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MAENO Toshiaki(MAENO Toshiaki) 
Gender Male  Age at time of bombing 18 
Recorded on 2005.12.3  Age at time of recording 78 
Location at time of bombing Nagasaki(Exposed upon entering city) 
Location when exposed to the bombing  
Status at time of bombing Armed Forces member or military personnel 
Occupational status at time of bombing 737th Independent Infantry Battalion (28286th Kenjo Unit), 122nd Independent Mixed Transport Corps, 16th Ground Defense Force, Second Army Command 
Hall site Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims 
Dubbed in English/
With English subtitles
Dubbed in English 

1. Toshiaki Maeno was drafted into the army. After receiving notice that Nagasaki was badly damaged on August 9th, he entered the city at daybreak on the 10th, for rescue. He was 18.
2. To this day, images of the burnt and injured roaming in search of water remain vivid in his memory.
3. I was inside doing office work on August 9th, the morning the atomic bomb was dropped. The rest of the troupe were  outside training.
4. So, well I was in a classroom, but I heard a loud bang, what sounded like a small bomb exploding. Then I saw a flash of light.
5. At that moment, because it seemed as though a small bomb had been dropped nearby, we all took cover. We were down on the floor and the rest took cover outdoors.
6. I noticed a cloud growing. From the A-bomb. Before that I saw one airplane. Just one plane in the distance. I was quite a ways from Nagasaki and I thought a small bomb had been dropped nearby.
7. We heard that Nagasaki had been badly hit by that bomb that was dropped on the 9th. At around 1 a.m. I was awakened from my sleep to go to Nagasaki for recovery work and put on a train.
8. We weren't allowed on passenger trains, so we filed onto a cargo train --- the box cars that carry cargo. On the way back too. Everywhere we went. Anyway, Nagasaki was hit by a bomb and needed rescue.
9. It was nearly morning when we arrived in Nagasaki. The train had to stop on the way because the tracks had been damaged because of the atomic bomb. It couldn't go further.
10. It was a place called Michi-no-o. The train got as far as Michi-no-o and we had to get off and walk from there to Nagasaki.
11. That was the morning after the atomic bomb had been dropped, so there was fire everywhere. Everything was burning.
12. I could see flat land like rice field on a slight slant.
13. I guess it was in the back hills, and we walked along through those fields, down into the City of Nagasaki. There were no roads so I think we followed someone who knew the area well.
14. So along the mountainside, there were fields, but air raid shelters had been dug all along the mountains.
15. It was like our… when I was in Kobe I was in an air raid and I saw a lot of dead people. Usually you see, air raid shelters are dug down into the ground, with covers.
16. But in Nagasaki, they were dug into the hills, like tunnels. Here and there and everywhere. The holes were small.
17. Well we walked through these shelters where there were mountains of bodies, burnt and dead from the atomic bomb. It was shocking.
18. The bomb blast had gone into the shelters, which otherwise would have saved the people who went in there thinking that they could avoid bombing from above. They were all burnt black and piled up.
19. The ones that were somehow alive came out. There were only a few and they were burnt badly. They stood saying, ""Soldier, water, water."" And they followed us.
20. We had bamboo water bottles, not proper ones. Our leader said, ""Don't give them water."" We were told not to give these people water but they wanted it so badly. Their throats were dry and sore.
21. And well, this is what we saw on our way to our destination. We had a destination and that was where we would provide first aid. On the way though, I felt so badly for these people.
22. We were told that they would die if we gave them water, but they were dying anyway. I think now that if they were going to die anyway, why didn't I give them water? But I only had a very little bit.
23. I don't remember where we walked or where we went, but we were headed for Uragami, the hypocenter up on a hill. A field. A vegetable patch on a slant. That's where we were headed.
24. We got there and sat down, but there were no wooden structures. You couldn't bother looking for a house because there were none. There was a dip in the mountains: probably because a river ran below.
25. On a slant, like this, there were probably houses. A village over yonder. We were up on the hill, us soldiers and there was a river running below.
26. Looking over at the mountains beyond, I could see fires still burning. The mountain was burning. There were fires everywhere. It was the day after the A-bomb after all and we were on a hill.
27. I was in the command section and our chief had this saber in his hand as he sat on a coal box or something commanding messages from the headquarters and so on. There were men all over Nagasaki.
28. My job was writing what was called transmission papers. I was young and I tried to write everything my commander said, but sometimes the characters didn't come to me. I would get flustered.
29. I was slow, but I wrote what the commander said to send back to headquarters. I guess it wasn't such a big place, but we were the command section and we communicated with them.
30. There was an elementary school nearby. We called them national schools. Maybe it was a college. Anyway, it was a steel structure. A big school. I walked over and went in.
31. I never walked around on my own. My senior or commander was always with me. Well I always walked after him. So I followed him to the school and here and there.
32. [tragedy]
33. Every school has an agenda. You know, the schedule you see when you first walk in the classroom. A board this size. It was shattered. Desks and chairs too, had no shape.
34. The board that the schedule is on, was smashed into tiny fragments and the desks and chairs had actually flown and were piled on top of each other.
35. The most tragic scene I witnessed was I suppose they were teachers. Perhaps they were looking to see if there were one or two planes. They were probably used to the air raid sirens. They hadn't run.
36. Then they were hit by the atomic bomb so they had fallen on their faces just where they were. In the play ground just outside the school building. I couldn't tell if they were men or women.
37. Their clothing was gone. They were completely black from burning. Their thin summer clothes had blown off and all three of the teachers had died in an instant. Naked and burnt.
38. There were no obstacles. The explosion blasted them over and they showed no signs of struggle. Just… you know. Well I watched thinking how incredible this all was.
39. There were no buildings at all. The entire area was a burnt field, but I saw one or two patients who had been burned. Being in the command unit, I couldn't do anything so I showed them toward rescue.
40. The soldiers were lining people up along the riverside, the burnt people. Those that were alive. The ones that had died had to be taken care of by other means, but they gathered the living.
41. Once they had gathered them up, they gave them some sort of white medication for their injuries that was probably useless. Thinking about those rescue efforts now, they likely had no effect.
42. Close to lunchtime, the mess unit had a huge pot to cook up sweet potatoes and squash that they had gathered together somehow, even though it was summer. Nothing had an owner anymore.
43. We had to get through the afternoon so we had to eat. I don't know if the mess unit had brought the stuff with them, but the food was cooked in a big pot and flavored. No one told us about radiation.
44. Radiation was everywhere but we couldn't see it. The bamboo though was torn up from the roots. When I was a child I was told to go to a bamboo grove when there was an earthquake because it was sturdy.
45. Bamboo spreads from its roots. The roots sprawl out, making the tree strong. But these roots were all curled up and they had popped out of the ground. It was devastating to see.
46. In Nagasaki, I don't know where, but I saw ruins of barracks where soldiers had been stationed. We walked along with my senior and saw an antiaircraft gun, but those things couldn't hit an airplane.
47. I knew that from Kobe. I used to watch the antiaircraft unit at Okura-yama shooting at planes flying overhead, but none of them would reach.
48. A soldier had died facing up like this. Another one died while carrying bullets for the antiaircraft gun. You could see exactly what was happening the moment they were killed.
49. One thing and another, and like I said, there were no people around. Even if there were, being a command unit, we couldn't help them, so they would go to a rescue unit.
50. There was a cow in the ditch, skinned. Unlike people, it was still alive. Well some people were alive but this cow was living, so the mess unit dragged it back and cooked it up for us to eat.
51. We were told to report any loss of hair. If we were told that then, they must have known something about the A-bomb. I wonder why they didn't tell us about it. They said to report anything unusual.
52. But I wasn't losing hair so I ate what was served. It smelled bad though and I got diarrhea from it, I think. I ate radiation I'm sure. Besides, Uragami was full of radiation. It was the hypocenter.
53. So then on August 15th we heard the Emperor speaking on the radio. I had no idea what was going on, but we were told to go to the national school in Yagami for that broadcast.
54. Our chief commander was in tears, addressing all of us soldiers sitting on the school ground, telling us that Japan had lost. Unpatriotic as this may sound, most of us already knew that.
55. Even watching the air raids towards the end in Kobe, planes would come and the Japanese planes ran away in the opposite direction. Then at night, bombs would drop like rain. Loud rain.
56. So it was really, well I wasn't in that state of mind, but the chief commander had thought Japan could win, so he was pessimistic, powerless. Dismayed. Not like us.
57. So the war ended and we soldiers got working on burying those ditches, and continuing with recovery efforts as a workforce. Then it was, I think the 15th of September. The army was demobilized.
58. [anxieties about childbirth]
59. I didn't want the baby, to tell you the truth. So come to think of it, my wife must have thought I was such a cruel husband. She never said it though.
60. There I was, not wanting a baby because I didn't want some strange child to be born. I didn't want one from the start. But my wife didn't know that. She didn't know about radiation or the A-bomb.
61. My wife just kept telling me that she wanted a baby. I guess I could have prevented it, if it was just up to me, but she didn't know how frightening it could be. She just wanted a baby and insisted.
62. I wasn't looking forward to it, but my wife insisted on giving birth. She gave birth and has now left me with the greatest treasure. As I get older, the more I think about it, the more I cry.
63. The fact that my wife was able to become pregnant… with my treasure. So now, she's been gone for three years but I pay my greatest respects to her. Now that she's gone.
64. [my message]
65. This atomic bomb business has left the world in a tragic state. The elderly, children, even today. When I watch TV, it makes me cry instantly. This has become a strange world.
66. For children who haven't done anything wrong to be murdered with these things. It is truly a shame.
67. I feel angry and dismayed. Sad. Perhaps shooting at each other with guns is something we can't do anything about, but the atomic bomb is different. It must not be used to kill the innocent.

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