walked by and then came and stood right in front of me. I'll never forget. He was missing an eye. His right eye had popped out. And his right thigh was broken and it flopped every time he took a step.


【injury from the explosion】
There was blood plastered all over me. I had a gaping wound on my head, big enough to move my hand around in. I could get my fingers in deep. Man, I thought, this is one enormous cut. Before getting on the train, I thought for sure I was headed for death. I could no longer see. My father, my mother, my brothers and sisters… their faces flashed through my mind. I would say I'm dying and shake my body. Then my mind would clear. I repeated this several times. I don't know how long I did that, but it was a long time.


【evacuation by train】
After a long, long walk, I was able to barely make out the shape of a train. It's a train, I thought and a station attendant helped me on to the last car. That's how I got home. From then on, I felt horrible. I think I was in limbo. I was dying, for sure. I was thirsty, my mind was foggy, I had no idea what was going on and then I was barely conscious. I'm dying, I would think, and shake my head. Then my mind would clear. I repeat that over and over. When the train got to Isahaya Station, I asked the station attendant where it was headed. He said it was going to the army hospital in Omura. That was no good, so I got on a train going the other way. There wasn't an injured person in sight. I was covered in blood, so even though there were seats available, I didn't want to sit down and soil them. I stood all the way home.


When I got to Tosu, I ran into an army doctor who asked me what happened. I said, ""There was an air raid in Nagasaki and I ran."" 49. ""Oops,"" I thought. I shouldn't have said that because running away was unpatriotic. Nonetheless, he disinfected and treated my wounds.


【arriving home】
My mother said that my appearance made her sadder than my wound. I guess that was natural.52. I had been repairing machinery so my clothes were shining with oil and hanging off of me like rags. They were torn to pieces.


【hibakusha discrimination】
I felt it the most when I got married. The day after the wedding, I told her that I'm a hibakusha. She ended up leaving me. We didn't last a month. I was so depressed. Then the following year, I married again. This time we divorced after 3 months, when I told her about the bomb. I decided never to marry again. I would look after my brother. But neighbors said we'd never make it without a woman around and insisted on an arranged marriage. That's how I met my wife. Expecting it to fall apart again, I told the truth, right from the beginning. If she doesn't like it, so be it. I asked the go-between to tell her everything before we even met. We got married. Even after knowing what happened, she came. I was so thankful. I'm still thankful.


【miserable sight of a hibakusha】
Everyone says that it's impossible to watch someone suffer and die from radiation. They foam at the mouth and beg to be killed because they can't stand the suffering. When they start that, you just can't stay. Many people died from radiation. I think nuclear reactors are ok, but please clean up after them. My biggest desire is for that type of research to be conducted. Just the slightest difference meant life or death. Depending on the direction of the blast and so on.


【anger towards the atomic bomb】
When I get sick, it does cross my mind that it might be related to the bomb, but I try to forget it right away. It just makes me miserable so I try not to think about it. There's no point in getting angry, although it's quite obvious that this is something that must not be done. In the end, America is at fault for dropping the bomb… although they justify it and are not aware of the sin. I always say that when I talk about it. Things happen when you forget. It's those who do not know war that are the most frightening. They don't understand. That's why they want to use the bomb.

*Many more memoirs can be viewed at both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Peace Memorial Halls.
*These contents are updated periodically.
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