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Memoir of the A-Bombing:
"I saw the moment that the Atomic Bomb exploded before my very eyes－The days that followed...Life is a mysterious treasure"
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by Fujio Torikoshi
Atomic Bomb Witness for this Foundation
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Experienced the bombing in the field in front of my home
At the time of the bombing, I was living in a small town called Yamate-cho.
My home was in a relatively high place at the foot of the mountain, and the Sanyo Line ran in front of the house.
In 1945 the situation in the war was getting worse and worse.
As soon as I became a Grade 3 student in junior high school, we could no longer have classes at school.
Students at junior high schools and girls' schools at that time were involved in production work at munitions plants and were even sent to do demolition work of buildings in the city.
I was to be sent to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Gion.
I had my medical checkup on Saturday August 4.
As I was diagnosed with a vitamin deficiency known as beriberi, I was to go to the hospital with my mother on Monday August 6.
It was very fine weather from the morning on August 6.
I was eating breakfast with my mother in the back room when I heard a faint roar.
At the time, we had been trained to be able to tell the difference in the sounds of different aircraft engines, and I knew immediately that it was a B-29 bomber.
When I finished my breakfast I went outside, and I stood in the field in front of our house and searched the sky above.
I could not see it, but eventually the roar faded into the northeast direction.
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It was right when I was gazing vacantly at the buildings in the city that I saw a blackish mass of something floating in the sky in the distance right in front of me.
In the next instant, it suddenly burst, and transformed into an incredible ball of light.
From the middle of the flash, there was something like melted orange-colored lava flowing out, and around that was a ocher-colored light that filled the whole sky.
Suddenly everything was bright.
All of a sudden, my face was covered by an incredibly hot blast.
Without thinking I closed my eyes, and squatted down where I was.
And when I started to stand up again, a strong blast of wind blew through, and my body felt like it was being lifted up into the air, and then I bumped into something.
I do not remember anything after that.
Sudden tragedy
When I came to my senses, I saw that what I had bumped into was the large cement water tank for putting out fires that was in front of the house.
I was surrounded by smoke or dust, and could not see a thing.
It was all so sudden I had no idea what was going on, and just squatted there in a daze.
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A-bomb Drawings by Survivors 'A strange
flash of light' by Mr. Ryuji Ishigai
"The instant I instinctively lowered my
head, a strange flash of light engulfed my
whole body."
(August 6, 1945, at home in Fujimi-cho,
1,100m from the Hypocenter)
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When I gradually became more and more clearheaded, I started to feel a stinging, burning pain on my arms and face.
When I looked down I found that the skin on my arms was burned bright red.
I felt the same pain on my face and chest.
It was so painful that I dipped my arms into the water tank and put water on my face, but the pain only got worse.
After a while, I heard my mother's voice, calling me from far away.
I shouted in a loud voice "Mum, I'm here", and guided by my voice, my mother made her way to me through the dust.
She looked surprised, saying "What happened!?" I leaned on my mother's knee, sobbing "Mum, it hurts, it hurts."
My mother carried me to a nearby bomb shelter, and laid me down on some bedding that she had brought from our collapsed house.
As I tried to put up with the pain it became hard to breathe, and I started to lose consciousness.
After a while heavy rain started to fall and flowed into the shelter, and the mattress became completely wet.
The rain eventually cleared, and my mother brought me outside, where there were people everywhere.
Nearby were people who had fled on trains on the Sanyo Line, which had stopped, and also people who had fled from Nakahiro-cho.
People kept coming into my home, which had half collapsed.
Everyone had black faces, their clothes were burnt, and their skin was exposed and in a terrible state.
"Water, give me water", "I'm in pain", "Help me", "It hurts"－the area was filled with voices asking for help.
In a semi-conscious state
That evening I was taken to a neighbor's house, and put on a military truck together with other wounded people.
We were taken to a hospital in Hatsukaichi.
I remember that the hospital was teeming with wounded people, and that the room was filled with a sour odor.
Apparently I was treated by having the blisters on my face and arms cut off with scissors, and because there was no medicine, a mixture of flour and vinegar were applied to my wounds which were then wound up in bandages.
For a few days after I came home I was still unconscious.
Even after I came to, I continued to have a high fever, and pus mixed with blood oozed from the bandages.
Every day was horrible.
Eventually I got bits and pieces of information from people around me.
I learned that Japan had lost the war, and that all my classmates who went to the building demolition work that day died.
I pictured one by one the faces of the friends that I had seen on August 4, and I was filled with an indescribable sadness.
Praying for true peace
More than 70 years have passed since the atomic bombing.
Doctors once told me that I would not live past my 20th birthday, but in January 2016 I turned 85.
I am filled with happiness and gratitude, thinking once again about the mystery of life.
I think that life is truly a mysterious treasure.
Although I would like to forget the atomic bombing, every time I look in the mirror I see the scar from the heat wave that burned my throat.
I hate the atomic bomb.
If the bomb had not have been dropped, if I had not experienced the bombing, I am sure my life would probably have been different.
If only the people on this Earth could live in peace with no sadness－how happy they would be.
We cannot let wars takes away irreplaceable lives.
I can only hope for true peace.
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Profile
[Fujio Torikoshi]
Born in 1931.
Experienced the atomic bombing at the age of 14, as a grade 3 student at Sotoku Junior High School in Hiroshima City.
He was in a field in front of his home 2km from the hypocenter, looking up at the sky, when the bomb was dropped.
After the war, worked as an elementary school teacher.
After retirement, involved in activities as an atomic bomb witness.
Vice President of Hiroshima wo Kataritsugu Kyoshi no Kai (Association of Teachers Continuing to Speak about Hiroshima).
Director of All Japan Harmonica Federation.
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