http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/ A-bomb victims' stories ja Copyright 2007 Fri, 18 May 2007 23:50:55 +0900 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss The place of my A-bomb exposure: Kaminobori-cho, 1.1 km from the hypocenter Acute symptoms in those days: No injury. Only a irregular menstruation. The dead among my family Father Kinzo Kaya and Mother Masako, both A-bombed. My background: I was born as the youngest child of the three to my parents, Kinzo and Masako Kaya. Father was making geta (Japanese wooden sandals) in Hirose-moto-machi. After completing the Higher Honkawa Elementary School, I did housework to help my parents, and then got married to Tsune Kojima on October 2, 1943. As the Greater East Asia War broadened, American bombers made increasingly fierce air attacks day after day. We were living a hard life in tense fear. My husband and I were living in Kaminobori-cho. The company my husband was working for was producing weapons. He worked hard as a foreman in the department of gun barrel casting in Nihon Seikosho(Japan Steel Co.). He worked on August 5, and the next day was off. So, he was at home on the 6th. Couldn’t be at their bedsides when my parents died At 8 o’clock an air-raid alert was issued, but in ten minutes it was lifted. So, my husband was taking care of his fishing equipment while I was picking up the room before the chest of drawers. At 8:15 a sudden bright flash engulfed us. With a terrific crash, the pillars, the walls, the fittings and the windows were all wrecked. The sliding doors and the furniture were all blown and shattered by the blast. We were trapped under them. Calling out each other’s name, we finally got out of the house and fled to Shukkeien garden to seek shelter. Thirty minutes later a tornado occurred and hailed. Shortly after that, I saw an enemy scout plane coming, which scared me to death. On August 8, I went to the Hiroshima branch office of Nihon Kangyo Bank in Shimonagarekawa-cho to receive a disaster certificate, where I was given two packages of crackers. On my way home from Hacchobori area, I saw piles of dead bodies along both sides of the street and a lot of dead people with their heads shoved into the fire cisterns. It was indeed a terribly miserable scene. I could’nt help shedding tears. The flames had overtaken our collapsed house. The entire neighborhood had been burnt out leaving not a single structure. My husband and I decided, anyway, to visit the house my brother’s wife was from, Yagi-mura, Asa-gun seeking for safety. Crossing the Misasa Bridge and walking northward from Yokogawa Station, we reached the house. There, we were told that my parents’ house was burned out, that Father was trapped under the house, and that Mother was badly injured on her head and body inside a streetcar near the Dobashi Bridge. We were surprised but didn’t know what to do, so we stayed there overnight. On the following day we visited my husband’s brother in Mukaibara-cho, Takata-gun and decided to stay with his family for some time. To my grief, Mother died on August 17 and Father, on September 1, both in agony. It’s deeply regrettable that I could not be at their bedsides when they died. Encouraging myself to live with hope In March, 1947, I had a pain in my ribs, so I went to see Dr. Nakayama. I was diagnosed as spinal caries. While I was taking care of myself at home, my condition became worse as no medicine was available in those days. In February, 1966, my husband had an accident at work, canning factory in Shinonome-cho. He was hit hard on his abdomen and had the internal bleeding, due to the motor accident. He was sent to the hospital, and I attended him at his bedside. In the meantime my caries recurred and I was also hospitalized in the same Imanaka Hospital in ltsukaich-cho. His injury getting better, my husband took care of me. However, probably because of fatigue, he died of vesicular emphysema in April, 1972, worrying about my condition. I totally lost what I live for, but I’m trying to encourage myself to live positively. In 1973, I entered this home thanks to the arrangement by the welfare office. Now, I am happy in this home, and living with gratitude to the staff members and residents for their kindness. ]]> http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/14_a_flash_and_tornado.html http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/14_a_flash_and_tornado.html WRITTEN MONUMENT 08～14 Wed, 16 May 2007 09:52:42 +0900 The place of my A-bomb exposure Inside of my house in Kawara-machi (1.1km from the hypocenter) Acute symptoms in those days No external injury but diarrhea in September, gradual loss of hair to baldness The loss in my family None My background I was born as the first daughter to my parents, Torataro and Fusa Matsui. I got married into the Tanaka family at the age of 22, but separated for some reasons. A-bomb exposure ---weakening body My husband was 63 and I, 43 years old when we were exposed to the atomic bombing in our house, Kawara-machi. My husband, Muneo Wakao and I were trapped under the collapsed house. Luckily we had no external injuries and escaped on barefoot in desperation, with the only clothes we were wearing then. Chased by the flames, we went to the south in Funairi-machi along with many others in the heat. We came to a temple where we drank some water. Together with many other people, we were still there when night came. Even the name of the temple has slipped out of my memory, but I can never forget the taste of the omusubi or rice ball given to us the late afternoon of 7th and the happiness at that time. We stayed there about one week, I think. On the third night when I was getting into the air-raid shelter under the corridor, I slipped and fell. I remember how much I was upset, because neither medicine nor doctor was available. Since we could not stay there forever, we left the temple and went to Kaita-cho where my husband’s eldest son was living. We depended on him. Around that time severe diarrhea emaciated my husband. I was also suffered from diarrhea and bleeding from my mouth. In Kaita we stayed at the Yokohagi’s and saw a doctor in the neighborhood for the first time. Many delicious figs given to us were another blessing. My hair came off entirely in the autumn and I felt awfully cold. I washed my bald head with clean water of the deep river and prayed. A friend of mine gave me hair oil that was hard to get by in those days and I used it. Whether or not it worked I’m not sure, but my hair began to grow little by little, which made me very happy. We are deeply indebted to many of our acquaintances for various vegetables, thanks to which we regained our health. We, at length, could afford to live alone with my husband and settled down in Danbara-cho. Shortly, however, my husband died of illness. Living alone, I had a lower back pain and anemia. I was hospitalized in the A-bomb hospital and became hardly able to walk. Joy of outing I entered this nursing home in 1973. The Home is well facilitated and I am grateful for my easy life here, free from worry. It’s a pity that I can’t walk, but the occasions for going out in a wheelchair such as sports meet and Bon dance festival or just to the park are my only comfort. The other day we were taken to the Asa Zoo in a bus and had a very nice day. It was a long while since I last rode a bus. Over the bus window to and from the Zoo, I was surprised to see the suburbs having been developed. I was glad that I lived this long, although I am alone with no children. Above everything I am very thankful to those who take care of me day and night. (This was written in December, 1980 by Matsui who died the following month, January 16.) ]]> http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/15_thankful_for_my_long_life.html http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/15_thankful_for_my_long_life.html WRITTEN MONUMENT 15～21 Wed, 16 May 2007 10:00:42 +0900 The place of my A-bomb exposure Inside the house in Kawara-machi, 1.2km from the hypocenter Acute symptoms in those days General fatigue, fever lasting three weeks, cuts on forehead, losing sight of my left eye The dead in my family None My background I was born as the first daughter to my parents Jiro and Take Ishibashi on June 12, 1910. I had two younger brothers and two younger sisters. We used to live in Kuramoto-dori, Kure. When I was three years old, we moved to Koami-cho, Hiroshima due to my father’s job. After graduating from Kanzaki Elementary School, I entered Hiroshima Municipal Girls’ School. But I quit the school, and stayed home doing the household chores. Enormous flash At 7:30 a.m., on August 6, my family, seven of us, started breakfast after praying that nothing bad would happen on us for the day. At 8:00 a.m. an air-raid warning was issued. But a little later it was lifted, so we were clearing up the breakfast table. At 8:15 a.m., with enormous flash and deafening roaring sound, my house instantly tilted. The moment my body was thrown into the air, the pillars, the walls, the ceilings, the sliding doors of the house collapsed and I was trapped underneath. The right side of my forehead was seriously bleeding. A broken stick of a sliding door stuck in my left eyeball and I couldn‘t see anything. Fires started out of the broken houses here and there. I frantically crawled out from my wrecked house, and headed toward Kawara-machi. I eventually got to the riverbank. The area around me was a sea of fire, so I jumped into the Honkawa River. I was clinging to a floating timber in the high tide and we splashed water to each other because the heat of fire was unbearable. I remained in the water until late afternoon. As the fire went subsiding, I got out of the river, and I slept in the open air on the riverbank that night. On August 7, I received some treatment on my injury at the shelter, Kanzaki Elementary School. On August 16, I was transferred to the first-aid station at Honkawa Elementary School and received treatment through August 31. On September 1, I moved to my acquaintance’s house in Kannon-mura, Saeki-gun and went through a difficult time. The injury on my head became better thanks to the treatment at the Ohmae Surgery Clinic in Itsukaichi-cho, Saeki-gun, but the severe pain in my left eye continued. In October 1945, I went to see an eye doctor at the Red Cross Hospital and had my left eye examined. The doctor found a fragment of the wooden sliding door imbedded in my left eyeball. He had to remove the eyeball and replaced it with an artificial one. My case, seemingly, surprised the doctor. Struggling against the disease and hard life Five of us, my mother, three younger brothers and I lived in a shack we built in the ruin, where our burned house used to stand. I worked as a laborer in Dobashi, the job was created as the City’s unemployment project, or sold eggs of the chickens I kept in the vacant lot. We made a living on a small income. My younger brother was admitted in a mental hospital in 1963. My mother died of pneumonia at the age of 79 in 1967. She had had too many hardships in her life. Since then I was living alone, but breast cancer was found. I was hospitalized in the A-bomb Hospital and underwent an operation in April 1968. As I was worried about my future; health and a solo life, I entered the A-bomb Survivor‘s Nursing Home in October, 1973. I am happy here with no worries at all. I am so very grateful. ]]> http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/16_grief_at_the_loss_of_my_eye.html http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/16_grief_at_the_loss_of_my_eye.html WRITTEN MONUMENT 15～21 Wed, 16 May 2007 10:10:42 +0900 The place of my A-bomb exposure: Inside of my house in Takara-machi, 1.3km from the hypocenter Acute Symptoms in those days: Diarrhea for two weeks, entire loss of hair, one month treatment for the cut on the head The death in my family: My nephew, Kaoru who was a junior high school student, during the labor service Uneasy night My family had six members; my mother, elder sister, brother-in-law (military officer), nephew (in the Military Academy), nephew (in Hiroshima Municipal Boys’ Middle School) and I. We lived in Chuodori, Takara-machi. I worked at home doing typing as well as teaching it. My sister worked for a company of medical equipment, which did business with the Army Hospital. On the night of August 5, 1945 the air-raid alarm was sounded and cleared, which was repeated two or three times. Each time we went upstairs and downstairs, and we all had a restless night feeling tired. My nephew was especially exhausted. Missing nephew My sister went to work in Takeya-cho and my younger nephew went to school, complaining about his physical condition. Then the air-raid alarm was sounded but it was cleared soon, so my mother was letting down a bamboo blind in the bathroom. I had just mailed a post card and was sitting in my living room. Just that moment I saw a strange and dreadful flash and heard a roar. My house collapsed and I was caught underneath; the pillars, ceiling, ridge and everything. I lost my consciousness. In about 30 minutes I regained consciousness and found my head bleeding. I called out, “Mother!” She could not stand up with her waist badly hit. After a while, my sister returned from her working place. She, too, had a bruise when she fell down from upstairs at her office. In spite of her own pain, she put our mother on her back and three of us left home. We evacuated to the Army Ordnance Supply Depot in Kasumi-cho where we found a lot of injured people accommodated. Later we were taken to the ground of the Ordnance Supply Depot by a soldier and given some treatment. While resting there, black rain began to drop but it did not last very long. That night we slept on the ground, borrowing some futon, or quilts and a mosquito net from a soldier. We were worried about my nephew but we could do nothing. We just spent overnight there. I felt severe pain on my head and wait, so did my mother and sister. On August 8, my sister and I went back to our house to look for my nephew, entrusting a soldier about our mother. Our house, we found, had completely been burnt down. So had been the entire neighborhood. We could not tell where we were. We went to his school in Yokogawa only to find that it had also been burnt down. Realizing no hope there, we returned. We continued to search for him day in day out, but we could find neither his body nor his remains. We saw many injured boys of his age crying out for water. We could hardly see them straight. My nephew never came back to us. I can never forget this forever missing nephew. In and out of the hospital We could not stay at the Ordnance Supply Depot any longer, so we moved to my niece’s schoolmate’s house in Fuchu-cho, Aki-gun. Three of us lived there, but getting food was a chronicle problem. Before long another nephew, who had been in the Military Academy, as well as my brother-in-law were demobilized. That was a great help. Then, my brother-in-law returned to his former work place, the Chugoku Electric Power Company. He was given a post as the Onomich Branch manager, so moved to Onomichi with his wife and son. My mother and I felt uneasy to continue to stay at my niece’s friend’s house, so we rented an independent corner of my acquaintance’s house in Kaita-cho, Aki-gun. We made a living by teaching knitting. Before long I was invited to work at the dormitory for NHK workers in Kaita-cho, where I used to work. The former NHK workers got repatriated one after another, and came to live in the dormitory. They reminded me of my uncle, aunt, niece and nephew and I was worried about them so much. I heard that my uncle died at his collapsed school. Tears would not stop. My eldest sister was also trapped under the collapsed house in Kawaya-cho and never seen again. Everything that flashes back makes me only sad. In 1964, as I had a swollen belly and threw up, I was getting treatment at the Red Cross Hospital and the University Hospital. Then, at the Imanaka Hospital, I was diagnosed as intestinal obstruction. I was immediately hospitalized to have an operation and stayed there for four years. After that I was recuperating at home, but my physical condition reversed again. I went to the A-bomb Hospital, where my problem was found to be a severe case of anemia. After one year of hospitalization, I was released. Since then, however, I was in and out of the hospital many times. Around the time I entered the Home When I was in the A-bomb Hospital, the doctor recommended me to enter the A-bomb Nursing Home as it was to open in September, 1970. I decided to do so. I am very thankful that I am alive today, though I am constantly fighting against my illnesses and once told that I was no good any more. ]]> http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/17_searching_for_my_nephew.html http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/17_searching_for_my_nephew.html WRITTEN MONUMENT 15～21 Wed, 16 May 2007 10:20:42 +0900 The place of my A-bomb exposure: Inside of my house in 2-chome, Kanon-machi, Hiroshima, 1.5km from the hypocenter Until Japan wins My husband, Yoshio Tanaka, was working as a veterinary at the livestock section of Hiroshima Prefectural Office. My husband and I (we were not blessed with children) lived in Higashi-kanon, Hiroshima. He was an official of the Higashi-kanon-machi Town Community and I was involved in the national defense women‘s association. Both of us were devoted ourselves to work for the nation, hoping that Japan would win. A life in misfortune is miserable. When the A-bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945, my husband and I were at home. Flash and roaring sound! At that moment our house was collapsed and we were caught under it. A big pillar fell on me and I was unable to move. I called out to my husband for help in vain. He was also caught under the house. We called out and encouraged each other. However hard we called out for help, nobody came. My husband managed to creep out by himself and came to rescue me. He took the pillar off my body and we finally escaped from the house. Since both of us were injured, we helped each other. Reaching the air raid shelter of Higashi-kanon Town Community for refuge, we received first-aid treatment. Inside the shelter we met out neighbors and cried together, hugging one another. We were speechless for a while. Then a shower of black rain came; I cannot remember about what time it was. A town community official suggested that we move to Koi Elementary School. As we couldn’t stay there for long, we started walking toward the school. The scene we saw on the way was so terrible; some houses were totally broken by the bomb blast and others were burning down. It took us a long time but reached Koi in the early evening, where we were admitted by a rescue squad at Koi Elementary School and given treatment for two days. On August 8, my husband and I walked from Koi via Hiroshima Station to Kaita Station. We took a train from there to Daiwa-cho, Kamo-gun, our hometown, and we settled at my brother‘s house. As my brother was a doctor, we could receive a treatment there and that was very lucky for us. In two months our injuries got better and we came back to Hiroshima. The life in the A-bombed Hiroshima was not easy. Due to our physical conditions, we would often go and see doctors. Now, probably because of my old age, I am not well, and so I am glad that I am in the Home. I’m definitely against wars. A life in misfortune is miserable. (She passed away of Heart Failure on May 25, 1980 after she wrote this. Our condolences here.) ]]> http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/18_creeping_out_of_the_collaps.html http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/18_creeping_out_of_the_collaps.html WRITTEN MONUMENT 15～21 Wed, 16 May 2007 10:30:42 +0900 The place of my exposure Inside my rented house at 2-6 Hirosekita-machi, Hiroshima, 1.5km from the hypocenter Acute symptoms in those days Light injury on my right toe. Loss of hair a week later, (despite the fact that any internal disease was unthinkable) About my family My husband: No injury although he was inside the house and buried under the debris of the house. Our elder daughter (17): She was exposed to the A-bombing on the way to work, the post office in Senda-machi, and died. Our second daughter (14): She died at Hirosekita-machi Higher Elementary School, where she was in the second year. My background I was born as the second daughter to Jiro and Sueko Tanimura in Hagiwara, Kanda-mura, Sera-gun, Hiroshima Prefecture and grew up there helping my parents with farming. I was married to a farmer in Toyota-gun but he died of illness before long. After I returned to my parents and stayed there for a while, I came to Hiroshima to work thanks to my friend’s help. Then I had a chance to meet Toraichi Oride, a massager, and got remarried to him. We were blessed with two daughters and living happily in spite of all the difficulties in the wartime. How could the god of fate have done that merciless quirk to us? The god dropped the first A-bomb in human history on us and our happy life was instantaneously destroyed and turned into an unimaginable living hell. Bodies of our daughters were not identified My husband and I were buried under the house but our relatives living close to us saved us from the debris. We desperately fled from the approaching fire to the river near Betsuin Temple. Our elder daughter was exposed to the bomb on the way to work and the second daughter was at school. Both of them must have died at that moment. Their bodies have not been identified yet. We took refuge in a temple in Midorii, Sato-cho, Asa-gun, keeping off our hunger with some relief rice balls on the night of August 6th. On the following day, we went to one of our relatives, the Takeyama’s, and decided to stay there for some time. Despite the inconvenience of transportation and the sweltering heat, my husband and I went back and forth to Hiroshima every day to search for our daughters, mainly around Senda-machi Post Office and Hirose-kitamachi Higher Elementary School. Our efforts ended in failure, and they are still missing. Both of us were about to go insane in those days. It was a scorching summer. The whole city of Hiroshima was burnt out. Heaps of rubble were all over the city. Some people were working hard to cremate the remains. The others, including us, were desperately looking for their family in spite of no transportation system functioning. None of them looked real in this world. The most difficult thing to us parents was that we had no way to know even whether or not our children were alive. It took us long to come to terms. Just absent-minded In addition to the sudden loss of our two daughters, there came another blow to me. My husband died on September 7th, one month later, although he had looked healthy. Walking around to look for our daughters in the intense heat must have affected and led to his death. He became weaker everyday. Only a week of hospitalization in the Toyohira Hospital, he died. I was just vacant with the indescribable agony. I remained to stay with the Takeyama’s, my husband’s relatives. Then I was loved by Tatsuichi Takeyama and married to him. I would work hard on their farm as a member of the Takeyama. For quite a while I was free from illnesses and working hard on the farm until I was hospitalized at Toyohira Hospital in May 1977 with softening of the brain and chronic hepatitis. Although I did not completely get well, I left the hospital in October and entered this nursing home when my conditions somewhat improved and became stable. Shedding tears remembering my daughters Whenever I see kind, friendly nursing staff here, I shed tears being reminded of my daughters thinking, “if they were alive, they would be the similar ages.” I live, praying for the repose of my daughters and my husband’s souls, with gratitude to the nursing staff and others in the home. I hope war shall never be repeated, as it forces us into never-forgetting misery. ]]> http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/19_overcoming_the_grief.html http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/19_overcoming_the_grief.html WRITTEN MONUMENT 15～21 Wed, 16 May 2007 10:40:42 +0900 The place of my A-bomb exposure Inside my house in Showa-machi, 1.6km from the hypocenter Acute symptoms in those days I could not leave my bed due to a nausea that lasted a week and weariness. The dead of my family None My background I was the youngest child of eight, born in Higashisenda-machi, Hiroshima on March 31, 1913. My parents, Kenichiro and Seki Yamamoto had two sons and six daughters. I graduated from Ote Higher Elementary School. My father worked for Hiroshima Electric Railway Company. My father died of heart and liver diseases when I was twenty years old. I was working at a dancing hall located in Nakadori, Kure when I was twenty-one. At the age of 26, I got married to a military officer, second lieutenant of the Navy. We lived in Naha, Okinawa where my husband was stationed. We were not blessed with children. As the Pacific War intensified, I left Okinawa for Hiroshima alone to live with my third elder sister whose husband had been drafted into the Navy and sent overseas. Later my fourth elder sister returned from Manchuria alone and came to live with us. But my sisters evacuated to Umaki-mura, Aki-gun to stay in the house where my fourth sister’s husband was born. I remained alone in Hiroshima, as I had started working at a chemical factory (military-related) in Takeya-cho after my divorce. Three sisters exposed to the A-bomb I went to Umaki-mura to ask my two sisters to come back to Hiroshima. We heard that there was a private truck leaving Umaki-mura for Hiroshima on August 6, and luckily we got a lift. We, three of us left Umaki-mura at 6 o’clock in the morning and reached home in Showa-machi, Hiroshima at 7:30. We were relieved to be home and relaxed sitting on the entrance floor. Then the air-raid alarm sounded, and was cleared after a while. Without warning, we heard a roar of a plane but I thought a Japanese Military plane was flying over us. Suddenly, however, I saw a blinding flash of light. Then I heard the deafening roar. That moment, we fell into the air-raid shelter we had made in the yard before. We were thrown into the shelter by the bomb blast. I felt choked, but recovered my senses. We kept calling out for help but nobody was available. We crawled out of the shelter somehow. Then we saw the nextdoor woman trapped under the collapsed house and unable to get out. I tried hard to pull her out, but failed. The columns and beams were too heavy. She kept saying, “Go, you just go!” We parted there, crying. Later I was so relieved to hear that her husband had hurried back from his work, Mitsubishi Shipyard and rescued her. Another woman in my neighborhood was blown off to the ground by the A-bomb blast at the moment she came to the veranda upstairs for drying the laundry. She was burnt all over her body and covered with blood. She had a cut on her head. She was wearing only a slip. I hurried back to my fallen house to fetch my emergency bag. Taking out a triangular bandage, I bandaged the bleeding cut on her head with it. My sisters and I walked together with this injured woman. Crossing Hijiyama Bridge, we walked along the Streetcar railway of the Ujina Line. When we were passing by the Communication Unit, the woman parted us there and entered the Unit building for medical treatment. On the way to Hiroshima Station, we saw people injured or already dead. When we reached the Enko Bridge, we looked back toward Showa-machi where we were living and saw a conflagration. The city was burning violently. We crossed the Enko Bridge avoiding the burning cross-ties and reached Atago-machi. Don’t fall asleep, you may die The houses on both sides of the street in Atago-machi were burning. We passed through the fire and got to the safe area. I don’t remember where we were. As I was drinking water leaking from the broken water tap, I heard a little voice, ‘Auntie, give me water.’ As I turned around, there was a schoolgirl standing with skin, like rags, hanging from burnt face and hands. I felt pity for her so much. I gave her water from my cupped hands. There were a dozen more schoolgirls lying asleep around her. I tapped every girl on the cheek saying, ‘Don’t sleep. You may die!’ A few of them opened their eyes. We went on, and made our way to seek refuge in Umaki-mura, Aki-gun, helping with each other. Missing Hiroshima After we got to Umaki-mura, we stayed there to convalesce doing some chores for my brother-in-law’s family and other nearby farmers. With no income, we were living on our small saving. The brother-in-law’s family was very kind to look after us, but I could not help missing Hiroshima. We wanted to return and live in Hiroshima, just three of us sisters. After some discussion, in August 1946, the fourth sister and I left Umaki-mura we had lived for one year. The fourth sister and I built a shack by ourselves in the burnt ruin, Showa-machi where we used to live. Salvaging burned columns and boards, putting scorched tin sheets and roof tiles for the roof, we set up a house solely to keep us from rains. It was our own house that my physically handicapped sister and I cooperated to build, and the house I have fond memories. To make a living I worked hard at a dancing hall. In 1955, I left Hiroshima for Tokyo, getting a job in a tourist inn. Hospitalized in the A-bomb Hospital I was working in Tokyo free from physical problems. It was in 1961 when my sister asked me repeatedly to come back to Hiroshima to attend her. She was going to be hospitalized in the A-bomb Hospital to have an operation for breast cancer. Since she was my own sister, I decided to take a leave and return. I took care of her for 12 months in Hiroshima. I shared the joy with her when she got well again and released from the hospital. Then, when I was getting my belongings ready for going back to Tokyo, I felt an acute pain in my lower back and became unable to walk. I received treatment continuously as an outpatient at the A-bomb Hospital, but my condition got only worse. I was finally hospitalized in December 1963 and stayed there for seven years until July 1970. Thanks to this nursing home My doctor said to me that my condition was stable. I heard that this Hiroshima A-bomb Nursing Home was going to open in 1970, and I expressed my wish that I would like to become a resident. My request was heard. I was tormented by diseases and had no relatives to depend on. If I had not been admitted in a nursing home like this, I’d never had a chance to survive these 10 years. I am still struggling with my ailment everyday, but I’m hoping to live long. I will keep going. I am so glad that this home was founded. ]]> http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/20_struggling_against_loneline_2.html http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/20_struggling_against_loneline_2.html WRITTEN MONUMENT 15～21 Fri, 18 May 2007 23:29:41 +0900 The place of my A-bomb exposure Senda-machi, inside the factory office, 1.7km from the hypocenter August 6th, 1945 I was working for an automobile company in Senda-machi in those days. On this day my father was to attend the funeral of a relative in Toriya-cho at 8 o’clock, the place that turned to the hypocenter of the atomic bombing. Since an air-raid warning had sounded early that morning, my parents begged me to stay home taking a day off. My job was in the accounting section and it was impossible for me to take a day off as the company’s payday was soon. So, I had my younger sister take a day off who was working as a member of volunteer corps at a light metals factory. When I left home, the air-raid warning had already been lifted. Underneath my office section of the company was a concrete-built underground air-raid shelter. Beside my desk there was a safe, from which I took out a portable safe and was resting. By 8 o’clock five workers including the section chief next to my desk were already in the office, sitting at each own desk with all gloomy faces. Then, the moment of a flash and quake, I plunged into the underground air-raid shelter along with the structure and the safe. I was caught under the safe and became totally unconscious due to the hard blow on my head. As for what happened thereafter, I have to put together the stories that were told to my mother and sisters by the people of my company who had rescued me. My father at the funeral was thrown into the Motoyasu River along with the house as it stood around the ground zero. He struck hard on his chest and lost consciousness temporarily. When he came to, he heard his pregnant niece nearby, in a critical condition, calling her 4-year-old son’s name. He gathered his strength, and carried his niece out of the water leaning himself on the house wreck. He laid her at the foot of the Motoyasu Bridge and said to her, “I’ll be right back” and headed for his house. However, the streets were filled with the debris of buildings, electric poles and wires making them hardly passable. Fires everywhere also hampered him. After 6 o’clock in the evening, he at length reached home half dead. He had his injured head bandaged with a puttee. Staggering barefoot, he got in and collapsed. He began moaning, which showed how serious his condition was. When told that I hadn’t been home yet, he sadly said that getting to Senda-machi would be out of question as the city was a sea of fire. That night the sky was crimson red and the city kept on burning. August 7th My father insisted that someone go to search for me, in his struggling breath, so my mother left my father to the care of my sister, who was also wounded, and set out into the streets enveloped with dark smoke and blocked with debris. Through the raging fires she hurried to Senda-machi. The faces and bodies of those she saw on the way were just beyond description. With the skins of face, back and limbs peeled and drooping, people kept their hands at the chest high exposing the flesh. Those who couldn’t be recognized men or women in torn clothes, that covered little of their bodies, were silently moving toward the outskirts of the city. There were people in agony between life and death. Some were trying their best to escape, tumbling with exhaustion after they managed to get out of the collapsed house having been chased by fire. Some woman was yelling crazily, carrying the body of a headless baby on her back. There were blood-covered people looking like red Dharma. Also I saw a person who was crying, “Help, help, I’ll be caught by fire”. It was something like what we would call a “veriest hell”. My mother almost fainted even though she was a pretty stouthearted woman. But the sight of misery made her more and more concerned about me and drove her forward to go through cobwebby, entangled electric wires to the vicinity of my company. There was no trace of my company structure as it had been burned down. Since around the area was ablaze, she could not even look for me and had to go home in dusk. Just when my mother got home, a person from my company brought information about me. “Mori-san (my maiden name) and the section chief were caught under the safe and lost consciousness. With the threat of fire, we hurriedly pull them out. We could feel her pulse, while the section chief had died instantly with his head broken. We carried both to the Miyuki Bridge. Then an army truck passed by and stopped to take just Mori-san who was alive and went away somewhere. She was undoubtedly very seriously injured, and I came to tell you about that”. My father had little hope of my survival but insisted to go to search for me. August 8th Waiting for daybreak, my mother set out to search for me. She took the same route as yesterday toward Senda-machi, counting on what people were talking. On the way she saw many bodies floating in the river. When she made as far as to the Miyuki Bridge, she tried to find Koryo Middle School but everything was burned down and still smoldering here and there. She saw countless corpses as well as the fatally wounded and she could not ignore those in critical condition. For those who wanted water she looked for water and gave it to them. She walked and walked, and came to Tanna, then to Hiuna in vain. Then she had information that lots of injured people were taken to Ninoshima Island, which prompted her to head for Ujina. There she learned a disaster certificate was needed to get on board the ship, so she couldn’t help turning around. The city was still smoldering everywhere and the stench of the rotten bodies and cremating them filled the air. Walking through it, my mother arrived home in the late afternoon. Back at home she found everything was so wretched: my father was in agony with serious injuries, I remained missing, my younger sister had a swollen face with cuts, plus inside the house was messed up by the blast. My mother later said that she would have rather died at that time. My father’s condition got only worse but no doctors were available. There was no way of tending him but give a tender stroke on his hard hit chest and abdomen all night. August 9th My mother could not give up about me. She entrusted my sister, whose condition had been slightly eased with less pain and bleeding, to take care of my father. My mother would say to my father, “Darling, I’m going to try again today” and he would answer in his agonizing condition, “Yeah, go find her.” My mother never dreamed it would be the last time to see him alive when she left home early in the morning. At Ujina she struggled to board a ship. Anyway when she arrived in Ninoshima Island, it was already after noon. She gave my full name at the office. Then an officer said to her, “Here is a list of the dead. For others, please look for the wards.” She saw a heap of dead bodies around there and more and more were being taken to outside. Such a scene made her lose hope, but she tried anyway to look for me one ward after another. Failing to find me anywhere, my mother went back to the office for more information. There she was told about another place where the most critical patients were accommodated; the foot of the mountain across from this ward. My mother hurried to the place mentioned right away, where she found over 200 patients lying on a single layer of straw mat with equally tangled hair and bloody, dusty faces. Unless you took a look one by one very carefully, you wouldn’t have identified anyone. Since it was the last ward to go through, my mother was searching extra carefully. A young woman in a torn chemise and panties, lying at a little center back of the ward, caught her eyes. She found the woman wearing a charm around her neck, which made her jump up to have a closer look. It was me. My mother opened the charm to find a piece of paper with my name and address on it along with the Miyajima Misen god’s guardian charm. She was convinced that it was her daughter. She found no way to express her joy of that moment and thanked god for his work, pressing her hands together in prayer. She later said that her exhaustion over the sleepless nights and days had just vanished at that moment. As I was unconscious, my mother asked an orderly about my condition. He said, “Due to the hard blow on the head, there is excessive bleeding from her left ear, plus contusion all over. Since she remains unconscious till now, she has little chance for survival, so she is left as she is”. The surprised mother took a closer look at me. She found badly lacerated wounds on my shoulders, waist, legs and so on, and those wounds festered, breeding maggots. My mother asked an orderly for medicine and took a very good care of me. But the medicine given was just Mercurochrome and gauze, so all she could do was to dress the maggot-infested wounds with it. While tending me, my mother also looked after others as she felt so sorry for those seriously injured. Since they all looked so terrible that the scene appeared nothing but a living hell. Dead bodies were taken out one after another and the space was filled with new people who equally had little hope to survive. In addition to the foul smelling from festered burns and cuts, excrement was left alone, so the stench in the ward was unbearable. Anybody would have almost fainted. Under such circumstances my mother, in spite of her exhaustion, devoted herself to taking care of me. In late afternoon my mother asked the orderly to get some thin barley gruel in a bamboo container. She slowly dropped it into my mouth and my mouth made a move to take in. This encouraged her immensely; you’ll survive, I’m going to make it happen! Since then she got the gruel every time and gave it to me little by little. At home my father suddenly fell into a critical condition in the afternoon. “Isn’t she back, not back yet? Calling my mother again and again in his struggling breath, my father died, closing his 59 years of life in solitude, having only my younger sister at his bedside. He died around 3 o’clock in the morning coinciding with the time my mother found me. My sister was totally at a loss and just waited for my mother to return impatiently. August 10th My sister had been waiting for my mother but she did not come home yet this day. August 11th My sister kept waiting for Mother as long as she could, with Father’s body as it was. However, in the summer heat she couldn’t keep the body any longer, so she asked a favor of the neighbors. She had the body carried to the nearby mountainside and cremated it alone. Worried about Mother who hadn’t come home yet, my younger sister must have been overwhelmed with anxiety, sorrow and loneliness. With no knowledge of her husband’s death, my mother was continuously tending me. Despite her devoted care, my condition showed no improvement. Instead, the festered injuries got even worse. August 12th Morning came. The orderly announced a sudden closure of our station in Ninoshima Island as of today. We were to move to Miyauchi Elementary School. Still in a coma, I was accompanied by my mother and carried to the school; first on a danpeibune, a kind of flat freight boat, together with other patients, then on the back of a truck. Exposed directly to the summer heat, a number of people died on the way. August 13th At the elementary school, for the first time a doctor saw me. “No chance…” was his opinion. My mother spoke with the doctor about taking me home so that she can let me die at home. The doctor said that I was likely to die before reaching home. My mother was worn out but she needed a cart in order to take me home. She was also concerned about the family back at home, so anyway she decided to hurry home for a cart, having entrusted the care of me to a woman, who had come for tending a patient near me. Back at home she was told about my father’s death. The news robbed her of all the strength she managed to retain. She collapsed. My mother gave my sister the direction to the Miyauchi Elementary School and made her hurry to the school, saying that Mother would come for me with a cart tomorrow. My sister said to Mother that she needed a good night sleep, and hurriedly left for the school worrying about her condition. Arriving at the school late that afternoon, my sister asked for some gruel for me. A person in charge gave her some, mumbling complaints, “I’ve just finished my job”. Even so, my sister felt appreciative when it was given. All night long she watched me, who could only take a little of gruel but not utter even a word. August 14th My mother set out for the school early in the morning but arrived only after noon. She wanted to take me home as soon as possible, so she and my sister put me on the cart and covered with a straw mat to keep me from the sunlight. They took turns pulling or pushing and traveled over 20 kilometers. My mother would lift the straw mat frequently on the way to confirm that I was still breathing. “ She’s still alive, still alive”, reassured Mother gained strength and hurry home, forgetting the heat. Rubble made their trip very difficult, in particular from Kusatsu and on, so it was already dark when they got home. They were relieved to see I was still alive, and cried forgetting their exhaustion. “We made it, we made it. We were right about our decision.” For six months after the A-bomb exposure I remained unconscious, sort of. That’s how my marathon-long fighting against the sickness began. Having lost my father, my mother worked very hard in spite of her age to cover my medical cost. That mother is gone now. I am also very grateful to my sisters who tended me so hard. Since I survived from the jaws of death, I should live my life to the full. Our life after the A-bombing was just tough. Potatoes were our staple food and we ate porridge made of rice and edible weed, mugwort or starwort as vegetable substitutes. Also, we fished seaweed in the Inland Sea off Kusatsu and racked our brains for ideas how to eat them. I greatly appreciate my life here in the Home where I have things to live for. I am enjoying calligraphy and handcrafts with others. ]]> http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/20_struggling_against_loneline_1.html http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/20_struggling_against_loneline_1.html WRITTEN MONUMENT 21～28 Fri, 18 May 2007 23:30:32 +0900 The place of my A-bomb exposure Inside the house in Matoba-cho, 1.7 km from the hypocenter I was stunned. My family, three of us, was living in Matoba-cho since 1943. My husband, who was working for Toyo Cotton Spinning Company, was transferred to the Shinkyo branch in Manchuria and gone in 1944, leaving the family behind. My daughter and I looked after the house during my husband’s absence. My daughter, Shizuko was graduated from Kotani Girl’s Middle School and stayed home beside me. My daughter was learning flower arrangement and tea ceremony. . On August 6, my daughter left for my husband’s parents’ home in Tokaichi-machi to do some errands for me. After that the precautionary alarm was sounded. Soon the air-raid warning followed, but about ten minutes later all clear was announced. When I went upstairs to dry the laundry, I heard the precautionary alarm again. I saw one B-29 flying from the east toward the west in the skies. As I was frightened and scared at the sight of it, I was going downstairs. When half way down, I heard a deafening roaring sound. That moment, the second floor collapsed and the walls fell down. I thought I was bombed and got out of the house immediately. I cried out for help to the neighbors, but I recognized the houses in my neighborhood were also flattened. I fled to Danbara, the direction to Hijimaya Hill, along with many other sufferers, whose skins were peeled off, hanging just like rags. I dropped in one of my acquaintances in Danbara and took a rest until around noon. I got rested and calm down, but I was worried very much about my daughter. When I talked about going home to look for my daughter, I was topped. They said the whole city beyond the northern part of Danbara-ohata-cho was a sea of fire. However, I couldn’t sit and wait, so decided to go back to my house. My house was totally burned out. All neighboring houses were reduced to ashes, too. Only the Hiroshima Station was seen standing out in the burnt-out city. I was absent-minded and didn’t move the place for a long time. I don’t remember how many hours. I just didn’t know what to do, and the thought of my daughter came to my mind. Wondering if she was alive, how she was doing, I was, not knowingly, heading for my husband’s parents’ home, Tokaichi. I got there only to find the house burned out. I almost went crazy with anxieties about my daughter and relatives. I lost my place to live in, so I returned to Matoba-cho together with my neighbors, and we built shacks with gathered materials such as poles, boards, tin sheets, rooftiles, etc. which we picked up out of the ruins. I was worried so much about my daughter and relatives that I went to Tokaichi again. There, from a neighbor, I got information that the residents in this town had taken refuge in Kabe-cho, Asa-gun. Immediately, I went to visit several makeshift relief stations in Kabe-cho. On the twelfth day, I finally found my daughter. She had been taken to a temple in Kabe-cho. She had serious burns on half of her face and on both legs. It was very painful to see, but I was filled with joy of reunion after such difficulties in finding her. My daughter’s story She told her story in agony. That morning, she left home in Matoba-cho and took a tramcar. It was 8:15 a.m. when she was about to open the door at the entrance of my husband’s parents’ house. The moment an enormous sound and flash came, she fell down. Being helped by neighbors, she was taken to that relief station in Kabe. She talked and talked in tears how much she had been worried about me and about other relatives. She asked me to take her back, so I consulted a doctor there. The doctor advised that she’d better stay there some more time for treatments, but she insisted. So, I took her, on a truck, to my younger brother’s barrack in Tokaichi-machi. She might have been relieved, her condition only deteriorated. She died the following day at the age of 22 without seeing a doctor. Her body was cremated with other corpses in the park of Tokaichi-machi. I feel it a pity that my daughter passed away without having a chance to wear a wedding gown. Alone, finally After losing my daughter, I went back to my hometown in Yamaguchi prefecture to start a new life with my mother. We lived in a country house in Takeshima, which was owned by my uncle. In July 1946, my husband returned from Manchuria, but he had been through a lot of difficulties, both mentally and physically. He was suffering from malnutrition and passed away two years later in spite of the medical treatments. I was finally left alone. I didn’t feel comfortable staying long at my uncle’s house, so I left Takeshima and went to stay for a while at my brother’s house in Tokaichi-machi. My brother came to know about this nursing home, which he was told a good place to live in. Then he made all the necessary formalities done for me. I am very happy here. I believe in Buddhism, therefore I have no complaints and no worries. However I still have a grudge about the A-bombing which took away my husband, my daughter and fifteen of my relatives. I pray that such horrible nuclear weapons will never be used again and peace will last. ]]> http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/22_left_alone_having_lost_my_d.html http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/22_left_alone_having_lost_my_d.html WRITTEN MONUMENT 21～28 Fri, 18 May 2007 23:41:47 +0900 The place of the A-bombing: Uchikoshi-cho, inside of the Uchikoshi branch office of Hiroshima Army Clothing Depot, 1.8km from the hypocenter Acute symptom in those days: Only a cut on the head The dead in my family: None, because all were evacuated My background I was a second daughter of Kiyosuke Shimizu, born in Yokogawa, Hiroshima. I went to Misasa Elementary School and then to Shintoku Girl’s Middle School. After I was graduated in 1918, I was helping with my father’s drug store. When I was 21 years old, I got married to Ichiro Nagaoka. I became a mother of two sons but my second son died when he was 9 years old. My first son is fine and lives in Suita-shi, Osaka now. My husband, Ichiro died of gastric ulcer in 1932. After that I entered the Doita Dressmaking School and finished it. Then I worked as a teacher at the same school until around 1944. The war intensified and it became impossible to make dresses so I changed my job and started to work for the Uchikoshi branch office of Hiroshima Army Clothing Depot. My job there was inspecting items such as hats, shirts, army clothes and pants as well as general office work. The situation at the time of the A-bombing On August 6th, I left home in Hirose-cho at 7:30 for work, as it begins at 8:00. After I got to the office, an air-raid warning was sounded but soon it was cleared. Mr. Unomoto, head of the branch office, gave the direction about the day’s work to us, 15 workers. When I was writing something at my desk in the office (8:15), a flash like lightning thrust in through the left side window. The windows broke, the lockers fell down and our office room, on the second floor, was twisted by the blast. I was thrown under the desk that moment. My hair was tangled with pieces of glass badly enough unable to comb through. I lost my consciousness for a while due to the cuts on my left forehead by the glass fragments, which were bleeding hard. When I came to, I called for help but I could not find anybody. In the workshop next to my office, a factory girl was seen dead, being caught between the sewing machines. The janitor was also lying dead. It was terrible. I was scared, so I decided to take refuge in a temple in Furuichi, Asa-gun, to which we, Hirose town people, were supposed to evacuate in case of emergency. On the way, when I looked over from Mt. Mitaki, I saw lines of injured people. They were almost naked and their skins were hanging down from all over their bodies. It was just a miserable scene. When those people wanted water, I scooped up some with my cupped hands and gave them. On arriving at the temple, I found the place was filled with many people. I was given ten hard biscuits and pickled eggplant. After eating, we hung up a mosquito net in the back yard of the temple and about 30 people slept in it that night. The next day, August 7th, early in the morning I set out on foot for Kuchi, Asa-gun, and arrived at Akira Ito’s house around 8 o’clock in the evening. As I had entrusted my household belongings with him, I stayed there until the middle of September. Then, in the late September, I moved to Mr.Tanaka’s house in Ono, Saeki-gun. As I was once her daughter’s teacher at Doi Dressmaking School before the war, they treated me well. The life after the A-bombing About a year later I moved to Nobori-machi, Hiroshima from Ono, Saeki-gun, and worked for a tailor, Mito. My first son, who had gone to the middle part of China, was demobilized in December,1946. We cried with joy, hugging each other. He began to work at the Unemployment Office, but was transferred to Osaka. Again, I was back to a lonely life. I would often visit PL religious body, around that time I was remarried to Kyuichiro Mito. Helping his job as a tailor, I devoted myself to the housework, but my husband died of pneumonia in 1968. Around the time of entering the Home As I broke down with brain inflammation on April 19th, 1980, I was admitted to the Funairi Hospital on April 27th. I stayed in the hospital for 8 months, and then became a resident of the Home in November 27th, 1980. Since then, I am getting better day by day. I am very grateful to the stuff for their kindness. I hope that I become much healthier and can help other people. ]]> http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/23_the_pass_of_mt_mitaki_never.html http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/23_the_pass_of_mt_mitaki_never.html WRITTEN MONUMENT 21～28 Fri, 18 May 2007 23:42:59 +0900 The place of my A-bomb exposure Nishikanon-machi, inside my house, 2 km from the hypocenter Acute symptoms at the time of the A-bombing Light injuries on my feet caused by the glass fragments and diarrhea that lasted for ten days The loss in my family My fourth son, burned to death at his workplace in Honkawa-cho My background I was an eldest of the three girls, born in Nakai, Mukoeta, Miyoshi. My parents were Ikumatsu and Mine Nakai. My mother died of illness when I was ten. We lived in Shobara in those days where my father had an umbrella making shop. After I graduated from Shobara Higher Elementary School, I stayed home and did the housework since my mother had died. At the age of 20 I got married to a farmer in Kisa, Tatsufumi Imada and had four children, but my husband died of illness when he was 30. My parents-in-law were still young and confident enough to raise their four grandchildren, and I returned to my parents alone leaving my children with them. Back in those days it was difficult for a woman to live alone, so, later I got married again to a man in Seranishi-cho, Kisuke Sakamoto. We moved to Hiroshima in 1939 in order to educate our three sons and lived in Nishikanon-machi. My husband worked for Toyo Seikan Kaisha Ltd., a can manufacturing company and I, too, worked for the same company as a cook. Nervously glittering eyes On the very day of the bombing my husband and I happened to be at home because it was our day off. With an abnormal flash and roaring sound I fainted for a while. The roof tiles and walls of our house fell and pillars tilted. My husband had cuts on his head, bleeding, but came to me worrying. I thought we needed to escape immediately, rather than treating our injuries, and so went outside covering our heads with a quilt. We headed for the vacant lot together with neighbors. Those seriously injured were pulled or pushed on a cart. Then black rain fell. Following my husband, I walked on the riverbank with an umbrella over my head. With blood just letting fall, the eyes of those seriously injured were nervously glittering in their faces that were blackened with sweat and dust. I remember the picture vividly even today. We had nothing to eat. The night came and I was worried about my son who had left home for work in the morning. I spent the sleepless night with many other people on the riverbank. Around noon we were given some hard biscuits and two rice balls. My husband and I started to look for my son. In order to survive On the 8th of August my son was at length identified from a horde of burned bodies that could hardly be recognized men from women at the ground of Honkawa Elementary School. Clues were his gold-covered false tooth and the leather sole of his canvas shoe that had been left unburned. That evening my husband and I cremated my son in tears at the school ground and took the ashes back home. We prayed for the repose of his soul at our half-burnt house. It was only in July, 1945 that our dearest son got the job at the civil engineering section of the Prefecture Office and his office was on the second floor of the Honkawa Elementary School. Circumstances, however, didn’t allow us to remain there sinking in sorrow. We had to work hard in order to survive. Gathering tins and lumber out of the rubble, we built a shack to keep ourselves from rain and dew. The problem was food. We went to pick up pumpkins in the field of Kanon-machi and ate them boiled. We didn’t have even salt. The war ended while we were eating whatever available, and our two other sons who had been in the preparatory course of the military academy returned. We decided to go back to the country to solve our food shortage. A-bomb disease and malnutrition Luckily we had our house intact in Tsuta, Seranishi-cho, Sera-gun. In late August taking everything we had, we got on a freight train. My husband and sons went back to Tsuta and I went to Shio-machi because I had my sick younger sister to take care of. I had no choice but stay there. The house in Tsuta had been vacant so long and there was no electricity. My husband and sons had to live with the light of an oil-burning kandelaar, a metal hand lamp. As my husband had been over working ever since August 6, he became feverish in late September and suffered from diarrhea. I went to take care of my husband in Tsuta, but, with neither medicine nor shots available, he died on October 10. Looking back now, I wonder if he died of malnutrition as well as of A-bomb disease. After my husband’s death I spent 13 years in Shobara taking care of my sick sister and my father. Then around 1965 I started to have physical problems of my own one after another. I was hospitalized in the Harada Hospital in Hiroshima. My sons had family and were living their own lives. In the spring of 1970 I came to know that an A-bomb nursing home was built. I decided to enter the Home and became a resident in September. As long as I live The Home is well facilitated and I can receive the same treatment as a hospital. I live in peace here without any inconveniences or worries at all. I press my hands for prayer with deep appreciation. When I was living in Shobara after the war, I learned about the Hiroshima University Shiragikukai, an association at which one can register for the body contribution after the death. I registered myself wishing that I would at least be of some use after I died. I’m going to live in gratitude as long as I am allowed. ]]> http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/24_cremating_my_son_at_the_sch.html http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/24_cremating_my_son_at_the_sch.html WRITTEN MONUMENT 21～28 Fri, 18 May 2007 23:44:49 +0900 The place of the A-bomb exposure: Funairi-kawaguchi-cho, at the entrance hall of my house, 2.0km from the hypocenter [Life without a man’s hand] My husband: Masateru Myojin (37 years old), gone to the warfront Myself: Taeko (33), My first son: Masayuki (1), My mother: Shizu (55) My husband was drafted to the Army Communication Unit in Saga-shi in March 1944, where he was trained for three months. Then he was transferred to the Yamaguchi Regiment and sent to the South Pacific front in July. We, the family left behind, suffered from food shortages. I went food hunting taking my sucking baby along with me almost every day. When I did not, I got to join a military training (with a bamboo spear), or do our obligation; buttoning on soldiers’ clothes, cleaning up the debris of the demolished buildings, etc. I had so many difficulties day after day as my husband had been away. [Like a fire pillar] From the beginning of August in 1945, my mother and my son were away staying with the relatives in Mukaibara, Takata-gun. On August 6th, I was going to bring some rationed food to them. When I was about to lock my entrance door, an air-raid alarm was sounded. Before long the alarm was cleared, so I was going to lock the door again. It was just then that I felt something like a fire pillar in my eyes. I did not hear any sound at that time but I was instantaneously blown to the field of sweet potatoes. When I came to, I ran away for the shooting range of the Army at the foot of Mt. Eba with a neighborhood woman. I heard that a bomb was dropped on Yokogawa area. Then I got to the bamboo grove in Shinjo-cho, passing through the reclaimed land in Kanon-machi and Koi station. There, I luckily found a truck that was heading for Yoshida-cho, Takata-gun. My request for a ride was heard. Looking at the mushroom cloud in the sky of Hiroshima, I managed to get to my parents’ house in Yoshida-cho around 11 o’clock. We were delighted to find everybody had been safe. One week later, I came back to Hiroshima to get a disaster certificate. I got to Hiroshima station then walked through Matoba-cho, Kamiya-cho, Tokaichi-machi, Dobashi to Funairi-kawaguchi-cho. On the way I saw miserably burnt streetcars at a few different places; in front of Fukuya department store, Kamiya-cho and Dobashi. I walked through the burnt ruins in the sun to my house in Funairi-kawaguchi-cho. There, however, I found nothing left. My house had been burned down completely. In front was a dentist’s house where no figure was seen. I thought they had evacuated somewhere. An old man the next door was looking around for his daughter, who had been missing since she went to the demolition work. Later I heard that the man became sick and died because of the gas he inhaled during the search for her. [I strongly object to wars] As my house was burnt down, I decided to live in Yoshida-cho, Takata-gun with my mother and son. Our life, three of us, was difficult because of the food shortages. I went to visit the farmers, taking my son along with me, to barter my scarce possessions for rice, wheat, potatoes and so on. I was anxiously waiting for my husband to be demobilized and come home. Soldiers began to be seen back home in Yoshida-cho, having been demobilized, so I expected my husband to come back. I checked up the schedule of the repatriate trains, and went to Hiroshima station at each arrival expecting him to show up. He never came back. In December, 1946, I received an official note of his death by Hiroshima Prefecture at Yoshida town office. In those days prices were high because of inflation, and the change of currency value made us upset. I had a grudge against our government as we had no compensation at all. Besides, my physical condition became only worse. I was worrying about my future day and night. Since food shortage was always the problem, I felt it necessary for us to live in a self-supply style. So, I decided to rent a garden. The place I rented was beside the river in Yanagihara, Takata-gun and it was far away. Besides the soil was untended. But anyway I worked very hard and planted potatoes. I have a lot of bitter experiences and memories that no words could explain. Then a high fever continued and my hair came off. My physical condition gradually became worse. One day I felt a sudden pain like neuralgia on my leg and I had a treatment in the Mukaibara Hospital. I continued acupuncture, moxa cautery and hot spring treatment but my condition became only deteriorated. So I went to the Red Cross Hospital, where I was told that my disease was caries and immediate hospitalization was necessary. So, I entered the Yoshida Hospital near my house. When I see the children of Vietnamese refugees, I think they are the same as the Japanese children in those days. I know there were a lot of children who were very skinny with swollen stomachs in those days when I was raising my son. I have a sad memory of my own; when I took my son for an infant health check at Funairi Elementary School, they didn’t give me milk that I badly needed for him. Today everything is heavenly. I think we must not forget that there was a huge sacrifice of ‘deaths’ caused by the war and the A-bombing. I strongly oppose war. We should be the last ones and no more sacrifices. ]]> http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/25_looking_at_the_mushroom_clo.html http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/25_looking_at_the_mushroom_clo.html WRITTEN MONUMENT 21～28 Fri, 18 May 2007 23:46:30 +0900 The place of my A-bomb exposure Inside the hall of Hiroshima Army Clothing Depot in Deshio-cho. 3 km from the hypocenter. Acute symptoms in those days Losing hair, bruises on the right back, stab wounds by fragments of glass, gashes on the head The dead of my family None My background I was born as the second daughter of Ichiro Murata in Tsuzu, Kuga-gun, Yamaguchi Prefecture and have three sisters. I married Shizuro Ueoka when I was 28 but he was gone to the United States and I heard nothing from him since. I divorced him twenty years later and married Norio Kawamura in July, 1947. Treated by my family On August 6, I was at work, a cooking duty for higher officers at the hall for military officers in the Army Clothing Depot in Deshio-cho. After having been ordered to start by the head of the higher officers, fifty of our squad started the day’s work. At 8:15 I suddenly saw a powerful blinding flash run. And then, a tremendous roaring sound resounded as if the firm red brick building of the Clothing Depot were destroyed. Having been near the window, tens of fragments of window glass stuck deeply into my head and face. When I tried to get out of the building, lumber fell on my head. I got gashes on the head, from which blood spouted out. At that moment I was almost unconscious. The members of our squad helped me and carried me to the first-aid station in the warehouse of the Depot. I saw wounded people lying side by side there. Until August 15 I was there and treated by doctors. Since I knew I would not get sufficient treatment there because of the shortage of medicine, I wanted to return to my home, Tsuzu, Yamaguchi-ken for treatment. So, I asked the doctor about it and got his permission. I left all the household effects and the collapsed house in Minami-machi as they were. My parents-in-law and three sisters-in-law were all safe because they had evacuated to the house of my brother-in-law’s acquaintance in Hatsukaichi, Saeki-gun. I heard the news, the end of the war, at Hiroshima Station on the way back to my hometown, Yamada, Tsuzu, Yamaguchi-ken for treatment. Knowing that Japan was defeated, I was overwhelmed with sadness and could not help crying there. It was so regrettable, because we had paid so much of price. I felt mounted tension inside me fainted away at an instance I heard Japan’s defeat. Since train service from Hiroshima through Otake was no avail, I walked all the way to Fujiu station, from where I took a train to Tsuzu. I got off at Tsuzu and went home where I was born. All my family was very surprised and pleased to see me alive because they had thought I was dead. On the way I often felt I’d rather die because the pains from the wounds and lower back were unbearable in the heat. Thanks to the treatments, applying Mercurochrome-dipped cotton to the wounds, given by my family, they gradually healed. My 22-year-old niece especially took a good care of me. I spent a recuperating period, and my wounds were completely cured in about one month. The life after the A-bombing One thing I had been concerned was my work. I returned to Hiroshima around September 20, and was reinstated in the former work place. I was engaged in the work of liquidation of the Clothing Depot until November. Most of the workers including me were discharged by December. So,Ｉ returned home in Yamaguchi, having my baggage shipped to Tsuzu by sea. Back home, I helped my family with farming. My husband died in the States in 1947. I remarried Norio Kawamura from 　Miyajima-cho, Saeki-gun. He died in 1973. The pain on my back was getting worse while I was tending my husband in the hospital. I entered the Shohaen, a convalescent facility, in Beppu City. In one year and half, I got well. I was released and returned to Miyajima. But my condition reversed again in twenty days, and I was admitted in the Hiroshima A-bomb Hospital. Before and after entering the Home The treatments in the hospital worked and my condition became stable. After leaving the hospital, I entered the A-bomb Nursing Home, being recommended by the welfare office because my house in Miyajima, town-owned, had been demolished. I am really glad that I came here, since I am alone, frail and have no confidence in my health. We should never wage war again. The agony we tasted should never be given to anybody. I pray that peace we now have will last long. ]]> http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/26_struggle_with_the_fragments.html http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/26_struggle_with_the_fragments.html WRITTEN MONUMENT 21～28 Fri, 18 May 2007 23:47:49 +0900 The place of my A-bomb exposure In the Kitchen at Hiroshima Army Ordnance Supply Depot, Kasumi-cho, 3km from the hypocenter Acute symptoms in those days Diarrhea for about twenty days, loss of appetite, general fatigue, cuts on my right arm and the right side of the back of my head The dead of my family None My background I am the second daughter of Sekizo and Tama Sumihiro. After I graduated from Omukai Higher Elementary School, I helped with my family business, farming and producing hand-made Japanese paper. When I was 24, I got married to Shinpei Tokuda. We had a son. In 1938, my husband suddenly died of illness at age 42. Our son, Katsumi, had entered the Manchurian Railroad but came back to Hiroshima because of his sickness. He died of a heart attack while he was under medical treatment. I moved to Danbara-hinode-cho, and worked as a cook at Hiroshima Army Ordnance Supply Depot since 1939. Night with uneasiness It was eight o'clock a.m. when I arrived at my workplace. Our boss gave us some instructions on the day’s work and we were about to get started. Then, I suddenly heard a deafening roaring sound. Our building shook. Simultaneously, window glass shattered by the blast, and by the fragments I had cuts on my right arm, my palm and the back of my head. We were instructed to escape immediately, so we took refuge in an air-raid shelter at the foot of Hijiyama Hill with my coworkers. I saw many people coming one after another, some of whom were burned all over their bodies. Some died where they almost arrived at the air-raid shelter. Their clothes were just like shreds. We spent a night with anxiety in the air-raid shelter, eating nothing. We had no medicine, no bandages and no medical treatment. From the day after the A-bombing on, we distributed rice balls to the A-bomb sufferers at the Army Ordnance Supply Depot. Together with my colleagues, I worked hard all day long, chopping pickled radishes. Since I had cuts on my right hand, I couldn't make rice balls. At night, for about a week, I went back and slept in the air-raid shelter at the foot of Hijiyama Hill. The A-bombed horses I was worried about one of my nieces and visited the Army Branch Hospital in Mitaki, where she was working. I couldn't see her, but was relieved to hear that she was engaged in the relief work, despite the fact that she was slightly injured. On my way beck, I saw an A-bombed horse fallen down, beside which another horse, seemingly blind, was standing still sorrowfully. Those two horses were so impressive that I never forget. In the scorching heat A-bombed horses in tears In grief (May, 1978) My workplace, the four warehouse buildings of the Ordnance Depot, became a makeshift hospital. Many sufferers were carried in one after another and laid down just on the wooden floor. They couldn't be given any treatment worth mentioning and died one after another. It was the very hell on earth. The soldiers dug big holes here and there in the back yard of the Depot, piled up dead bodies in them, poured oil and cremated them. The mere thought of the stench and smoke makes me shudder even now. August 12, I could finally return to my house in Danbara-hinode-cho. Fortunately, my house was spared from the fire but the inside was horrible. Glass fragments scattered and the household effects were destroyed. It was very hard for me to clear up the house. As a cooking woman Our workplace, the Army Ordnance Supply Depot was closed down. I lost my job as of September 20. I received my retirement allowance in early October. I decided to live at my elder brother's house in Kano-cho, Tsuno-gun, Yamaguchi, which is my birthplace. I disposed of my household goods and furniture and went back to my hometown. However in autumn, 1946, about one year later, I came back to Danbara-hinode-cho, again. I worked as a cooking woman for ten years at the dormitory of Shudo Junior High School. After that, I had my own 'okonomi-yaki' shop. It is a kind of pancake with various ingredients, mainly cabbage. When my physical condition became unfit to work any more, I couldn’t make a living and so I began to live on welfare. I had much pain in my back and legs. Then I began to suffer from anemia, cardiac infarction and arteriosclerosis, and was hospitalized in the Danbara Hospital in January, 1975 and stayed till April. After I was released, I continued to see the doctor as an outpatient. Terror of wars I could enter the A-bomb Nursing Home because I was alone. The terror of the war could never be forgotten. The woeful spectacle, in which you couldn’t tell whether a man or woman, was clearly imprinted in my mind and never fade to this day. I pray for world peace and for the repose of A-bomb victims' souls. I am very thankful for my being alive today, and for a happy life here in this nursing home. ]]> http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/27_the_misery_linger_in_my_min.html http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/27_the_misery_linger_in_my_min.html WRITTEN MONUMENT 21～28 Fri, 18 May 2007 23:49:16 +0900 The place of my A-bomb exposure Minamikanon-machi, inside the factory of Asahi Weaponry Co., 3km from the hypocenter Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe and other major cities in Japan were targeted everyday by the bombers. After Okinawa was fallen it was not unusual that the military district, Hiroshima and Kure areas were air raided two or three times a day by the bombers that flew from Kyushu area. I belonged to the electric section of the weapon manufacture factory, Asahi Weaponry Co. in Minamikanon-machi. Skilled workers, students as well as girls volunteer corps, they were all with us working hard in devotion day and night. Till victory, we were all determined. My wife and I lived alone in a company house in Minamikanon-machi. We had no children. She was busy everyday working for the national defense women’s association, eagerly defending the home front. We didn’t have a single drop of rain after July 16 and rice paddies and fields were dried like a desert. Heat seemed to have penetrated into the deep down the soil and the sun shined mercilessly day after day. The morning of August 6 was no exception and I felt as if all the sunlight was on us. [Nothing but misery…] Breaking the morning tranquility of the 6th, an air-raid warning was sounded all of a sudden. I put on my air-raid protective hood and left home for work with caution. As the warning was lifted, I was relaxing myself taking off my hood. 8:15. We heard no roar of planes, which means no alarm at all, and there came a sudden, flabbergasting bombing which extinguished all on the earth leaving not a single thing. How can it be expressed; misery, sorrow, or what? Agonizing cries, fire attack, water attack, blood hell or gas attack? No words could possibly describe it. My wife and I were lucky enough to have only light injuries in the very swirl. That morning I went into the office as I was asked to write a good luck message on a national flag for a youth of the lumber factory, who was called for the military service. That moment, there came a flash as if super high-tension electricity had short circuit. And a really weird sound followed; a rumble or roar, or the sound of collapsing the factory building, anyway it was an enormous sound. During the time I had no time to escape to the shelter. “Damn you, the enemy!” I thought. Windows fly. Roof tiles fly. Things that don’t fly break down, tear and collapse. Not a thing was left standing without damage in the factory. I had minor injuries from the glass fragments. The medical room was filled with those injured, light or serious. Most people had injuries on their heads and hands. The factory had been in full swing trying to achieve higher productivity where young boy workers, students, volunteer corps, everybody was devoted themselves to their work. And what’s it now, five minutes after? The factory building broke down. The shafts that had been spinning twisted like candies, and those working underneath machines, students and volunteer corps, fell down and injured leaving not a single person unaffected. Surprisingly, however, nobody including young girls of first and second year students raised a scream. I was furious and tension high. “You’ll see, soon, damn!” I thought. Our company president, stouthearted Mr. Kuwabara rushed to our factory from the main office in Jigozen. He was appalled with the totally changed factory picture; a real mess. Anyway I made the first and second year dormitory students evacuate, then hurried home myself. [My wife and I, happy for our having been safe] It’s about 20-minute walk from my company to my house in Minamikanon-machi, but I remembered nothing how, with which way I reached home. There, what I saw was devastation; all the structures, house after house, were thoroughly destroyed and fires enveloped the areas of Kanonhon-machi and Minamikanon 1-chome. Next to our house was a heat-treatment shop, yet it was not caught by fire. It was strange, but could have been god’s mercy. Where did the people of our neighbor’s association evacuate? I saw nobody around there. My wife and I had agreed that in case of emergency we’d escape to the field down there, not to the shelter. But I found out that she, as a member of the women’s defense team, was engaged in a relief work at the Shinshugakuryo, a dormitory. I was relieved. She had a minor injury when she pulled a neighbor, elderly woman out of the fallen wall, but that didn’t stop her from working for the injured. We were glad that both of us were safe. The city was a sea of fire filled with mounting smokes, collapsing sounds of tall structures and unceasing tearing and roaring sounds. From Higashikanon and Nishikanon to the Second Higher Elementary School or to its dormitory, people were moving; those who could, walked, some helping each other and those who couldn’t were on a cart. Nothing could be more painful; some were burned all over the body with their skin drooping like rags, others swelled all over by burns, unidentifiable even by their parents. Even their voices changed. Amid the heat of fires they, oddly enough, were shivering, saying, “Cold, cold.” Their faces were smeared with blood, sweat and dust.” Some had broken arms or sprained feet caused by fallen buildings and others had burned hair. Also there were people who fell on the road, unable to move, probably on the way to the dormitory in the field. Some were just calling for water, water. My wife and I gave water and treatment to those people and carried them to the dormitory frantically. Soon, however, medicine ran out and even worse, the tap water stopped. We, too, were exhausted mentally as well as physically, so we took shelter into a safe field. Black rain began to fall. I suspected that it was intentional; “drop oil, then set fire”, something like that. Around this time the city was engulfed with flames, the rivers turned to boiling waters on which dead fish were floating. So I learned later. Among the people who fled to the river, most of those who took the way toward the central part of the city died. Due to the continuing sunny weather, the rivers had less water, which might have something to do with it. [Couldn’t wait for the dawn] I felt as if ten years had passed in one day. When I pulled myself together, at length, I felt hunger and exhaustion, but there was neither food nor water. Together with the neighbor’s association people who still remained there, we spent overnight on the eastern roadside. Moans of the seriously injured were heard from the Second Higher Elementary School. Young children frantically cried for their mothers, and mothers desperate cried for their children. Fires became rampant in the evening and the city was filled with terrible noise of tearing and blazing, and roaring sounds resembled those of flood or typhoon. Nobody spoke and everybody had a long, sleepless night waiting for a dawn. It was a miserable, dark night. We were all half-fainted due to the hunger and exhaustion. My wife and I, however, were impatient. Rather than waiting for the dawn, we decided to set out to search for Mr. and Mrs. Hashimoto, my wife’s parents in Zaimoku-cho. It was 2 am, the middle of the night. They had said ten days before that they’d move to that area and expected us to be of some help. On the early morning of the 6th Mother-in-law had visited us and gone home with some vegetables. And according to our estimation, about the time she got back home, the bomb blasted. They might be waiting for a rescue, having been burned or seriously injured. We had no time to waste, so we set out toward the Kanon Bridge. We somehow made as far as to the Sumiyoshi Bridge, on the way we met a few soldiers, either survived the bombing or came from other place, who gave us some advice. The road to the Sumiyoshi Bridge was not so bad, but beyond there to the Prefecture Office we had a real hard time to go through, usually only a 10-minute walk from the Sumiyoshi bridge to Zaimoku-cho. The seriously injured and dead were in procession. Toward the Prefecture Office the roads were blocked or covered with debris such as electric poles, wires, roof tiles, woods, stones, concrete, iron plates…virtually everything fallen, torn, burnt or smoldering. Burned electric wires were hanging down like a cobweb. We were desperate to move forward on such a hot, debris-mounted road being tormented by fire, smoke, gas, burned woods, bricks and stones. What a scene it was! The front of the Prefecture Office building was filled with the victims, so many of the dead and seriously injured. Here and there voices asking for water in agony were heard. “Water, water, please”, “Please give me water, soldier.” Somebody was asking a soldier for a blanket to lie on because she was cold. Behind the bricks, by the sewage, people were sitting on something or on the ground, or lying…how many were there, tens or hundreds of them? Oh, look at this cistern! Packed with people, dead with their heads into the water. And not just this one, that one, and all the other cisterns, too. Lit by the burning fire, the face of a dead body on the ground looked like an egg: The eyeballs popped out, the nose bubbling blood out of the holes, the lips swollen, all the limbs tightly cramped, the body bending backward and the head burned. It was as if a person were in a blaze alive. Yet it gave no hint of having been ablaze. The mere thought of a man having been grilled by blazing fires from both roadsides made me shiver and dizzy. It was terrible, a real misery. [A strange scene, mother and her children] The house of the Hashimoto, an elderly couple, was on the side road of the Seiganji Temple in Zaimoku-cho, a densely populated area, but now it was totally burned down leaving not a single visible landmark. It was dim around there and the road was bad and hot, but in a dented place there was a woman with two children. I was puzzled. How, on earth, did they survive such a raging fire that kept burning since yesterday’s bombing, without getting burned, in this crowded area? She was sitting on a tatami mat; on its right side there was a cistern. One of her children was asleep and the other was awake. I asked her, “Are you all right? Not hurt?” She said, “This morning I came to visit the barber here and at that time I cut my wrist with the fragments of mirror.” I saw her wrist bandaged. Then she said, “I can’t move because of the shock. Would you please put out the fire behind me with the water in the cistern?” I recognized the tatami mat having caught fire and so I extinguished it right away. She was relieved and thanked me. “Where is the Seiganji Temple?” “Right over there.” “Are you from somewhere around here? “Right here, Tenjin-machi.” “What’s your name?” “Watanabe. One of my children has just died.” The one I thought sleeping had been dead. “He asked for water, ‘Mom, water, mom, water’, but I could not move myself. Neither my wrist. He died without drinking water. My poor baby!” “Wait for the daybreak, soldiers will come. Till then keep yourself strong.” Leaving her there, I wasn’t so sure if the mother and the child would still be alive when soldiers came for rescue. My feet were very hot as if walking on a heated iron plate. As the air was so hot I had to cover my face with a towel. In such a situation, chances seemed to be slim, but at least we wanted to know whether the Hashimoto were alive or not. However, we had no choice but to turn around, covering our faces with towels. The thought of going back through the hell once again made me sick. We encouraged each other and managed to get to the Sumiyoshi Bridge despite all the difficulties. How on earth could such a misery exist in this world? On our way to, we saw people sitting on something or on the ground, or lying on one’s arm. However on our way back we noticed that almost all of them were just quiet. Many of them were not breathing any more or ending their lives. Could such a tragedy be allowed to occur in this world? Is there anybody in the world who ever saw this kind of real misery, a colossal tragedy? Even a river ogre would cry. [Neither god nor Buddha] Anyway it gradually dawned. We sat down nearly collapsing on the roadside grass in Minamikanon-machi. Oh, this colossal tragedy! Could it be a dream or an illusion? If so, please disappear and wake me up, I thought. But what’s right before me was real. Looking up at the lightening sky, I wondered what would become of us if Japan lost this war? Is there neither god nor Buddha to save us in this world? Hiroshima is naked now. The sun, pretending to know nothing about the things happening since yesterday, is shining extra bright this morning. I felt scared as if I had committed a crime by seeing and hearing what I shouldn’t have. I also wondered if it’d be all right that my wife and I were safe and well. Our house was broken, so we had no roof and no clothes. Those who have a home to return to would go back. We thought of going back to Kure, but I knew things would be much the same there. I thought we would try the best we could here at the roadside in Minamikanon-machi as we had no other choice. Talking into myself, I sat down once again absent-mindedly. Where will those people, trudging with burned arms and legs, go? Are they looking for their parents, or for their loving children? I was distressed not knowing what to do when I thought of their feelings. [A breathing corpse] Today we’ll go to the burnt down ruins of Zaimoku-cho at all cost. We got ourselves ready, taking a water bottle with us. We planned to go via the Kanon Bridge. It’s only a short distance from the place we were to Zaimoku-cho, but we had no idea how and which way we actually walked because there were no distinct roads. We somehow managed to get to a place where the pond of Seiganji Temple was, but there was no trace of Seiganji Temple having stood at all. There should have been some soldiers as well as many other people inside the Ttemple building. They were most likely “cremated” alive. Also, inside the air-raid shelter around there, people must have been steamed and died in agony. At the Hashimoto’s house there was a big pine tree, so we were able to spot the site by a burnt tree. Mr. and Mrs. Hashimoto were seen nowhere. We found, however, the charred wheat in a can they had taken home a few days before and also a burned radio they were using. We were just sorrowful. Although there were a few bodies seen, we couldn’t tell for sure who they were. Judging from the direction, they were less likely of what we were looking for. Their house was two-storied, so we could not deny the possibility of them having been buried. Even so, the soil was too hot for us to do anything right at that time. We put some water at the ruin and pressed our hands together for prayer. Leaving there, we went back to the roadside in Minamikanon-machi. East, west, north and south, Everything turned to ashes, even a mountain, Leaving nothing, not a thing behind Ah, my wife’s parents have gone and their house, burned out completely. I just wonder why we, my wife and I did survive? I am tired of being alive; too harsh. I don’t feel like doing anything. Now I am nothing but a breathing corpse. My thoughts went back to the old time, Keicho era when the feudal lord Mohri Motonari built a castle here. It’s been 300 years since the time the castle tower was built. Hiroshima, a number one major city in Chugoku district known as a military city, vanished into smoke in an instant. Who could stand without tears? Yet, you ought not to cry and not to regret [For rebuilding] Hunger can be handled one way or another. It’s summer now, so we needn’t worry much about clothes and roof. We can sleep in the open air for a while. But the cold season will come before long. We need to do something with this broken house, and we should never depend on others. We have to make a space we can lie down even if it’s made of just three pieces of lumber put together. I was worn out mentally as well as physically but I forced myself to start the house repair work as if whipping an empty cicada shell. There were neither tools nor materials. I began with removing roof tiles of our fallen house. Only a few of them were good for reuse, so I thought I would collect burnt tins and boards to make up for the shortage. I pulled out old nails, straightened and reused them. I gathered boards from different places and made it a rule to work on the house repair every day, little by little. Rumor said that Hiroshima would be no good to live in for 70 years. I thought it’d be true. The poisonous gas from the bombing penetrated into the soil and that would make it impossible for vegetables to grow. How many days have passed since the A-bombing? Enemy planes didn’t come, nor Japanese ones. We were cut off from the outside world. We didn’t know the time nor date, only we worked on our house day after day getting rid of the fallen walls and fences or gathering tins. A rumor spread -no one knows who started- that the war will be over on August 15; unconditional surrender. Emperor was to make an announcement to the people at noon on the radio: the discontinuation order of the war, unconditional surrender. Since we were completely without information; no newspaper, no radio, we were not sure what’s true or false. If we lost this war, what would become of our country? What a sad thing! Everything was over. Neither god nor Buddha was with us. Soldiers would have thrown away guns and farmers, hoes. We abandoned machines. We must endure all the hardships in order to reconstruct Japan. We must build a peaceful Japan, a country with a bright future. This is the task given to us. P.S. I tried to describe exactly what I saw. Please forgive my poor writing, perhaps redundant in some part and in other part, fallen short. ]]> http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/28_the_demise_of_the_city_of_h.html http://h-s-o.net/koo/eng/wm/2007/05/28_the_demise_of_the_city_of_h.html WRITTEN MONUMENT 21～28 Fri, 18 May 2007 23:50:55 +0900