●Three Items on My Desk
Today, on the south end of the Motoyasu Bridge, Nakajima-hon-machi, Hiroshima City, is the Fuel Hall. This was once the headquarters of the Hiroshima Prefectural Fuel Supply Control Union. Featuring a steel-frame reinforced concrete structure, it was a sturdy building with three stories above the ground and one below, with its location approximately 100 m southwest from ground zero. It was customary for the union to ensure that all its staff members gathered on the second floor of the building at 8:00 a.m. every morning, in order to conduct a civic ritual.
That morning, as usual, the ritual was concluded with Business Department Manager Kawai’s remarks. Each of the 37 staff members attending the ritual returned to his/her own desk on various floors, and some of them smoked for a while before starting to work. Afterwards, to start my work, I looked at my desk and found that there were no documents that I usually worked on. Although such documents should have been brought from the basement room by the section manager every morning, he forgot to do so that day. So, I was planning to ask Ms. Hirose, a female clerk whose desk was next to mine, to fetch my documents. When I looked at her, however, she seemed somewhat busy, and I myself
went down from the second floor to the basement room.
Before going down, I took off my glasses, removed my wallet from a pocket of my trousers, and took out my pocket watch after loosening the chain looped around my trouser belt. I placed all three items on my desk, and went down to the basement room. All these items were, of course, burned. Now, five years later after the tragedy, I have still no idea why I did so.
●Basement Room
Occupying only one-third of the floor, the basement room was small, slightly larger than about 10 tsubo (1 tsubo = 3.3 m2). The lights were always on in the room. Since I could not find my documents, I searched here and there, before coming to the safe placed near the bottom of the stairs. It was at this moment that I heard a huge boom. Instantly, the lights went off, and it got completely dark. At the same time, something like two or three small hard stone pieces hit me on the head.
Shouting “Ouch!” I put my hand on my head, and found that something sticky was oozing out. It was my blood. “What? What’s going on?” After a while, although I did not understand the situation yet, I checked the upper half of my body, my arms, my legs, and other parts of my body, to see if there were any injuries other than those on my head. There were no apparent abnormalities. The room was so dark that I could not see anything.
I was standing right at the bottom of the stairs. To climb the stairs, I stepped my foot on the stairs, and ascended a few stairs, but something was strange. The rest of the stairs were gone. Instead, it seemed that there was a slope on which there were messy mixtures of pieces of boards, tiles, and sand.
I felt something soft like a straw bag being under my feet. Weird. I touched it softly with my hands. It was half buried in the sand. “No way! It’s a person!” I picked him up, called out, and tried various things, but he did not move at all. He seemed to be already dead. I suddenly began to shudder.
I heard a man shouting “Help!” from over there in the darkness. This was followed by similar screams, and then soon replaced with furious cries. I hurried to the top of the slope, where I bumped my head against something. Feeling it with my hands, I thought that it was probably a concrete wall. Although I pushed it with my hands, it did not move at all. I was trapped!
“Oh, no! The building must have been hit directly by a bomb! The structure above the ground probably has collapsed, and only a small part of this basement room has survived!” Imagining that to be the situation, I felt devastated. “If I can’t escape from here, am I going to stay buried here?” At that moment, I heard a roaring sound of flowing water, which reminded me of the fact that an about eight-inch water pipe ran behind the Motoyasu Bridge to the basement room. “The water pipe must have burst! What should I do? It’s a matter of time before I die. I’m done for.” Memories of my four children flashed back in rapid succession. I don’t know what happened after that. Anyway, I somehow escaped from there. I was standing on the first floor before realizing it.
●To an Outside Street
I saw one person clinging to one of the windows on the first floor. The figure was black and looked like a character of a shadow play. It was so dim on the first floor that I could not grasp the situation so clearly, but it seemed that the shelves, desks, chairs and other items overturned, and that it was rather messy. Wading through these items, I walked to the window and asked, “Who is it?” It was Ms. Hirose. “Oh, Ms. Hirose? How can we get to the outside?” She answered, “Use the street.” I asked her, “Can you jump?” She replied, “Yes.” So I said: “OK, then jump. I’ll go there too.” Thus, both of us headed for an outside street.
Deep black smoke made it dark outside it was as black as it is on a half-moon night. Watching closely, I realized that Ms. Hirose was bleeding from her face and hands. We hurried to the Motoyasu Bridge. Looking at the bridge inadvertently, I found a man lying naked on his back in almost the middle of the bridge. He was shaking with his arms and legs stretched into the sky. In addition, something round was burning under his left armpit. The other side of the bridge was covered with black smoke, with flames gradually beginning to spread upward. Instead of crossing the bridge, we ran to the place where the Peace Pagoda is currently located. Although there used to be houses there, they had been removed to create a square to be used as a firebreak. A part of the square was used as a vegetable garden. We seated ourselves on stone stairs going down to the river.
●Tornados and Torrential Rain
I was almost unaware of what I had done before I sat down. Looking around me, I found both the ground and sky were covered with deep black smoke. In that smoke, the union building, from which I had just escaped somehow, could be seen dimly. On the other side of the river in front of me was the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. On my left was the building of the Hiroshima Prefectural Commerce, Industry and Economy Association. The flames burning in the lower parts of the smoke were growing bigger and bigger. However, no fires were yet seen in any of these three buildings. After a while, however, some window frames of the union building began to burn, followed by all the other windows. Then, the flames spread to the inside of the building. A little while later, similar things happened at the Promotion Hall. Shortly after that, at the building of the Hiroshima Prefectural Commerce, Industry and Economy Association as well, a fire spread from windows to the inside. I guess the building of the association was the final one in that area to catch fire, while the post office was the first building to do so.
During this series of events, some people escaped from the union building, with the total number being eight: four men, including myself, and four women. All of us sat on the stone stairs in a group. One woman said that she was getting blind in one of her eyes, while one man said that he was getting sick, and another man said that he had a headache. Almost all of us suffered external or internal injuries.
Nevertheless, no one groaned or moaned from suffering. We remained almost silent. The fires were gradually spreading and growing, making us feel hot. In pace with a change in the height of the river due to a gradual change from a high tide to a low tide, we went down the stone stairs step by step. The black smoke around the post office on the other side was ascending high into the sky like a tornado. The tornado-like smoke sometimes almost fell down over us. From the smoke, burned tinplates and wooden boards were coming down on us. It was very dangerous. We needed to watch for falling objects and dodge. To avoid being hit, we needed to look upward, but the smoke got in our eyes, causing much pain and tears. Once we breathed the smoke, we coughed away for a while. I took off a used towel from my waist and put it on my face in a single layer, which somewhat relieved the pain in my eyes and enabled me to breathe a little more easily. I picked up several fallen burned tinplates and handed them to each of the others. All of us covered ourselves with the tinplates, considerably protecting us from the heat and falling objects.
A part of the water of the Motoyasu River swelled. Soon after that, it began to spin and developed into a circular cylinder, soaring high into the sky. It was a water tornado, from which water drops were coming down leeward. The fires were still fierce. The smoke on the other side of the river, along with fire sparks, came down on us. All of us climbed up the stone stairs and escaped to the square, where fire sparks again came down on us. There was no option for us but to huddle together in a small group near the stone wall of the stone stairs where we had been before. Putting our tinplates into the water of the river, and covering ourselves with the tinplates we repeated this process many times. I felt that I heard the sound of an explosion a dozen of times near and far. Oil cans or something like them might have exploded. I was very scared that they might be time bombs. Meanwhile, large drops of rain began to come down. Gradually becoming fierce, it eventually rained in torrents. Each of us rushed from there and found his/her own place to take shelter from the rain. But most of us got soaked to the skin.
By the time the rain stopped, we had begun to shiver so badly due to the cold that our teeth chattered. Accordingly, we slowly approached the fires to warm ourselves. About 20 or 30 minutes later, we finally felt somewhat relieved. It was in the middle of the summer in August. It was hard to believe that we were surrounded by fires, and we had to get close to a big fire to protect ourselves from the cold and to warm ourselves. But this indicates how hard it was on us to be exposed to the rain at that time.
In a matter of time, the central part of the fires began to subside. Going to the Aioi Bridge, I found that there were heavy smoke and fires around the bridge. Due to the smoke, I could not see any areas to the east of Kamiya-cho. The building of the First Infantry Supply Corps (104th Chugoku Unit), Chugoku Regional Military District, was mired in smoke, and the southwest area was covered with smoke as well.
●Escape
Mr. Shishido, an accounting staff member, asked me to go get a rescue team. “I have no idea what is going on ahead of me. Going through the fires will mean death. I need to prepare myself that once I leave here, I won’t be able to return alive.” Saying so, I picked up a large piece of burnt tinplate. Standing on the Aioi Bridge again, I looked around to decide which direction I should go to seek help. I decided to head for Koi.
Before coming to Dobashi, Tokaichi of Sakan-cho, I lay down on the ground or between fallen utility poles many times. Some street railway ties on an iron bridge were burning. Carefully picking my way through the scattered fires and sometimes jumping over flames, I finally got to Fukushima-cho, where there was no smoke or a fire yet. The sky was blue. Turning back toward where I had been, I found that there was a hell of fire and smoke, making me surprised that I was able to escape from it. I went to Koi, but there was nobody but injured people, and I could not find a rescue team anywhere. Then, I went to Kusatsu, where I first saw five or six soldiers taking care of victims. I begged the soldiers to help my coworkers, but the mere sight of thousands of injured people told me that it would be no use for me to ask them to do so. Although I was worried about my coworkers, Mr. Shishido and Branch Manager Aki suffered only slight injuries, so I headed toward Hatsukaichi. I arrived at Hatsukaichi at around 2:30 p.m.
●Atomic Bomb Disease
On the night of September 1, I suddenly had shivering fits. I had a fever of around 40 degrees, and it lasted for seven or eight days. During this period, in Hatsukaichi-machi, many people died every day, displaying symptoms similar to mine. I had a sore throat and five or six bleeding spots. My gums began to rot, and I continued to suffer serious diarrhea for more than 10 days. I was growing completely weak. There was no medicine available, and doctors were at a loss how to take care of me. I hear that all my relatives gave up on me.
As time went on, however, I gradually recovered, and today I am healthy enough. Although I recently heard that some people were having some problems with their eyes as a result of atomic bomb disease.
Oh, that morning, 37 people attended the civic ritual. I would like to pray that the souls of those 36 people may rest in peace.
Written in July 1950
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