In those days I had been called to work at a munitions factory. On the morning of August 6th the all clear siren had sounded and we began to work feeling relieved. At that moment I saw a strong light as if some magnesium had been ignited. I got up in panic looked back at the door, then lost consciousness. I don’t know for how long. When I came to I heard people crying, “Mum, help me, help me” here and there. I managed to stand but could not see any of my classmates. A senior class girl was standing vacantly a short distance away. She was covered in blood and her hair was dishevelled. One of my friends was buried in a collapsed sand house. Her head was free and she was calling for help. I managed to pull her out.

The three of us went to an empty lot outside the factory. All we could see was smoke and fire. A friend was crawling out and her ankle was only held together by skin. I tried to tuck it inside the elastic bottom of her pants but it was too painful. There was a cow tied to a tree in the lot it was moving around in panic it’s tail on fire. A factory member came out with papers in his hands. Looking at the girl he wrapped a sheet around her and lifted her onto his back to carry her. He shouted to us “Get papers and follow me.” Then he ran through the fire. We followed him dragging the friend whose legs were injured. We finally reached a bamboo grove. Meeting teachers and friends we left our injured friend in their care.

We hid in a cornfield by the riverbed to escape the next air-raid. There we saw many dead people and horses. The entire town was an inferno. We evacuated up the river . On the way I saw the sky in west was glowing red. It reminded me of the picture Sunset on the Yangtze River. That scene still haunts my memory.

We spent the night in a wagon beside a farmhouse but were trouble by blood sucking mosquitoes. A friend noticed that my gym clothes were red at the back at examined me. There was a wound on my back caused by broken glass from when I was buried in the collapsed factory. We had no medicine. However the wound seemed to have congealed and I was too tired to feel any pain.

Fortunately we all met our teacher near noon and returned to the City. On our way back we the bodies of two men who I assumed to be soldiers. They were black and inflated. Blocking the narrow road somebody had pushed them down a bank.

As we returned we saw the factory had been burned to the ground. Only a big smoking beam remained. A body that was pulled out from under the beam was charred, half the body covered in soot. A small amount of long hair remained. A woman suddenly cried out as she looked on. “It’s my daughter”. Her daughter had loved the belt with it's metallic buckle and wore it that day although her mother had told her not to. But the belt was the reason the mother had recognised her regardless of the dreadful state of her daughters body.

One friend withdrew to a boat beside the river, painfully swollen as if she could not see anything. At this time I heard a voice. Someone was calling my name. It was my mother. I could not believe my eyes seeing her in front of me. I had thought all my family were lost. After my mother often said that I seemed to be totally absent minded at the time and she seemed to linger on the verge of death with a dysentery like diarrhoea.

I persisted in wanting to look for my classmates but my teacher ordered me to go home with my mother. On our way the chimney of a bathhouse was falling and obstructed the road. Several people were dead in front of the water tank. Others were burned and groaned for water. The City was reduced to ashes. It was like hell. Piles of dead on the riverside and in the water. People burned, the skin on their fingers and hands peeling off. They looked as if they were holding the hands of someone else. All were lying down, dying. I was vexed and cried as there was nothing I could do to help.

My home had all but collapsed. My eldest sister who was pregnant was busy caring for evacuees. My second eldest, a newlywed was burned on her face and legs. She had managed to return home by noon. My grandfather immediately made up some traditional medicine for the burns and applied it day and night. In those days there were no drugs available. My sisters burns did eventually healed but the scars on her legs are pitiful.

Three days later we went to meet our relatives who had been taken to Koi Elementary School with a hand drawn cart. The 30 year old mother was badly burned and died on the way home. We had to cremate her on the mountain but had difficulty as the new wood would not burn and we had to relight the fire again and again. Her 6 year old child was already dead and had been interred.

Seven days later we heard that the husband of the woman had been taken to a farmhouse in Tosaka Village. We went to find him again taking the hand drawn cart. We could see the terrible scenes of the city from 20 Kilometers distance. When we arrived at the village a big farm had kindly laid the burn victims under a mosquito net so that they would not be bothered infested with flies.

His face was so badly burned we had difficulty recognising him. My mother called out fro outside, We have come to see you. His eyes caught us staring. All he could say was, I want to go home. We washed a peach in the well and gave it to him. He said it was delicious and his pleased voice lingered in my ears. When the season comes and peaches start to bloom I always remember that voice. Fifteen days after we took him back across that bumpy road he passed away at the age of 29. He never did ask of his family. Perhaps he was old fashioned and thought it unmanly to do so.

I just cannot put it into words to describe how cruel war is. For these last 50 years I have wished for the abolition of nuclear weapons and a peaceful world.

After the interview: Mrs. Sakaguchi’s child would have been the same age as my daughter when the bomb was dropped. It is a very sensitive age. I felt this strongly as I interviewed her. She talked about the incidents of that day and after, attentively and with care. She remembered things and again felt the pain, She said that, communities and families should hold hands with each other, and get along without quarrelling. I thought what she said was a step forward to constructing a peaceful world.

January 26th 1995 Interviewers Naomi Hashimoto of Yahata-nishi and Yoshiko Kobayashi of Yahata-higashi (Kitakyushu City)

The war that made many orphans - Tomoe Nishida

Ninoshima is a small island, seven kilometres distance from ground zero of the atomic blast in Hiroshima. My family had moved to Tobata in Kitakyushu from there to work at the Yahata steelworks in 1941. One day in 1944 there was a big air-raid at the steelworks. Thinking that the area was dangerous we moved back to Hiroshima that October. At that time I was 19 years old. However the next year on August 6th 8:00 am. The A bomb was dropped. Both the sound and light were incredulously strong. I was at home. My father had intended to go to hospital and he was at home, and he was safe.

My mother-in-law was caught by the blast as she reached a hospital in Fukushima-cho She wandered about in the ground zero area and managed to get home. She had radiation sickness in her stomach and died on August 24th. She was with her sister. She is now 81 years of age and still feels fine. I still don’t understand why the A-bomb did not affect her. It is so strange.

At that time we knew nothing about the possible effects of the blast. Many islanders went to look for their families in the City. Consequently they were exposed to radiation. Moreover, even when they returned with head injuries there were no doctors or drugs to help them. Some peoples wounds were infested by maggots. Three to four people died every day. Hiroshima City was built on a flat area. After the blast the view stretched out as everything had been destroyed as far as the eye could see, nothing but burnt out ruins. Near the Aioi and Motoyasu bridges (Aioi shown left) there were the corpses of the crowds of people that had gone down to the river to drink. The aftermath was far more terrible than the recent great Hanshin earthquake.

The bodies of victims were carried from Ujina port to Ninoshima by a military ship that was capable of carrying 1000. Soldiers. They dug a big hole in the grounds of the Junior High School and using oil cremated the bodies. It was beyond belief. As more and more bodies were brought to the pit they would not burn completely because there were too many. Finally the soldiers buried the bodies in an air-raid shelter . At night there was a phosphorescent glow from the blaze. We were all frightened because it was as if ghosts were appearing.

With my brother s and sisters there were eight of us. My mother died in 1946. We did not know the cause of her death. It was probably as a result of the blast. One of my elder brothers had died in the military. My father and grandmother took care of the remaining seven of us.

There was little damage to Ninoshima Island. Several house by the sea were destroyed. We went to buy clothes from the black-market in front of Hiroshima Station. At the end of the war a decontamination centre was opened for soldiers returning from overseas. Occupational forces were stationed there and the war influenced our lives for a long time.

The A-Bomb made many children orphans. The people converted an ammunition store depot into a school for orphans and homeless. An orphanage was opened and the orphans got on well with the islanders. As victims we all had a strong bond.

My husband also suffered from the blast. There were no obstacles in our marriage. If I had married someone other than a bomb victim there could have been problems as there were rumours that, Radiation sickness is infectious and could be inherited.

My family moved back to Tobata so that we could run a coastal business which was successful. Tobata has a very large population of A-Bomb victims living together, united, friendly and secure.

The orphanage is still on Nanoshima. Some orphans work there in return for the kindness shown to them when they were young. They taught carpentry there and some of them went on to be successful.

Although there is always a war going on somewhere in the world. I don't want war again. It is a very miserable bitter experience and also terrible worrying about how your new born baby will be. I never want my children to experience these horrors.

On August 6th 1994 I attended a memorial service as a representative of Fukuoka. I was surprised to see the strict security around the Prime Minister. If this was a peaceful country why were there so many Police Officers? Why I do not know. I wish Japan would really become a peaceful.

January 24th 1995 - Interviewers were the Makiyama - nishi area committee - Masako Mitarai, Ruiko Terai, Takako Nakano, Ikuko Minami, Sachiko Sakai, Kazumi Hayata, Emiko Shijo.