"A Japanese Student Recalls the Moment the Bomb Exploded," in Dr. Arata Osada, ed., Children of the A-Bomb (1959).

Ah, that instant! I felt as though I had been struck on the back with something like a big hammer, and thrown into boiling oil. For some time I was unconscious. When I abruptly came to again, everything around me was smothered in black smoke; it was all like a dream or something that didn't make sense. My chest hurt, I could barely breathe, and I thought "This is the end!" I pressed my chest tightly and lay face down on the ground, and ever so many times I called for help:

"Mother!" "Mother!" "Father!" but of course in that place there was no answer from Mother, no answer from Father.

This time I was really resigned to the thought that I was done for, but as I lay quietly face down on the ground, suddenly there drifted into my mind the smiling face of my littlest sister who is dead now. Oh! I recovered my senses. Through a darkness like the bottom of Hell I could hear the voices of the other students calling for their mothers. I could barely sense the fact that the students seemed to be running away from that place. I immediately got up, and without any definite idea of escaping I just frantically ran in the direction they were all taking. As we came close to Tsurumi Bridge a red hot electric wire wrapped itself around both my ankles. I don't know how but I managed to pull it off, and as though I were moving in a dream I reached the end of the bridge. By this time everything had long since changed to white smoke. The place where I had been working was Tanaka-cho, a little more than 600 yards from the center of the explosion. Although I should have been at a place straight in from Tsurumi Bridge, I seem to have been blown a good way to the north, and I felt as though the directions were all changed around.

At the base of the bridge, inside a big cistern that had been dug out there, was a mother weeping and holding above her head a naked baby that was burned bright red all over its body, and another mother was crying and sobbing as she gave her burned breast to her baby. In the cistern the students stood with only their heads above the water and their two hands, which they clasped as they imploringly cried and screamed, calling their parents. But every single person who passed was wounded, all of them, and there was no one to turn to for help.... From inside the wreckage of the houses we would hear screaming voices calling "Help!" and then the flames would swallow up everything. A child of about six, all covered with blood, holding a kitchen pot in his arms, was facing a burning house, stamping his feet and screaming something. I was in such a state that I didn't even know what to do about myself, so I could hardly attempt to be much help to him, and there was nothing to do but let him go. I wonder what happened to those people? Those people trapped under the houses? The four of us, simply obsessed with the idea of reaching home at the earliest possible minute, hurried long in just the opposite direction from that of the fleeing townspeople — straight toward the center of the blast area. However when we came to Inarimachi, we found that the iron bridge had collapsed and we could not go any farther. We turned about there and ran toward Futaba Hill. When we were close to the foot of the hill I simply couldn't make my legs carry me another step.

"Wait for me. Please wait for me," I said, and practically crawling, I finally reached the foot of the hill. Luckily there were some kind soldiers from a medical unit there, and they carried me up the hill to a place where I could lie down. There they gave me first aid treatment right away. It seemed that I had received a terrific blow on the back of my head, and there were fragments of roof tile left there. They pulled these out and bandaged the wound for me.

"You just lie there quietly. Your teacher will surely be along any minute now to take care of you," they said to comfort me.

But no matter how long I waited, my teacher didn't come. (Our teachers themselves were severely wounded; some of them died on the afternoon of the sixth, and all of them were dead by the next day.)

Finally the soldiers couldn't wait any longer, and they carried us one by one on their backs down to the barracks at the foot of the hill. A Red Cross flag was waving there. They carried us inside and asked the doctors to take care of us right away. But there were so many wounded people that we had to wait a very long time for our turn to come. In the meantime my strength was exhausted and I couldn't even keep myself standing up. At least they gave us treatment, and we spent the night there. The big buildings in the city were burning steadily, bright red against the dark sky. As the night wore on, the barracks gradually filled to overflowing with moaning voices — over in one corner someone shrieking "Bring me a straw mat if there's nothing better," and here a patient rolling about even on top of people too badly burned to move.

The first night came to an end. From earliest morning voices calling "Water, water," came from every side. I too was so thirsty I could hardly bear it. Inside the barracks there was a sink with water in it. Even though I knew that all sorts of things drained into it and the water was dirty, I scooped up some of that milk-coffee-colored water with my shoe and drank it. Maybe it is because I was normally healthy — anyway my mind was perfectly clear even though I had that severe wound, and since I knew there was a stream running right behind the barracks, I got up and took that shoe and went and drank and drank. And after that any number of times I brought water and gave it to the people who were lying near me and to the soldiers who were wounded. My drawers got soaking wet every time but they soon dried in the blazing hot sun. I had only had my burns painted once with mercurochrome, and they had turned black and were all wet. I was trying to get them dried by the sun so they would harden up. My friends, and the other people too, could not move after they once lay down. Their backs and arms and legs were all slippery where the skin had peeled off, and even if I wanted to raise them up, there was no place I could take hold of them. From about noon of the second day people began to come in a few at a time. I got a white-rice ball from those people, but since my whole face was burned and I couldn't open my mouth very well, I spilled the grains of rice all around when I tried to eat, and only a little bit of it finally ended up in my mouth. By the third day I too was all swollen up, even around my eyes, and I had to lie there beside my friends unable to move at all. And drawn on by the delirious ravings of my friends. I was talking away at random in a dreamy state between sleeping and waking. All at once — was it a dream? — I had a feeling that my father and big sister had come from the foot of the hill to take me away. I was awfully happy, and I forced my eyes open with my hands and looked all around, but I couldn't see anything in the dim light. All the people who came always kept calling the names of the streets and their family names. My father and four or five of our neighbors were searching around for me in one corner of the barracks at the foot of Futaba Hill. On my blouse there was sewn a name-tag that my father had written for me; the letters had been burned out just as though that part of the cloth had been eaten away by moths, and it was by this that they were able to find me.

"Atchan. This is Father."

When he said that, I was so happy that I couldn't say a word; I could only nod my head. My swollen eyes wouldn't open, so I couldn't see my father's face. This is how I was rescued.

Even now the scars of those wounds remain over my whole body. On my head, my face, my arms, my legs and my chest. As I stroke these blackish-red raised scars on my arms, and every time I look in a mirror at this face of mine which is not like my face, and think that never again will I be able to see my former face and that I have to live my life forever in this condition, it becomes too sad to bear. At the time I lost hope for the future. And not for a single moment could I get rid of the feeling that I had become a cripple. And naturally, for that reason I hated to meet people. And along with that, I couldn't get out of my mind the thought that so many of my good friends, and the teachers who had taken care of me so lovingly, had died under such pitiable circumstances, and I was continually choked with tears. No matter what I thought about, I was likely to be suspicious, and I took a pessimistic attitude toward everything. And my voice, which until now had been a pleasant one that all my friends liked, was lost all at once and became a hoarse voice without any volume. Every time I think about these things, my chest feels as though a terribly tight band is closing around it. But with human beings, it isn't only a beautiful outward appearance that is good. True beauty, worthy of a human being, takes away an ugly appearance and makes it into a splendid one. When I first realized that, my spirit softened somewhat. At the present time, with a fresh hope for life, and studying earnestly to discipline both my body and spirit, I cannot help seeking the inner sort of beauty which comes from a cultivated mind.

Science — what in the world is this science? Such an atom bomb is undoubtedly a crystal of scientific progress. But can it really be said that a thing which takes several hundred thousand human lives at one time is true scientific development? No, science ought to be something that to the very last stimulates those advancements of civilization which are beneficial to mankind. Moreover, the mission of science is to raise the standard of living of mankind. It ought never to be such a thing as would annihilate the life of mankind. It is also obvious that the power of the atom, instead of being thus used as a means of making human beings lose their lives, ought to be turned to the advancement of human civilization. It is my hope that in the future such a tragic event as this will never make a second appearance in this world. And I want things to work out so that atomic energy will be the power which will give birth to a peaceful world. I believe that there is no necessity for mankind to experience directly such suffering.