The moment I saw a bright bluish-white flash, I thought there had been a short circuit and quickly turned off the machine. But the other machines were still roaring away. Everyone’s hands were doing nothing, but…
Meanwhile, four or five students from First Hiroshima Prefectural Hiroshima Junior High School cried out, “Fire!” and ran toward the beachside exit. I was talking with Ms. Y and Ms. S, saying, “What could it be? A flare in broad daylight seems strange. Wasn’t it a short circuit?” There was a dull but loud roar—“boom”—and I instinctively threw myself to the ground. In that instant, I thought the factory had taken a direct hit. One bomb alone made no sense—there would surely be a second, perhaps falling straight on top of me. With that strangely detached thought, I felt an almost ticklish sensation on my back. Just then, someone struck me on the head, called out, “Get out, now,” and ran off. I tried to run after the worker crawling under the machine, but I couldn’t see anything ahead of me. In the fierce blast, pieces of metal were clearly visible, spinning through the air, some slowly, others violently, within a brown haze. Every time I breathed, the debris filled my nose and mouth. Covering my face with my hands, I headed for the exit. I grabbed the fire hood and emergency bag from on top of the shelter and finally emerged into the bright outdoors. A teacher shouted, “Get into the shelter, quickly,” and when I dove inside, I saw that no one else had taken their fire hoods with them.
At the teacher’s call, I stepped outside and was stunned. Beyond the Main Building, a huge, billowing cloud was rising. The cloud rose and spread repeatedly, seeming almost endless. Like a monstrous matsutake mushroom. It was not like a thunderhead, clouds upon clouds rose, as if embracing rainbow-like hues.
“How beautiful. Where could it be?” we found ourselves saying to each other. I would never have thought that this light would bring immense disaster upon my mother and sister—that beneath that cloud, my mother, my sister, and tens of thousands of others were suffering and dying.
The teacher’s voice pressed us to hurry to the mountain, calling out names as we ran. Driven by that voice, we rushed toward the mountain. Thinking that I wanted to hurry home to tell everyone this big news, I was going in and out of a dugout in the hillside when I heard someone say, “Hiroshima City is currently ablaze throughout due to air raids.” For the first time, I was filled with anxiety. Only one bomb seemed to have been dropped—so why was the whole city ablaze?
We received the instruction: “The Female Students Patriotic Corps is to prepare immediately for relief work.” As we headed toward Ozu Bridge in a state of tension, we were informed that “the bomb used in the air raid on Hiroshima City was of a new type and that entry is impossible. Details are currently under investigation.” The sense of unease I felt deepened.
Around that time, two members of the nursing group who had been attending classes at school appeared. Their hair stood straight up, and their work trousers (monpe) were torn into ragged strips. They told a teacher, “The school has been directly hit…,” and then collapsed. I later heard that they passed away the following morning. I couldn’t stop worrying about Ms. M, who should have been with them. She escaped back to her home in Tanna and passed away there. Ms. W’s mother from Kyobashi-cho came running toward us with a rucksack on her back. She told me: “Apparently the first bomb hit the Hatchobori area. The area around your house is completely destroyed. Almost no one is fleeing across the bridge anymore. Houses have already started to burn.” I couldn’t say a word back.
We were instructed, “Female students are to immediately take up relief duties at the Main Building.” Patients were brought in by truck, one after another. I was assigned to care for a baby, the mother, and the grandmother. “Where were you?” I asked. The mother said, “I was waiting in line to buy a ticket at the station when it suddenly flashed, and I instinctively covered my baby.” The backs of her hands and her back were badly burned. Still, the white lace of her garment and her kasuri-patterned trousers remained intact. The baby was unharmed. I felt a strong maternal love. The baby cried vigorously, perhaps from hunger. “There’s powdered milk in the bag, with a note showing the amount,” she said. “Please feed my baby.”
I asked a nurse for some hot water and fed the baby.
As the army doctor moved among the patients, calling out instructions to give them water, I was suddenly brought back to my senses. I had been told that water should not be given to burn victims. For the grandmother, I soaked some absorbent cotton with water and gently squeezed it into her mouth, which she could not open, as her face was completely wrapped in bandages.
We took turns having meals and relaying messages. But I was so worried about Ms. M that I had no appetite at all. I feel guilty saying this, but I wasn’t yet worried about my mother or my older sister.
Once again, the familiar air-raid siren sounded, and we took shelter. “Please take me with you,” “Please let me escape,”—hearing the patients’ voices behind me, I headed toward the mountains.
In the evening, we were divided into those who could go down from the mountain and return home—those from Hakushima-kuken-cho, Fuchu, Koi, and Ujina—and those who could not. As Ms. M and I were discussing whether we should go together to Fukawa or the cherry-lined riverbank, both of which were serving as neighborhood evacuation sites, Ms. M ran into some of her relatives. I suddenly felt alone. Accepting Ms. H’s kind offer, I decided to stay overnight at her place with Ms. S, Ms. Y, and another Ms. S. As I walked toward Kaita, I saw a child crying in pain and a barefoot mother, helpless and at a loss. Seeing them made me worry about my own mother and sister.
At Aki-Nakano Station, there were many people who had family members in Hiroshima. “H-san, I’m so glad you and your mother could reunite.” I saw the look of relief on her mother’s face. We felt deeply miserable, and when we were comforted, tears suddenly overflowed. The four of us walked on silently, looking down. We reached a fine house standing on a small rise. Though a bath was kindly offered, I could not bring myself to take it. I took out underwear from my emergency bag, changed, and sat quietly without speaking. “Hiroshima is over there,” someone said, pointing in that direction. In the sky, unlike the glow of sunset, a bright red, distinctly oval disc like a tray swayed ominously. The siren sounded again. I wondered whether my mother and sister had managed to meet.
On the 7th, after receiving water and plenty of rice balls, we set out for Hiroshima, encouraged. At Nakano Station, we explained our situation and tried to buy tickets, but we were told, “The weather is fine—why don’t you four think of it as an outing and walk?” It was painful to hear. On the way, I stopped at Toyo Kogyo, confirmed that there had been no contact from my family, received a disaster certificate, and then set off again toward Hiroshima.
As we reached Higashi-ohashi Bridge, a military policeman stood there holding a bayonet. “Where are you headed, and why?” “We’re fourth-year students at the Fist Hiroshima Prefectural Girls’ High School, assigned to the Toyo Kogyo Patriotic Corps. We’re on our way back to check on our families.” “All right. Keep your spirits up and go on.”
We kept coming across people with injuries, and our anxiety grew. As if to distract ourselves, we talked compulsively while walking, saying things like how it felt awkward to be going back without a scratch, or joking about taking out a triangular bandage and wrapping it around our heads. But once we reached Dote-machi, we could no longer keep that up. The walls of homes had collapsed, and they leant precariously to one side on only their pillars in a sort of rhombus shape. Large letters on the remaining pillars and walls—names of family members, notes on their safety, and where they had evacuated. Yanagi Bridge was impassable, so we detoured via Kyobashi Bridge. After crossing the bridge, I saw a young woman’s body floating on the water. I’m sorry to say this, but it felt strangely beautiful to me. Was it because I had already seen so many patients in such terrible condition? My sister’s face flashed before me, and my chest ached.
Then I saw students from the Kaita Prefectural Girls’ School, leaning against stones… Flames suddenly flared from utility poles here and there; the asphalt was scorched. Using our fire hoods to ward off the heat, we reached the Yamaguchi-cho streetcar stop. People were distributing emergency food, and handing out straw sandals to the barefoot, while others simply sat dazed on stone steps.
There was a stone lantern and a pine tree from someone’s garden there, too hot to approach. Smoke was still rising from the pine tree. As I stopped and stood there absentmindedly, a charred utility pole brushed against my leg. Without thinking, I started to move my foot to kick it away—and froze in shock. It was a corpse. I jumped back without a sound, a shiver running down my spine. My mother’s face overlapped with the body before me. Trying to erase the image from my mind, I used my hands to spread my fire hood, narrowing my vision, and walked along the streetcar track.
Near the Nihon Kangyo Bank, I met someone from our neighborhood, but learned nothing about my mother. I still made my way toward Kamiya-cho. At the Sumitomo Bank, I ran into an acquaintance who was a noncommissioned officer, and I sat down on the stone steps. Across the streetcar track, stiffened bodies, borne on wooden planks, slid down with a rattling sound and formed a heap. On the way, fires broke out around the streetcar line, and in the hot, gusting wind we made our way to the Ujina shipyard, where we stayed for over two nights.
On August 10, I had a sorrowful reunion with my mother. She could not even say, “You’re all right.” She could not listen to anything I said. All that was my mother was now contained in a large tin once used for Nakamuraya’s karinto—a Japanese sweet. I was afraid I would lose control of myself, so I had not yet been to gather her bones. My attempt to pretend to be calm became a lifelong regret. Even if I had lost control, why didn’t I bring her back with my own hands?
I had been a spoiled child, always thinking only of being held by my mother. Really until the very end...
Regarding my sister as well, a band found among the remaining bodies at the city waterworks office was believed to be hers, but nothing was ever certain. Until the end of the war, I could not bring myself to take shelter from raids day after day. Scolded by my aunt, I would reluctantly enter the shelter, holding two sets of remains in my arms.
On the 15th, when we were told that the war had ended, I felt a fierce anger and cried though I had been determined to take revenge. More than a month later, I caught sight of someone in a gray dress with navy polka dots and, without thinking, chased after the figure from Koryo-mae to the Government Monopoly Bureau. This was my sister’s dress, the one I took with me when I was evacuated. It should have been with me...
Going to the Burned Ruins
Even now, as I transcribe entries from the diary I kept back then, the memories come back so vividly that there are moments when the letters seem to blur with my tears. Yet, although these are my own words, they can feel like words I heard from someone else, and that uncertainty makes me uneasy, as if I need to confirm them all over again. It terrifies me that things which must never be forgotten can fade so much over the course of more than twenty years.
I was talkative, recounting everyday events, and even after I was left all alone, I would still find myself laughing and talking as if everyone were there—thinking that when I got home, I would talk, only to be suddenly cast down again into a crushing loneliness. Over and over, I felt that pain, and I kept writing this diary as if I were talking to my mother.
This year, my son reached the age I was when I was exposed to the atomic bombing. My daughter left home to continue her education.
I imagined how my mother must have felt when she left behind a child of that age—me. I want to believe that she had no time to think about it, that she did not suffer, and that her death was instant. I tried to recall how I had felt toward my mother at that time. Though I cannot write very well, I felt I should nonetheless tell of this experience, which I had long been reluctant to speak about.
Though I live in Hiroshima, I have never attended the memorial service on August 6. When it grows quiet, I gently bring my hands together in prayer. Pushed to the edge to make room for tourists’ smiling souvenir photos, A-bomb survivors (hibakusha) bring their hands together in hesitant prayer. Mothers who try to forget the event—yet even now, more than twenty years later—feel a sudden surge of fear when their children develop fevers of unknown cause.
Praying for the soul of my brother, who died at Leyte after being sent off as a student soldier just one month before the atomic bombing, I want to shout that I loathe war.
August 1972
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