|
Memoir of the A-Bombing:
"Evacuation to relatives' home, group evacuation and then the Atomic Bomb－a childhood torn by war"
|
|
by Mutsuhiko Segoshi
Atomic Bomb Witness for this Foundation
|
|
|
Evacuation to relatives' home in the country
I enrolled in a national elementary school in Tokyo in 1941.
Early morning on December 8 of that year, I can still clearly remember how upset my father and mother were when they heard the news flash about the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Things at school soon changed completely. Every day the children at school were mobilized by orders and commands, and it could no longer be called a place of elementary education.
Sixth grade children dug long holes under the classroom and made air raid shelters, and fourth grade students were made to collect pebbles.
In July 1944, I was sent to Kanon Town in Hiroshima City where my grandmother on my mother's side lived, as part of the evacuations to relatives' homes that were implemented as national government policy.
Around that time, Japan's main cities had been subject to air raids by the US military and were being reduced to ashes one by one.
However, Hiroshima City had not suffered any formation bombardments, and adults were remarking how strange that was.
The toughest thing was the hunger from the food shortages.
There were 'substitute foods' such as defatted soybeans, bran paste (the husk of wheat), stalks of pumpkins and sweet potatoes－we ate anything.
For a young boy with a huge appetite being hungry was extremely tough.
Group evacuations (of students)
From April 1945, even in Hiroshima, which had not been bombed, participation in group evacuations became virtually mandatory.
At the beginning of July, hundreds of students from Grade 3 to Grade 6 from national elementary schools in Hiroshima City gathered in the square in front of Hiroshima Station at 10am and headed for the Geibi Line platform.
Guardians were instructed to send off the train at the Atago railway crossing near the station.
Many of the children were nearly in tears to be separated from the parents.
August 6, that fateful time
Although I too had been part of a group evacuation, I had returned to Hiroshima five days later because I was ill.
I clearly remember the morning of August 6, which was one week after I had returned home.
There was a flash of light that came without warning, and for an instant, my mother, who was in front of me, looked like a wax figure. Next the blast hit us with a loud roar.
My mother was thrown, screaming, on top of my 6-month old brother Tetsuo who was sleeping nearby.
The floor fell through, pillars collapsed, and the roof and tiles fell down.
Cursing as I stood in the middle of the rubble, my mother was standing in front of me, hair disheveled and covered in blood, holding Tetsuo.
"Brother..." My younger brother Akio, 5 years old, who had been sitting near the window talking to a neighborhood child, approached me, dragging his leg.
"Bring the first aid kit. We're going out!"
Pulled by my mother's loud voice, we headed for the air-raid shelter in the field behind the house.
My mother's back was covered in so many wounds it was painful to look at, and she had covered them with a towel that was held there by her underwear.
The base of her thumb on her right hand was constantly bleeding, and she had applied medicated paste to the wound and wrapped it in a bandage.
The joint of my left leg was a red open wound and I felt intense pain.
I put cotton wool on it myself and wrapped it in a towel.
Tetsuo looked like a black bundle, but I could hear him breathing faintly.
I said "Baby Tetsuo is alive" and my mother nodded silently.
At that time, large drops of rain began to fall.
When I looked up at the sky I saw black clouds overhead, and it was as dark as if it were evening.
When I wiped away a raindrop from my arm, it was black, muddy water.
It was radioactive rain, but at the time I did not know what fearful rain it was.
In the aid-raid shelter
My mother said that we should go to our aunt's place in Yoshiura town, so with all the other people who were fleeing we were packed into a freight train laid with straw mixed with cow's manure, and went to Yoshiura.
We went to the house of my aunt (my father's older sister) but she was not there.
With no other choice, we started walking in the dim light, and came across an air-raid shelter that had been dug as a long hole in the slope of a mountain.
We went inside and my mother took Tetsuo off her back.
He let out a small cry.
"You're alive..."
My courageous mother had tears rolling down her cheeks.
In the midst of the ruins
In the middle of August, we returned to Kanon Town, my mother saying that she thought our father would be worried and would come from Tokyo.
When we arrived at the nearest station, Koi Station (now Nishi-Hiroshima Station), there was a strange smell.
The tenement house divided into five sections that we used to live in was completely destroyed, but part of the closet in the house on the north side remained intact, so my mother and younger brothers slept there, and I slept in the air-raid shelter behind the house.
Reunion
At the end of August, my mother started saying pessimistic things about the whereabouts of my father:
"Tokyo also had terrible air-raids, so I'm worried about your father..."
We did not have any electricity so after the sun set the only thing to do was sleep, but if you go to sleep too early you end up waking up at around three in the morning.
When I went out of the shelter it was pitch black outside, a soundless world.
I started the fire, did the washing for my mother who could now not use her wounded right hand at all, and warmed my cold hands near the flames.
I then heard the faint sound of footsteps approaching.
"Is that Mutsuhiko? It's you!"
It was the voice of my father, who we had separated from one year before and who shook my hand at Tokyo Station and said "Look after your mother."
He had arrived at Hiroshima Station at 10pm the day before, and had been walking in the dark, charred ruins for over seven hours looking for us.
I believe that God had repaid my father's love for his family by leading him to us.
Passing on what happened
After the war, neither my mother nor my father spoke about the atomic bombing at all.
I too did not want to think about it.
However, in 2012 I learned about the atomic bomb testimonial witnesses, and I decided to dedicate the rest of my life to passing on my experience by talking about it.
From May 2014 I started activities at the Peace Memorial Museum.
The Peace Ceremony in 2014 was held on a day of heavy rain, for the first time in 43 years.
To me, the rain felt like the tears of those who lost their lives in the bombing, at the fact that we still have nuclear weapons and war in our world.
I pray for the fast realization of a peaceful world, with no nuclear weapons or war.
|
|
Profile
[Mutsuhiko Segoshi]
Born 1934 in Tokyo.
Evacuated to Hiroshima to live with relatives, experienced the bombing as a grade 5 student (aged 11) when sitting at the table at home, 2km from the hypocenter.
Formerly a teacher.
From 2014 started A-bomb testimonial activities at the Peace Memorial Museum.
|
|
|
|
