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| FUKUMOTO Tatsu（FUKUMOTO Tatsu） |
| Gender |
Female |
Age at time of bombing |
16 |
| Recorded on |
2003.12.11 |
Age at time of recording |
74 |
| Location at time of bombing |
Nagasaki(Direct exposure Distance from the bombing hypocenter:1.3km) |
| Location when exposed to the bombing |
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., Nagasaki Weapon Factory Ohashi Factory (Ohashi-machi, Nagasaki City [Current Bunkyo-machi, Nagasaki City]) |
| Status at time of bombing |
Employed worker |
| Occupational status at time of bombing |
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., Nagasaki Weapon FactoryOhashi Factory |
| Hall site |
Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims |
Dubbed in English/
With English subtitles |
Dubbed in English |
1. Tatsu Fukumoto was 1.3 km from the hypocenter in an arms factory in Ohashi-machi. She was 16.
2. With cuts all over her own body, she helped with first aid. Later, she carried the ravages of the bomb. Her eldest daughter was born dead.
3. [residence and work]
4. I was living in the dormitory at the Mitsubishi arms factory. We were the last group drafted there.
5. Those who entered after us were volunteer corps. We went there in 1943. There were many in the volunteer corps that joined in 1944.
6. A torpedo has what's called a vent valve and a supply valve, for air. My job was to make 5 of those vent valves per hour.
7. They used valves this small, to supply and release air into and from torpedoes, so I heard.
8. [from Kagoshima to Nagasaki]
9. In those days we went to upper ordinary elementary school. Our family was poor so I was told to go the employment office to find work. I went with a group.
10. I was in Iriki, where the hot springs are. People of the whole Satsuma area gathered from the Sendai employment office.
11. We gathered at the Terukuni Shrine in Kagoshima and took an overnight train to Nagasaki Station. From there we went to Mitsubishi Arms Factory.
12. [morning of that day, before the explosion]
13. It was a beautiful day. The tunnel factory was used as an evacuation center. I went to the Ohashi factory at 8 a.m. and there was an air raid alert so we went to the tunnel factory.
14. The Ohashi factory was about 200 meters from the dorm. After the air raid alert was called off, I went back to work.
15. After I had made 5 valves, I went to the ladies' room outside. It was a fine day. There was a single B29 flying in the air.
16. I remember seeing two jet streams in the sky. That was a B29 and I'm sure it's the one that went and dropped that thing over Urakami.
17. It came just as I went back into the factory. Not even 5 minutes later. There was a flash of light throughout space. The entire factory lit up. It was a red flash.
18. These rays flashed and wondering what it was, I stood up to see, like this. Then our group leader shouted, ""Everyone take cover!""
19. So I took cover in the center of the factory and was still for 10 seconds, not knowing what was going to come flying. When things got quiet, I noticed that my head was bleeding.
20. Finally I was able to get outside and take refuge in the mountains.
21. [immediately after]
22. I was only hurt here, but there were many that were injured. Many that were dead. I didn't have time to think about myself.
23. I even forgot to eat. I wonder what I ate? Nothing to wear. You couldn't look at the corpses. All burnt and no telling if they were male or female.
24. One week later, at Ohashi factory, I asked the supervisor, well they were all victims too, for a disaster-victim certificate. Those living nearby had gone home.
25. Only the ones from far away… Kagoshima, Miyazaki and Shikoku… stayed. Everyone else was going home, so one week or 10 days later, I asked for the certificate.
26. I was told that with so many injured and dead, such certificates could not be issued. With no other choice, I joined the relief squad.
27. [relief efforts]
28. I don't remember clearly, but we soaked pieces of gauze with oil from the factory, opened up the mouth, eyes and nose areas and pasted the gauze on people's faces for them.
29. It was mid-summer, you see. I still think that must have hurt to peel off. That was the hardest thing to do, but there was no medicine.
30. [personal injuries]
31. There were no burns. I was cut here. Something fell and cut me here.
32. It was bleeding and I couldn't tell where I had been injured. I grabbed my air-raid hood from my drawer and held it to my head as I ran.
33. I used mugwort. When I went into the hills, there were rice fields and being the hills, mugwort grew there. I picked some and placed it on my cut.
34. By evening, the bleeding completely stopped. As a child, I had often picked mugwort to stop bleeding.
35. [symptoms that followed]
36. When I got home my skin broke out all over. It festered and was painful.
37. American medics had been stationed at the hot springs in Iriki right after the war. My father said, ""Let's go and have them look at this.""
38. I refused. I had just returned home after being struck by an American soldier. Now that I think about it, I may have understood my body better if I had gone.
39. I felt nauseous. People would say, ""Miss Oku, hold on,"" since I would be throwing up all night long.
40. Thinking I would die, my friends told me to hold on, and tried to encourage me. I was throwing up, but I hadn't eaten anything.
41. I'm surprised I was able to live through that. I wandered through hell and that helped me to overcome the hardest of times.
42. [returning to Kagoshima after the bomb]
43. My short-sleeved shirt and my trousers were tattered and scorched yellow. My sister says I should have kept those clothes.
44. But after moving 12, 13 times, I really didn't give it much thought.
45. We used to go to school barefoot, so the bottoms of our feet were tough. On that hot August day without wearing anything on my feet, I didn't even get heat stroke.
46. That's fate, isn't it? I was lucky that way.
47. I was happy to come home to Kagoshima. I cried. One other girl from Imuta had gone with me, but she died. I found her school uniform so I took it back with me.
48. Her parents had heard of a new type of bomb dropped on Nagasaki and were wondering how their daughter was. I felt so bad.
49. I don't like to talk about that.
50. [as a hibakusha]
51. I was too busy to think about it. I married a man from Osaka. There were 3 sick people in that family.
52. We came back in 1960, so in 1956, 57 and 58, 3 years in a row, 4 people died.
53. [stillbirth of a deformed baby]
54. My baby who was born dead, was born at a prefectural hospital in Osaka, who kept the baby for research purposes. They never showed her to me.
55. When my brother came to visit one summer, I asked him what my baby had looked like. He said that she was black all over.
56. Since my parents weren't there, my sister and brother went to the hospital in Osaka.
57. My baby had a lump on her side. In those days, everyone gave birth at home. I too, had a mid-wife come to the house at first.
58. I heard the baby cry but she got stuck where that lump was and wouldn't come out. She died while I was being taken to the hospital.
59. At the hospital, they shaved my stomach to prepare for a Cesarean. I never saw my baby's face and my husband wouldn't look either.
60. This child never even had a grave. I bought a kokeshi doll in 1993 and pray for her.
61. [present state of health]
62. I started moxa treatment this March to relieve the pain in my legs and back. I am no longer able to walk without bending over.
63. [anger towards the atomic bomb]
64. I am very bitter. I hate even looking at American soldiers. It's a different life. With one single bomb, they killed so many people. Simply odious.
65. No more, please. Peace is best.
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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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