13. Where is my dear Tsune ?

  Tsuneyoshi was playing inside the house because there was no school that day when one of his friends came and said to him, “Let's go fishing”. Then Tsuneyoshi said to me, “I'm gonna go just in shorts as it's too hot.” “Put on your shirt”, I said to him and helped him put on his shirt. That was the last time I saw him.

  I heard later that back of his shirt had been torn. He might have been exposed to the bomb at the riverside and burnt on his back. I also heard that he had fled toward Aki Girls' School with some neighbors, but had been lost on the way as he looked for his parents by himself. I found that my left ankle had been broken when I was dragged out from the collapsed house. Although I was worried about him, my broken ankle prevented me from searching for him.

  Our eldest son came home safe from junior high school that evening. He and his sister searched all around for Tsuneyoshi, yelling “Tsune, Tsune”, but there was no answer from him. I heard later that he had become weak and collapsed in Uchikoshi-cho and then a kind stranger had asked him his name and address, and taken care of him. In spite of that person's care, he died at around four o'clock next morning.

  With prayer

Written by Kiyoko Onishi(Yokogawa-cho, Hiroshima)

Death in the Atomic boming :Tsuneyoshi Onishi (a fourth grader in Misasa Natinal Elementary School)

Go back to top of this page