I was in the third grade of Hakushima National Elementary School. That day, somehow I didn’t feel like going to the school and so said to my father, “I don’t want to go.” Usually a strict father, he listened to me and said, “Well then, you can stay home.” If I had gone to school, I... Everybody at the school, teachers and children died. One classmate who was on her way to school was exposed to the A-bombing on a bridge. She survived the bombing, but the left half of her body, having been seriously burned, was left rigid in the joints of her neck and arm. Rumor says there was one other classmate who survived the bombing, but none of us heard from him.
The Atomic Bomb was dropped at 8:15. A little before it, far in the sky, the sound of airplanes was heard. My father went outside in the garden and looked up and said, “This doesn’t sound like Japanese planes. It’s dangerous. Run to the shelter!” My brother, two years and ten months old, and I ran into the shelter that had been finished some days before in our house. A moment later, I felt a gigantic shock. That was the instant of the A-bombing. My father rushed toward us. Our house collapsed in a moment, but I grabbed my father’s waist and crawled out through debris--the fallen pillars, wall dirt and roof tiles.
We did not see Mother and called out loud for her. Then, the rubble under our feet moved and Mother appeared, holding my 57-day-old baby sister in her arms. Mother was injured with fragments of glass all over. Especially, large pieces of glass stuck on both of her eyelids and right cheek. Her right eyeball was out of its socket, dangling to her breast. My father scooped it with his cupped hand, but had no other way but to tear it off. To keep the blood from spouting, the glass fragments that had stuck everywhere--her left eyelid, cheeks, around her neck--were left as they were. My father also had serious injuries on the left half of his body, but he carried my mother with his right arm, leaving my younger brother and sister with me.
We thought that our house of all other houses had been targeted, so we went to our neighbors for help. But the houses of the next door neighbor and two doors away were also broken. Because of the dusty smoke, there was little visibility. We tried house after house walking about 300 meters and reached the dry riverbed. Since we acted swiftly, we managed to lay my mother in the shade of a little shrub. Before I noticed, many injured people had gathered around us. Some burned and injured soldiers were cursing the “enemy” like mad men, brandishing their swords. However, they collapsed one after another. The narrow riverbed was not spacious enough for all those evacuees, and before long a heap of the dead formed as the people mounted over the others.
My father, a civic officer, was the Chief of the Volunteer Service Corps Bureau. Since his duty was to lead evacuees or rescue people in case of emergency, he was eager to go on duty as soon as possible. But in order to do so, he needed to take care of his family first. I was entrusted to look after my mother and brother.
My father thought that my baby sister had already died, since she was bloody with the splashed blood from her mother. So, he was going to bury her temporarily there, intending to come back to dig the grave up later. He dug a hole. He felt it too pitiful to bury the blood-covered baby as it was, so he cleaned her body casually in the river water. Then, she uttered a faint cry. “Ah, she is alive! I’m glad we didn’t bury her.” Our moments’ joy turned to a new problem for us to face; the baby needed milk, but our mother’s breast milk dried up because of the shock. We were at a loss. My father was conscious of his professional duty even in such a situation. A riot by a horde of the injured was not unthinkable, so my father, together with some soldiers in better shape, made the rounds trying to reassure those evacuees, “A rescue team will arrive soon. Stay calm, please.” He happened to find a woman among the victims, whose breast milk was dripping. He pleaded with her for her milk, “Would you please give your milk for my daughter?” The woman refused and said, “This milk is my baby’s who has just passed away. I cannot give it to anyone else.” My father, with his head touching the ground, pleaded and pleaded. Then, the people around spoke for his help, “The dead baby won’t come back to life. Give your milk to the surviving baby and save her life.” Thus, the woman was persuaded to give her breast milk to my sister.
We had eaten nothing since the morning. We plucked the vegetables planted in the dry riverbed such as cucumbers, tomatoes, pumpkins and eggplants. At one bite, all of my family spat it out immediately. There were people who fought for what we had thrown away and ate it, which drew a distinctive line on the fate of survivors. Eating food or drink that was exposed to radiation meant radioactive intake into their intestines. Such people either died or, even if they survived, lived with many difficulties including internal organ disorders. They were forced to live a hard life in a tragic situation during the post-war period.
My father tried to engage himself in his duty, leaving the family there, but the area was a sea of fire. He intended to go to the City Office, crossing the river in front and making a detour. However, he realized it was impossible to swim across the river as the water ran fast. Besides, there were many bodies flowing and people crowded in the water to escape the heat. Having second thoughts, he engaged himself in keeping security all night in cooperation with soldiers, so that no unrest would be attempted.
Houses kept burning throughout the night, but by dawn the fires subsided. The A-bombed victims died one after another. Among those were the people who talked that woman into giving her breast milk to my sister.
A silent morning came. My father went back to the burned ruins of our house and dug out jars of pickled plums and shallots. Ushita-cho across from the river, an area tucked into the mountain, was spared the fire, so we decided to take shelter at our acquaintance’s house in the area. Upon leaving, my sister was given the woman’s breast milk one last time. We gave the pickled plums and shallots to the woman as a token of our appreciation. That was to initiate the anguish of my family, as our gift items had been contaminated by radiation.
After the war, when the immediate confusion in society somehow subsided, we began to look for the woman who gave milk to my sister through the NHK radio program, “Missing People” and the newspaper. However, we failed. If she had died because of those pickled plums and shallots, we would have made an irrevocable mistake.
Some days later, my grandfather and uncle came all the way from Yamagata-gun to look for us. It was decided that my brother and I would be put under our grandparents’ care. On the way to their house, I looked over the burned ruins of Hiroshima for the first time. Nothing familiar was in sight. All I saw was rubble. At a broken water pipe, people crowded for water mounting one on another. My uncle carried my brother on his back. My brother cried, “Mom, Dad!” When my uncle needed some rest, he took my brother off his back, but then my brother dashed backward trying to return. I chased after and soothed him, but I myself was feeling helpless and about to cry.
Summer in Hiroshima is hot and that summer was especially so, because the leveled land had nothing to make shade. We walked barefoot on the undistinguished roads filled with rubble that was heated by the blazing sun. Not knowingly, I stepped on a dead body that had been under the rubble. The feeling at that moment hasn’t faded to this date. Ever since, when summer comes around, the soles of my feet make me feel hot and uneasy.