In 1945, my family consisted of eight members: my grandmother, my parents, my older brothers who were in the second year of junior high school and the sixth year of national elementary school, myself who was in the third year of national elementary school and was eight years old, my younger sister who was four years old, and my younger brother who was two years old.
　At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, I was in the kitchen and saw the orange light of a bare light bulb on the window pane, and the next thing I knew, a bomb fell on the Japanese-style room right next to me with a tremendous roar. I thought a bomb had been dropped on our house.
　The wind pressure from the atomic bomb caused the ceiling to fall down, dust to fly, and shoji screens, fusuma sliding doors, and furniture to blow away. Instinctively, I got down on the floor, hugging my mother. Shards of glass were all over our backs. As I hurriedly walked out to the bus road in front of my house (Danbara-nakamachi), neighbors were shouting that a bomb had fallen on their houses, and they were scared. The woman from the pharmacy next door crouched on the road holding her child, blood spurting from her arms, screaming "Please help me! Please help me!" My mother tied her arm with the Japanese hand towel that she was wearing, as first aid to stop the bleeding. The pharmacy woman's four-year-old son was blinded by a piece of glass in one eye. The town of Danbara had been destroyed and there were collapsed buildings as far as the eye could see. The sky, which had been clear until a few moments before, was now covered with atomic clouds and a cloud of dust that instantly darkened to something like dusk. It was a world of eerie horror.
　Eventually, an open three-wheeled truck passed in front of the house. On the back of the truck lay motionless, near-naked people covered in blood and dust. As the truck bounced over obstacles on the road, the injured people in the back of the truck bounced along with it.
　After that, a procession of injured people with shaggy hair and torn, dirty clothes continued down the narrow, unfenced, steep mountain path of Hijiyama, as if they were climbing a precipice, shoulder to shoulder, using a piece of stick as a cane to support themselves, or crawling while sitting with their buttocks on the ground. They must have come over the mountain from the direction of the city center. A man in national dress and gaiters was going around with a megaphone, telling people to be careful, because there were "crazy" people running around. It is no wonder that there are people who went through the hell of the atomic bombing in an instant and are no longer in a normal state of mind. 　It was nearly evening when my father came home with severe burns on the left side of his body. A few days later, our house was too badly damaged to live in, so we evacuated to Fuchizaki (currently Niho 1-chome), 4.5 kilometers from the hypocenter. My father had burns on his neck, from his upper arm to his wrists, and on his fingers, and he could only lay down as he recuperated. The flies smelled the blood pus and flew in with a buzzing sound. It would be terrible if flies laid eggs in the infected wounds and maggots sprang up, so the family took turns fanning him with fans to get rid of the flies. The cells in my father's burn scars multiplied abnormally, causing the skin to rise and stretch across his joints, leaving behind keloid scars. The joints of his arms were bent, and his small finger and ring finger were also bent like crab legs, and he would never be able to straighten them out for the rest of his life. 　My eldest brother was a sophomore at the prefectural first junior high school. The day the atomic bomb was dropped was a Monday, but it had coincidentally been changed to a holiday, so he was saved. However, my eldest brother's senior and junior classmates, 353 excellent students, were killed in the bombing. My father was on his way to work, and he had been standing at a streetcar stop 1.8km away from the hypocenter. He did not get on a crowded streetcar that was going to the hypocenter, and so was saved. My mother had wanted to take my eldest brother on a bus to the countryside to go shopping, but my brother did not want to go, so they had to cancel the trip. The bus they were supposed to take was passing near the hypocenter, so they survived. My grandmother had evacuated to her relative's home in the countryside and my second older brother had also evacuated with classmates away from Hiroshima, so they were safe. I was at home before going to school for remedial classes. My younger sister and brother were also at home, and the family of eight survived. 　There are countries that develop and possess nuclear weapons. Even if they do not develop or possess them, there are countries that believe in nuclear deterrence and allow other countries to possess them. I long for a peaceful world without nuclear weapons, and I want to pass on my experience of the atomic bombing to as many people as possible. It is no exaggeration to say that if people connect with each other and spread the peace movement throughout the world, this will become a force that can move the leaders of many countries. The messages and actions from Hiroshima carry weight.

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