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| ISHIKAWA Wataru（ISHIKAWA Wataru） |
| Gender |
Male |
Age at time of bombing |
22 |
| Recorded on |
2005.10.12 |
Age at time of recording |
82 |
| Location at time of bombing |
Hiroshima(Direct exposure Distance from the bombing hypocenter:2.0km) |
| Location when exposed to the bombing |
Supply Corps (16710th Akatsuki Unit), Ship Communications Troops (Minami-machi 1-chome, Hiroshima Ci |
| Status at time of bombing |
Armed Forces member or military personnel |
| Occupational status at time of bombing |
Supply Corps (16710th Akatsuki Unit), Ship Communications Troops, Training Ship Corps, Ship Headquar |
| Hall site |
Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims |
Dubbed in English/
With English subtitles |
Dubbed in English |
1. Wataru Ishikawa left his home and came to Hiroshima as a training army officer. He was 22.
2. Just as he thought he saw something flash outside the window, an incredible heat blast came through the barrack quarters. Screaming voices echoed in the dark.
3. He regrets that all he could do for his comrades who died one after another was to say ""hang in there"".
4. On August 5th, there were air raids from the night before. The troops were told where their caution zones were; get up on that roof, or 10 of you go toward Hijiyama.
5. They were all standing by at their caution zones. This went on from the 5th.
6. It was an air raid alert so after individual reports, if nothing was out of the ordinary, we didn't worry.
7. Then after an alert was called off at around 7:30 the morning of the 6th, I gave orders for everyone to come back from where they were, since they hadn't slept or eaten.
8. The alert was called off so they were relieved of their duties. I lined them up in the yard and told them to return to their barracks and rest. I think it was nearly 8:00.
9. I saw them all go into the barracks and returned to the officers' room on the upper level. That was just before 8:00.
10. My next job was waiting for me so I quickly went upstairs and got changed. Ready to go on.
11. The young people had all gone to war, so the only ones left to do any farming were the elderly. I investigated soldiers who were from farms, especially eldest sons who were healthy.
12. The young men were at war and only the elderly were available to do farm work.
13. Throughout the nation, only the elderly were working in the farms. This was the reason that production was low. There weren't enough people who could grow rice.
14. My job was to find eldest sons who were from farming families, take them out of the unit and send them home.
15. As I was looking out of the window, I saw the unit leader walking with the boys who had come from a farm. I was expecting to see them any minute now.
16. Thinking I had a bit of time, I waited in the officers' room and set my hand on a sword that was set on a gun shelf. Just then, I saw the window shine brightly.
17. It was so bright I couldn't turn my face to look. I remember that flash and being able to see the blue sky above me where the ceiling had peeled.
18. I knew that there was a flash, but I don't remember anything afterwards.
19. I don't know if minutes or seconds had gone by, but when I became conscious again, I had been blown 3 or 4 meters towards the exit.
20. The Hijiyama unit I was with was situated only about 1.8 km from the epicenter, so the wind blast was quite strong.
21. I was inside so the heat rays didn't hit me directly.
22. However, a beam or a pillar fell on my leg and broke my bone. My head was injured and I was bleeding.
23. I heard voices calling from the hallway, so I went out to see. I saw numbers of soldiers coming down from the upper level.
24. I couldn't figure out what was going on, but watching them climbing over others and bleeding, I knew that something terrible had happened.
25. All these soldiers were jumping over injured people, stepping on them. When I ordered them to evacuate, soldiers jumped from the stairs.
26. There was a foyer below with stone paving. When I went down, there people trying to get in to rescue others and those coming out of their quarters. Nobody could move.
27. We couldn't get outside for the roof tiles piling up, making a barricade. It was impossible to walk on these tiles. One or two got out.
28. The foyer was full of soldiers. I instructed them to take refuge outside on Hijiyama.
29. There were those who carried comrades on their backs, or pulled them by the hand. Some were holding others up and others trying to get back in.
30. I lead them to Hijiyama and since they were burned, I took them to a tree where they could get some shade, then lay them down.
31. Who was to give orders? There was no system. Nothing. I just gave instructions to the soldiers nearby and scattered them about. That was the best I could do.
32. Talking like this makes me frustrated all over again, but there was no medication. Not even a piece of gauze.
33. The only thing I could do was give them encouragement. To just keep saying ""hang in there,"" ""hang in there"". There wasn't an orderly in sight.
34. Young boy soldiers who had been training so hard until just yesterday were down. If they could at least nod and say teacher, that would have been fine.
35. I could only say hang on. There was no medicine. They got weaker and could no longer speak.
36. My father was a doctor so I knew that putting oil on the burns would help so I used the oil we used on guns and leather.
37. I had no medical knowledge, but I put oil on them.
38. Anyway, I just continued telling them to hang on. But they became too weak to speak.
39. The fact that I sat and watched these young soldiers die without doing anything is still the most mortifying thing in my life.
40. If an orderly could have come by sooner some of them might have gotten treatment. So many died.
41. Conditions that Followed
42. Some medical orderlies began showing up at around 3:00 and took away the most critically injured by stretcher, but I don't know where.
43. Perhaps it was a school or a temple. All I could do was give some encouragement to those near me. Of course I couldn't feed them enough.
44. Usually, we trained for emergencies. I would explain a certain situation and tell them to run faster or take cover more quickly.
45. Then all of a sudden there were 300 or 500 or 1,000 of them piling out at once. There was nothing I could do.
46. For 2 or 3 days after August 6th, this was the situation.
47. I actually had a real burn. What shocked me was seeing a man outside saluting, with half of his body burnt black to the point that his flesh had come off.
48. Their skin had peeled and was dangling. They were slimy on one whole side.
49. What kind of horrendous temperature burns your flesh and meat.
50. I grew up in a hospital and so I had seen people with burns. It was never anything like this.
51. The man saluting was burnt on this side. The other side was perfectly fine. That instantaneous flash was incredible.
52. When I was fanning a soldier I noticed that he had lots of hair under his hat.
53. From a certain point, there was no hair. Like a strange bob cut. The temperature was high enough to burn the hair.
54. A week or 10 days went by and my unit was ordered to patrol the city. I took 10 or 15 soldiers into the Hiroshima City on patrol.
55. I made my rounds at the evacuation area in the eastern troops' practice grounds. Children burnt black were standing there saying, ""Give me water, give me food.""
56. They didn't have anything to wear and the buildings were all gone. They only had boards and torn cloth to sleep in.
57. I walked over towards some that were sleeping. I was relieved to hear breathing, but they all laid still, buckled at the midriff.
58. Women were lying that way, too. I couldn't tell if they were crying or suffering. I walked around unable to approach them.
59. Someone had bent a burned metal roof in two and made a triangle to make space to sleep in. This sort of thing could be seen all along the pavement.
60. I watched them closely. How could I possibly nudge them and tell them to ""hang in there"" in this situation. I regretted going there.
61. There was nothing to feed them. My water bottle would be dry after only offering it to one child. There was no place to refill it. Back at the barracks, I was unable to sleep as memories flashed by.
62. From morning 'till night, soldiers burned bodies in a pit behind the barracks. They were burning every day and oh, the smell. Trucks whining up the hill.
63. The skin on the bodies dragged, so they had to be picked up by the hands and legs and thrown onto the vehicle. Then two or three were piled onto some wood, oil or kerosene poured on them and burned.
64. The stench drifted from morning to night. Like something rotten was being burned.
65. I received my demobilization orders and returned to Towada City exactly 60 years ago, on October 9, 1945.
66. My Message
67. I heard later that when the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima, it detonated 550 meters above ground.
68. When I make a diagram of this to show that the heat rays reached 4 or 5 kilometers and that more than ten thousand people were killed, even children understand.
69. Teaching them by talking only doesn't help them to understand how horrible it was. This was I told them the other day.
70. I told them to hold their hands up and count to 10. That's just 10 seconds. I said, ""let's count together.""
71. Then I told them that in that amount of time, 10 seconds, a bomb was dropped from an airplane known as the B29 and exploded. 10 seconds.
72. While they were all counting to 100, 000 thousand people died.
73. That's twice the number of people who live in Towada City and the town of Lake Towada combined.
74. They all burnt to a crisp and went out to the big street, what is now Route 4. Lots of people died like that, I tell them. All burnt black.
75. Then I say, ""I want you all to count to 10 again."" By then they completely understood.
76. I think that in order for our story-telling group to be understood, children need to be told things from a different perspective.
77. Those children I spoke to are now grown up, but sometimes on their days off, they'll come and visit. When they do, they remember what I told them.
78. They tell me that they will never forget the stories I told. So it was effective. I am very grateful to those children, for understanding.
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*Many more memoirs can be viewed at both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Peace Memorial Halls.
*These contents are updated periodically.
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