1. Yoshiharu Koine was 17 at the time. He was a mobilized student working at Toyo Industries Co. in Fuchu-cho, and just after he headed to Hiroshima Higher School of Education in order to provide relief.
2. He experienced a living hell with the mushroom cloud covering the sky and flames rising up.
3. He hides the fact that he is a A-bomb survivor, and even now he can't stop crying when he remembers that time.
4. The reason I had gone to Hiroshima was to take an exam to advance into a higher school, because I had graduated from a middle-school of the old education system. Frankly I didn't want to go to war.
5. By enrolling in a science and mathematics course I delayed my conscription by one year. I joined the Hiroshima Higher School of Education. Of course my dream, to become a school teacher in the future.
6. I started school in August 1945. Originally, I was supposed to graduate in March but due to the middle school student mobilization program work not being finished, I couldn't graduate by then.
7. I started school on the 1st of the month, from the 3rd I think I had already gone to the student mobilization. It was Toyo Industries Co., which is presently the Mazda Motor Corporation factory.
8. They were making three-wheelers for the army to use, and they were making other army vehicles, or that's what I think it was, although I don't remember exactly.
9. I left school at about 8:00. I took a steam train from Hiroshima station to Mukainada station and walked from Mukainada to Toyo Industries. I got to Toyo Industries at 8:15.
10. I think it was 3 stories high. We were having training sessions in a room on that 3rd floor. It was the third day of training.
11. And right exactly as I sat in the seat, there was a flash, and then it came with a boom. When it flashed, I wondered what it was.
12. Since it was the third floor, you could see the roof of the factory down a little below. So I thought it must be an electrical short at the factory or some kind of accident, and just the boom came.
13. About 3 seconds maybe. I think it was just about 5 kilometers from the hypocenter.
14. I was sitting right in the middle. And the students in about the 2nd or 3rd row near the window were completely covered with shards of glass.
15. People who were sitting to the right had their right sides, and the people on the left had their left sides all covered with glass shards. Not knowing what happened.
16. Glancing at Hiroshima after I went down, the first thing that struck me was... The mushroom cloud. I wondered just what it was. It was completely bewildering. And I hurried to the air raid shelter.
17. For a while I was in the factory. And then orders from the school came saying that ""The city had been seriously damaged, so go provide relief."" Everyone got together and headed for the town to help.
18. We went to help, but there was nothing for us to do. It was just a bright-red devastated ruin. Became a devastated ruin in the blink of an eye.
19. The flames all just rose up at once. The town was so hot you couldn't walk.
20. All were working with their shirts off. So everyone's entire bodies were hideously burned. The skin on their backs, thick skin was peeling off. Blood was pouring out, and they were walking unsteadily.
21. This was, I later learned, because the white blood cells had been destroyed by the radioactivity and they barely had the strength to stand up.
22. They were all heading to Mukainada station to take refuge and they were walking in a daze like sleepwalking. It was like the people who had escaped death had barely escaped with their lives.
23. As we entered the city on orders to rescue, there were dead bodies of all manner of living beings - humans, cows, horses, dogs, cats and chickens - lying all over the place.
24. The soldiers bodies were all blistered so their arms were swollen to twice the normal size. The cows and horses too, their bellies were all out like this.
25. What I thought was the saddest was a nursery school teacher. She was holding a child. When I saw how they were dead, I really don't want to remember it. It was misery. She was dead, holding the child.
26. There were dead bodies floating in the river. They had probably jumped into the river and died. It was like we were entering the city to see corpses. It still makes me cry.
27. It was such a miserable condition.There were a lot of dead people in many places, therefore I felt pity.
28. In 1998 I had surgery for cancer. From then until now, I got these bumps all over my body. I've been going to the dermatologist for 10 years about it, but they won't go away.
29. But more than that, what worries me the most are the effects of the radioactivity-not on myself, but that they might show up in my children or grandchildren.
30. When I got married I didn't talk about experiencing the bombing, because it would have broken the engagement. It was an arranged marriage.
31. I now look after about 15 or 16 A-bomb survivors in Fukui City, and especially the women absolutely will never admit to people about the bombing.
32. Being an A-bomb bombing survivor, everyone does view us coldly.
33. For example, they say things like ""If the father is an A-bomb survivor, then his children will be affected too."" I think people's thoughts were like this.
34. That's why I never told anyone that I was an A-bomb survivor until just recently. I just lived my life always hiding it.
35. The atomic bomb just shouldn't exist. With so many bombs like that being built, if they were dropped all around the world, the human race would be ruined.
36. And to think of the misery it caused at the time, I feel that they shouldn't be built, and must not be used. But still, in many other places they're doing experiments.
37. I was clamoring a lot in the campaign for the elimination of nuclear weapons, but they've half-way given up. I think such bombs should just not be used.
38. But in the case of Hiroshima. Well over 200,000 people died in an instant, so the difference from a regular bomb is just... unimaginable.
39. Of course the mental anguish as an A-bomb survivor. As for my body there was nothing I felt especially badly about. Even now, I worry about my grandchildren.
40. I just can't take the mental anguish. Even if they want to get married, they can't admit about the bombing. They have to keep it to themselves forever.
41. The mental anguish is the biggest hardship. And how I always cried when I remembered that time.
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