SOME EVENTS AT HIROSHIMA

I: A Noiseless Flash

At a quarter past eight in the morning on August 6th, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the first atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in the plant office and was turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk; Dr. Masakazu Fujii settled down cross-legged to read the Osaka _Asahi_ on the porch of his private hospital overhanging one of the seven deltaic rivers which divide Hiroshima; Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, a tailor's widow, stood by the window of her kitchen watching a neighbor peevishly tearing down his house, for it lay in the path of an ordained fire lane; Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a German priest of the Society of Jesus, reclined in his underwear on a cot on the top floor of the mission house in the city, reading a Jesuit magazine, _Stimmen der Zeit_; Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, a young member of the surgical staff of the large, modern Red Cross Hospital, walked along one of its main floor corridors with a blood specimen for a Wasserman test in his hand; and Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, pastor of the Hiroshima Methodist Episcopal Church, paused at the door of a rich man's house in Koi, the city's western suburb, and prepared to unload a handcart full

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of things he had evacuated from town in fear of the massive B-29
raid which everyone expected Hiroshima to suffer. These six were
among the survivors of the atomic bomb. They do not yet know why
they lived when so many others died. Each of them counts a
hundred small items of chance or volition -- a step taken in time,
a decision to go indoors, catching one streetcar instead of the
next -- which spared him. And now each knows that in the act of
survival he lived a dozen lives and saw more death than he ever
thought he would see. At the time none of them understood or knew
anything.

Mr. Tanimoto got up at five o'clock that morning. He was alone
in the parsonage, because for some time his wife had taken their
year-old baby to spend the nights with a friend in Ushida, a
suberb to the north. Of all the important cities of Japan, only
two, Kyoto and Hiroshima, had not been visited in strength by B-san,
or "Mr.B", as the Japanese, with a mixture of respect and unwanted
familiarity, called the B-29; and Mr. Tanimoto, like all his
neighbors and friends, was almost sick with anxiety. He had heard
uncomfortably detailed accounts of mass raids on Kure, Iwakuni,
Tokuyama and other nearby towns; he was sure Hiroshima's turn
would come soon. He had slept badly the night before, because
there had been several air raid warnings over the radio. Hiroshima
had been getting such warnings almost every night for weeks, because
at that time the B-29's were using Lake Biwa, in central Honshu
above Hiroshima, as a rendezvous point, and no matter what city
the Americans planned to hit, the Superfortresses streamed in over
the coast near or precisely at Hiroshima. The frequency of the
warnings and the continued abstinence of Mr. B with respect to
Hiroshima made its citizens excessively nervous: a rumor was going

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around that the Americans were saving something special for the
city.

Mr. Tanimoto is a small man, quick to talk, laugh and cry. He wears his black hair parted in the middle, and rather long; the prominence of the frontal bones just above his eyebrows and the smallness of his mustache, mouth and chin give him a strange old-young look, boyish and yet wise, weak and yet fiery. He moves nervously and fast, but with a restraint which suggests that he is a cautious, thoughtful man: he showed indeed, just those qualities in the uneasy days before the bomb fell. Besides having his wife commute for sleep, Mr. Tanimoto had been carrying all the portable things from his church, in the close-packed residential district called Nagaragawa, to a house which belonged to the head of a rayon factory, and which was in Kor, situated about two miles from the center of town. This man, a Mr. Matsui, had opened his place to a large number of his friends and acquaintances, so that they might evacuate whatever they wished to a safe distance from the probable target area. Mr. Tanimoto had had no difficulty in removing charis, hymnals, Bibles, altar gear and the church records by pushcart himself, but the organ console and an upright piano required some aid. A friend of his named Matsuo had, the day before, helped Mr. Tanimoto get the piano out to Koi; in return, Mr. Tanimoto had promised this day to assist Mr. Matsuo in hauling a daughter's belongings. That is why he had risen so early.

He cooked his own breakfast. He felt awfully tired. The effort of moving the piano the day before, a sleepless night, weeks of worry and unbalanced diet, the cares of his parishoners --

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all combined to make him feel harldy adequate to the new day's
work; and there was another thing, too: Kiyoshi Tanimoto had
studied theology at Emory College, in Atlanta, Georgia; he had
only graduated in 1940, he spoke excellent English, he dressed
in American clothes, he had corresponded with many American
friends right up until war began. Among a people obsessed with
a fear of being spied upon, perhaps a bit obsessed himself, he
found himself growing increasingly uncomfortable. The police
had questioned him several times, and just a few days before he
had heard that an influential acquaintance, Mr. Tanaka, a retired
officer of the N.Y. K. Shipping Company, and anti-Christian, a
man famous in Hiroshima for his showy philanthropies and notorious
for his personal tyrannies, had been telling people that Tanimoto
should not be trusted. As compensation, to show himself publicly
as a good Japanese, he had taken on the chairmanship of his local
tonari-gumi, or Neighborhood Association, and this position had
added to his other duties and concerns the business of organizing
air raid defense for about twenty families.

Before six o'clock he started for his friend's house. There
he found that their burden was to be a tansu, a large Japanese
closet, full of clothing and household goods. The two set out.
The morning was perfectly clear and so warm that the day
promised to be uncomfortable. A few minutes after they started the air raid siren went off -- a minute-long blast that
warned of approaching planes and indicated to the people of
Hiroshima (since it sounded every morning at this time, when the
American weather run went over) a remote degree of danger. The
two men pulled and pushed the handcart through the city streets.
Hiroshima was a fan-shaped city, lying mostly on the six islands
formed by the branches of the Ota River; its main commercial

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and residentail districts, embracing about four square miles in the
center of the city, contained three quarters of its population,
which had been reduced by several evacuation programs from a
wartime peak of 380,000 to about 245,000. Factories lay around
the edges of the city. To the south were the docks, an airport
and the island-studded Inland Sea. A rim of mountains runs
around the other three sides of the delta. Mr. Tanimoto and Mr.
Matsuo took their way through the shopping center, already full
of people, and out across two branches of the Ota River to the
sloping streets of Koi, and up them to the very outskirts and
foothills. As they started up a valley away from the tight-
ranked houses, the all-clear sounded. The Japanese radar
operators, detecting only three planes, supposed that they
represented only a reconnaissance. Pushing the handcart up the
to the rayon man's house was tiring, and the men were glad, after
they had maneuvered their load into the driveway and to the front
steps, to stand and rest awhile. They stood with a wing of the
house between them and the city. The house was made of wood, and
its front hall, packed packed with rolls of bedding, and
clothing looked like a cool cave full of fat cushions. Opposite
the house, to the right of the door, there was a large, finicky
rock garden. There was no sound of planes. The morning was
still; the place was cool and pleasant.

A tremendous flash of light cut across the sky. Mr.
Tanimoto has a distinct recollection that it seemed to travel from
east to west, from the direction of the city to the direction
of the hills. It seemed a sheet of sun. Both he and his friend
Mr. Matsuo reacted in terror -- and both had time to react (for

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they were two miles from the center. Mr. Matsuo dashed up the front steps into the house and dived among the bedrolls and buried himself there. Mr. Tanimoto took four or five steps and threw himself between two big rocks in the garden; he pressed very hard against one of the rocks.

With his face turned to the stone, Mr. Tanimoto did not see what happened; he felt a sudden pressure and then splinters and pieces of board and fragments of tile fell on him. He heard no roar: no one in Hiroshima heard any noise of the bomb. ( But a fisherman in his sampan on the Inland Sea near Tsuzu, the man with whom Mr. Tanimoto's mother-in-law and sister-in-law were living, saw the flash and heard a tremendous explosion; he was nearly twenty miles from Hiroshima, but the thunder was greater than when the B-29s hit Iwakuni, only five miles away.)

When he dared Mr. Tanimoto raised his head and saw that the rayon man's house had collapsed. He thought a bomb had fallen directly on it. Such clouds of dust had risen that there was a sort of twilight around. In panic, not thinking for the moment of Mr. Matsuo, under the ruins, he dashed out into the street. He noticed as he ran past that the concrete wall of the estate had fallen over -- twoard the house rather than away from it. In the street the first thing he saw was a squad of solsiers who had been burrowing into the hillside opposite, making one of the millions of dugouts in which the Japanese apparently intended to resist invasion, hill by hill, life for life; the soldiers were coming out of the hole, where they should have been safe, and blood was running from their heads, chests and backs. They were silent and dazed..

Under what seemed to be a local dust cloud, the day grew darker and darker.

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Somewhat before twelve o'clock, the night before the bomb was dropped, an announcer on the local radio station said that about two hundred B-29s were approaching southern Honshu, and advised the population of Hiroshima to evacuate to their designated "safe areas". Mrs. Hatsuyo Makamura, a tailor's widow who lived in the section called Nobori-cho, and who had a long habit of doing as she was told, got her three children -- a ten-year-old boy, Toshio, and eight-year-old girl, Yaeko, and a five-year-old girl, Myeko-- out of bed and dressed them and walked with them to the military area to the northeast of the city, known as the East Parade Ground. There she unrolled some mats and the children lay down on them. They slept until about two, when they were awakened by the roar of the planes going over Hiroshima.

As soon as the planes had passed, Mrs. Nakamura started back with the children. They reached home a little after two thirty, and she immediately turned on the radio, which, to her distress, was just then broadcasting a fresh warning. When she looked at the children and saw how tired they were, and when she thought of the number of trips they had all made to the East Parade Ground to no purpose, she decided that in spite of the instructions on the radio, she simply could not face starting out all over again. She put the children in their bedrolls on the floor, lay down herself at three o'clock, and

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fell asleep at once, so soundly that if planes passed over later,
she did not waken to their alarm.

The siren jarred her awake at about seven. Frightened by the
new alarm, she arose, dressed quickly and hurried to the house of
Mr. Nakamoto, the head of her Neighborhood Association, and asked
him what she should do. He said that she should remain at home
unless an urgent warning, and intermittent blast of the siren were
sounded. She went home, lit a fire in the kitchen, set some rice
to cook and sat down to read that morning's paper, the Hiroshima
Chugoku. To her relief, the all-clear sounded at eight o'clock.
After it, she heard the children stirring, so she went and gave
each one a handful of peanuts and told them to stay on their mats,
because they were tired from the night's walk. She had hoped that
they might go back to sleep, but the man in the house directly to
the south began to make a terrible hullabaloo of hammering, wedging,
ripping, and splitting. The Prefectural Government, convinced as
everyone was in Hiroshima that the city would be attacked soon, had
begun to press with threats and warnings for the completion of
wide firelanes which, it was hoped, might act in conjunction with
the rivers to realize the damage from an incendiary raid, and
the neighbor was reluctantly sacrificing his house to the city's
safety. Just the day before the Prefecture had ordered all able-
bodied girls from the middle schools to spend a few days helping
to clear the lanes, and they started work at eight o'clock, soon
after the all-clear.

Mrs. Nakamura went back to the kitchen, stirred the rice, and
began watching the man next door. At first she was annoyed with
him formaking so much noise, but then (she now remembers)
she was moved almost to tears by pity. Her emotionx was

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specifically directed at her neighbor, out there tearing down his
home, board by board, at a time when there was so much unavoidable
destruction about; but undoubtedly the surge of feeling also had
in it a generalized, community pity, to say nothing of self-pity.
She had not had an easy time. Her husband Isawa had gone into the
army just after Myeko was born, and she had heard nothing from or
of him for a long time until, on March 5, 1942, she received a
seven-word telegram: "Isawa died an honorable death at Singapore."

She learned later that he had died on February 15, the day
Singapore fell, and that he had been a corporal. Isawa had been
a not particularly prosperous tailor, and his only capital was a
Sankoku sewing machine. At his death, when his allotments stopped
coming, she got out the machine and began to take in piece work
herself and ever since she had supported the children, but poorly,
by tailoring.

As she stood watching her neighbor, everything flashed whiter
than any white she had ever observed. She did not see what happened
to the man next door; the reflex of a mother set her in motion
toward her children. She had taken just a single step ( the house
was 1,350 yards from the center) when something picked her up and
she seemed to fly into the next room over the raised sleeping
platform, pursued by parts of her house.

Timbers fell around her where she landed, and a shower of
tiles pummelled her; everything became dark, for she was buried.
The debris was not deep on her. She rose up and freed herself.
She heard a child cry, "Mother, help me!" and she saw her youngest,
Myeko the five-year-old, buried up to her breast and unable to
move. As Mrs. Nakamura started frantically to claw her way toward
the baby, she could see or hear nothing of her other two children.

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In those days Dr. Masakazu Fuju, being prosperous, hedonistic, at the time, not too busy, usually allowed himself the luxury of sleeping until nine or nine-thirty, but fortunately he had to get up early that morning, to see a house guest off on the train. He rose at six and walked with his friend to the station, not far distant, across two of the river branches, at half past six. He was back home by seven, just as the siren sounded its sustained warning. "We ate breakfast and then, because the morning was already awfully hot, undressed down to his underwear and went out on the porch to read the paper."

This porch -- in fact, the whole building -- was curiously constructed. Dr. Fuju was the owner and proprietor of a peculiarly Japanese institution; a private, single-doctor hospital. In his house, perched beside and over the water of that one of the seven branches of the Ota River which is called Kyo, and right next to the bridge of the same name, there were thirty rooms for thirty patients and their kinfold -- for according to the Japanese custom, when a person falls sick and goes to the hospital, one or more members of his family goes and lives there with him, to cook for him, bathe, massage and read to him, and to offer incessant familial sympathy, without which a Japanese patient would be miserable indeed. Dr. Fuju had no beds, only straw mats, for his patients. He did, however, have all sorts of modern equipment -- an X-ray machine, diathermy equipment, and a fine tiled lab. All this had been built in a strange way -- two-thirds on the land, one-third on piles over the tidal waters of the Kayo. This overhanging effect was queer-looking, but it made the private part of the

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of the house cool in summer, and from the porch, which faced away from the center of the city, the prospect of the river, with pleasure boats drifting up and down it. was always changing, always refreshing. Dr. Fuju had occasionally had anxious moments when the Ota and its mouth-branches rose to flood, but the piling seemed to be firm enough and the house had always held.

He had been relatively idle for about a month because in July, as the number of untouched cities in Japan dwindled and as Hiroshima seemed more and more inevitable a target, Dr. Fuju began turning in-patients away, on the ground that in a fire-raid he would not have facilities to evacuate them. Now he had only two patients left: a woman from Yano, wounded in the shoulder, and a young man of twenty-five recovering from burns he suffered when the steel factory near Hiroshima in which he worked had been hit. To tend his patients, Dr. Fuju had four nurses. His family were safe; his wife and one son were living near Osaka; and another son and two daughters were on Kyushu. A niece was living with him, and two servants. He had not much to do and did not mind; he had saved some money; he was healthy, convivial and calm, and he was pleased to pass the evenings eating and drinking whiskey, ☞ always sensibly and for the sake of conversation, with friends. Before the war, he had effected imported brands, from Scotland and America; now he was perfectly satisfied with the best Japanese brand, Santory, particularly that company's twelve-year-old liqueur.

He sat down crosslegged in his underwear on the spotless matting of the porch, put on his glasses and started reading the Osaka Asahi. He liked to read news from Osaka because his wife was there.

He saw the flash. To him -- faced away from the center and

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looking at his paper -- it seemed a brilliant yellow. Startled,
he began to rise to his feet. In that moment (he was 1,550
yards from the center) the hospital leant behind his rising and
the whole structure, with a terrible ripping noise, toppled over
into the river. The doctor, still in the act of standing up, was
thrown forward and around and over, he was buffeted and gripped;
he lost track of everything, because things were so speeded up;
he felt the water.

D. Fujii had hardly time to think that he was dying before
he found that he was alive, squeezed tightly by two long timbers
in a V across his chest, like a morsel suspended between two huge
chopsticks, held upright, so that he could not move, with his
head miraculously above water and torso and legs in it. The
remains of his hospital were all around him in a crazy assortment
of splintered lumber and materials for the assuagement of pain.
His left shoulder hurt terribly. His glasses were gone.

Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, S.J., was at that time in rather
frail condition. Japanese wartime diet did not sustain him, and
he felt the strain of being a foreigner in an increasingly
xenophobic Japan: even a German, since the defeat of the
Fatherland, was unpopular. At thirty-eight, Father Kleinsorge
had the look of a boy growing too fast -- thin in the face, with
a prominent Adam's apple, a hollow chest, dangling hands, big
feet. He walked clumsily, leaning forward a little. He was
tired all the time. To make matters worse, he had suffered for
two days, along with Father Cieslik, from a rather painful and
urgent diarrhoea, which they blamed on the beans and black

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ration-bread they were obliged to eat. The other two priests then
living in the mission house in Nobori-cho, Father Superior LaSalle
and Father Schiffer, had happily escaped this affliction.

Father Kleinsorge woke up about six, the morning of the
bombing, and a half and hour later -- he was a bit tardy because
of his sickness -- he began to read mass in the mission chapel, a
Japanese-style wooden building in whose auditorium, which was
without pews, Xhax worshippers kneeled shoeless, on the usual
Japanese mat floor, facing an altar, graced with splendid silks,
brass, silver and heavy embroideries; this morning, a Wednesday,
the only communicants were his fellow priests, Mr. Takemoto, a
Japanese theological student then living in the mission house, Mr.
Fukai, the Japanese secretary of the mission, and Mrs. Murata, the
mission's devoutly Christian housekeeper. After mass, while Father
Kleinsorge was reading the prayers of thanksgiving, the siren
sounded. Father Kleinsorge discontinued the service, and the
missionaries retired to the bigger house. There, in his room on
the ground floor, to the right of the front door, Father Kleinsorge
changed into a military uniform which he had acquired when teaching
at the Roko Middle School in Kobe and which he wore during air raid
alerts.

After an alram Father Kleinsorge always went out and scanned
the sky, and this time he was glad to see only the single weather
plane that flew over Hiroshima each day about this time. Satisfied
that nothing would happen, he went in and breakfasted on substitute
coffee and ration-bread, which under the circumstances was
especially repugnant to him. The Fathers sat and talked a while,
until, at eight, they heard the all-clear. They went then to
various parts of the house. Father Schiffer retired to his room

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to do some writing. Father Cieslik sat in his room in a straight
chair with a pillow over his stomach to ease his pain, and read.
Father Superior LaSalle stood at his window, thinking. Father
Kleinsorge went up to the third floor, took off all his clothes
except his underwear and stretched out on his right side on a cot
and began reading *Stimmen der Zeit*.

After the terrible flash -- which, he later realized, reminded
him of something he read as a boy about a large meteor colliding
with the earth -- he had time (as he was 1,400 yards from the
center) for one thought: "A bomb has fallen directly on us." Then,
for a few moments or minutes, he went out of his mind.

He never knew how he got out of the house. The next things
he consciously realized were that he was standing in the vegetable
garden in his underwear, bleeing slightly along his left flank;
that all the homes around had fallen down but that the mission-house,
which had long ago been braced and double-braced by a priest named
Gropper who was terrified of earthquakes, was still standing; that
the day had turned dark; and that Murata-san, the housekeeper, was
beside him crying over and over: "Shu Jesusu, awaremi tamai -- Our
Lord Jesus, have pity on us!"

On the train on the way in from the country, Dr. Terufumi
Sasaki thought over an unpleasant ngithmare he had had the night
before. He was then living with his mother in Mukaihara, thirty
miles from the city, and it took him two hours by train and tram
to reach the hospital. He had slept uneasily all night and had
wakened an hour earlier than usual, and feeling sluggish and
slightly feverish, had debated whether or not to go to the hospital
at all; his sense of duty finally forced him to go, and he had

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started out on an earlier train than he took most mornings.

The dream had particularly frightened him because it was so closely associated, on the surface at least, with a disturbing actuality. He was then only twenty-five years old and had just completed his training at the Eastern Medical University in Tsingtao, China; he was something of an idealist and was much distressed by the inadequacy of medical facilities in the country in that town where his mother lived. Quite on his own, he had begun visiting a few patients out there in the evenings after his eight hours at the hospital and four hours' commuting. He had recently learned that the penalty for practicing without a permit was severe; a fellow doctor whom he had asked about it had given him a serious scolding. Nevertheless, he continued the practice. In his dream he had been at the bedside of a country patient when the police and the doctor he had consulted burst into the room, seized him, dragged him outside and beat him up in an ugly way. On the train he just about decided to go up the work in Mukaihara, since he felt it would be impossible to get a permit because of his duties at the Red Cross Hospital.

At the terminus he caught a streetcar at once. He later calculated that if he had taken his customary train that morning, and if he had had to wait a few minutes for the train, as often happened, he would have been within a few yards of the epicenter at the time of the explosion and would surely have perished. He arrived at the hospital at 7:40 and reported to the Chief Surgeon. A few minutes later he went to a room on the first floor and drew blood from the arm of a man in order to perform a Wasserman test. With the blood specimen in his left hand, walking in a kind of dream

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distraction he had felt all morning, probably because of the dream
and his restless night, he started along the main corridor on his
way to the stairs, since the laboratory containing the centrifuges
for the test was on the third floor. He was just opposite the telephone
switch-room, one step beyond an open window, sheltered from the rear
by the open door of the telephone room, when the light of the bomb
was reflected, like a gigantic photographic flash, in the corridor.

He ducked down on one knee where he was, and he said to himself,
consicously, as only a Japanese would, "Sasaki, gambare ! Be brave!"
Just then (the building was 1,650 yards from the center) the blast
ripped through the hospital. The glasses flew off the doctor's face;
the bottle of blood crashed against the wall; his Japanese slippers
zipped out from under his feet -- but otherwise, thanks to the luck
of his pacing, he was a together sheltered and untouched.

He shouted the name of the Chief Surgeon and rushed around to
his office and found him terribly cut by glass. The hospital was
in horrible confusion: heavy partitions and ceilings had fallen on
patients, beds had overturned, windows had imploded and cut people,
blood was spattered on the walls and floors, instruments were
everywhere, the sick were running about screaming, and many others
lay dead. Sasaki found himself the only doctor in the hospital who
was unhurt. A colleague working in the laboratory to which Dr.
Sasaki had been walking was dead; so were two of his seven fellow
surgeons, and the others were all injured badly. Sixty of the hospital
staff of two hundred were dead or doomed. Only a handful were unhurt.
And Dr. Sasaki's patient, who a few moments before had been
dreadfully afraid of syphilis, was not dead of a less personal scrouge.

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Dr. Sasaki, who believed that the enemy had hit just the one building he was in, took bandages and began to bind the wounds of those inside the hospital; while outside, all over Hiroshima, maimed and dying citizens turned their unsteady steps toward the Red Cross Hospital to begin an invasion which was to make Dr. Sasaki forget his private nightmare for a long, long time.

## Toshiko

Toshiko Sasaki (who was not related to the doctor) got up at three o'clock in the morning. There was extra work to do. Her eleven-month-old brother Akio had come down the day before with a serious stomach upset; her mother had taken the baby to the Tamura Pediatric Hospital and was staying with him. Toshiko had to cook breakfast for her father, for a brother and a sister and for herself, and as well -- since the hospital, thanks to the war, was unable to provide food -- she had to prepare a whole day's meals for her mother and the baby, in time for her father, who worked in a factory making rubber earplugs for artillery crews, to take the things by on his way to the plant.

By the time she had finished her chores, and had cleaned and put away the cooking things, it was nearly seven. The family lived in Koi (toward which, at that hour, Mr. Tanimoto was making his way with the pushcart), and she had a three-quarter-hour trip to make to the East Asia Tin Works, in the section of Ōkura town called Kannon-machi. She was in charge of the personnel records in the factory. She started at seven, and as soon as she reached the plant she went with some of the other girls from the personnel department to the factory auditorium. A prominent local Navy man

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had committed suicide the day before by throwing himself under
a train -- a death considered honorable enough so that a
memorial service was to be held at the tin works that morning
at ten o'clock. In the large hall Miss Sasaki and the others
made suitable preparations for the meeting. This work took about
twenty minutes.

Miss Sasaki went back to her office and sat down at her desk.
She was placed quite far from the windows, of to her left, and
behind her there were a couple of very tall bookcases
containing all the books of the factory library, which the
personnel department had organized. She settled herself at her
desk; put some things in a drawer and shifted papers. She
thought that before she began to make entries in her lists of new
employees discharges and departures to the Army, she would chat
for a moment with the girl to her right. Just as she turned her
head away from the windows, the room was filled with a blinding
light. She was paralyzed by fear, fixed still in her chair for
a long moment (the plant was 1,600 yards from the center).

Everything fell, and Miss Sasaki lost consciousness. The
Ceiling dropped suddenly and the wooden floor above collapsed
in splinters and the people up there came down and the roof above them gave way; but principally and first of all the
bookcases right behind her swooped forward and an avalanche of
literature threw her down, with her left leg horribly twisted
underneath her. There in the tin factory was a situation for
the first moment of the atomic age: a person crushed by books.

SOME EVENTS AT HIROSHIMA

II: The Fire

Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto of the Hiroshima Methodist Episcopal
Church found himself, immediately after the explosion of the
atomic bomb, unhurt but panic-stricken, and he followed his
first impulse, which was to run. He was, as a matter of fact,
in a safe place when the bomb went off: in the suburb of Koi,
in the foothills of the mountains to the west of Hiroshima, in
front of a wealthy rayon man's house, to which he had been
evacuating some things from town along with a friend named
Matsuo. The place was nearly two miles from the epicenter of
the explosion, but since the house had collapsed (with Mr.
Matsuo in it) Mr. Tanimoto assumed that the Americans had
dropped a single bomb right on it and, without stopping to see
whether Mr. Matsuo was alive, he had run wildly out into the
street. There, after an astonished glance at some bloody
soldiers pouring out of a dugout which they had been digging,
into the opposite hillside and where, presumably, they should
have been safe, he attached himself sympathetically to an old
lady who was walking along in a dazed condition, holding her
head with her left hand, supporting a small boy of three or

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four on her back with her fight, and crying, "I'm hurt! I'm
hurt! I'm hurt! " Mr. Tanimoto took the child onto his own
back and led the woman by the hand down the street, which was
darkened by what seemed to be a local column of dust, almost
as if night had suddenly fallen; he conducted her to the
grammar school that was to serve as a temporary hospital in
case of emergency. By this solicitous behavior Mr. Tanimoto
at once got rid of his terror. At the school, which was not
far away, he was very much surprised to see glass all over the
floor and fifty or sixty injured people already waiting to be
treated. He reflected that, although there had been no warning
and he had heard no planes, several bombs must have been
dropped. He thought of a hillock in the rayon man's garden
from which he could get a view of the whole of Koi -- of the
whole of Hiroshima, for that matter -- and he ran back up to
the estate.

From the mound he saw an astounding panorama. Not just a
patch of Koi, as he had expected, but all the city, as far as
his eyes could penetrate through the clouded air, was giving
off a thick dreadful miaasma from its wounds. Clumps of smoke,
near and far, had begun to push up through the general dust.
He wondered how such extensive damage could have come out of a
silent sky; the planes were usually so easy to hear that a mere
handful of them, way up, made a heavy hum. Houses nearby were
burning, and when huge drops of water, the size of marbles,
began to fall, he thought dimly that they must be coming from
firemen's hoses fighting the local blazes; they were, actually,
drops of condensation falling from the tower of turbulent dust,

-3-

heat and fission fragments that had already risen miles into
the sky above Hiroshima.

Mr. Tanimoto turned away from the sight when he heard Mr.
Matsuo, who had been safely cushioned within the falling house
by some bedding stored in the front hall and had worked his way
out, call to ask whether he was all right. He scarcely
answered. He had thought of his wife and baby, his church, his
home, his parishoners, all down in that awful murk. Once more
he began to run in fear -- toward the city.

Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, a tailor's widow, having struggled
up from under the ruins of her house and seeing Myeko, the
youngest of her three children, buried breast-deep and unable
to move, crawled across the debris, hauled at timbers and flung
tiles aside, in a hurried effort to free the child, when for
the first time, from what seemed to be caverns far below,
she heard two small voices crying: "Tasukete! Help, help!"

Mrs. Nakamura called the names of her ten-year-old son
and eight-year-old daughter: "Toshio! Yaeko!"

The voices from below answered and asked for help.

Mrs. Nakamura abandoned Myeko, who at least could breathe,
and in a frenzy made the wreckage fly above the crying. The
children had been bedded nearly ten feet apart, but now their
voices seemed to come from the same place. Toshio, the boy,
apparently had some freedom to move, because she could feel him
undermine the pile of wood and tiles as she worked from above.
At last she saw his head, and she hastily pulled him out by it;

-4-

he had a mosquito net wound intricately, as if carefully wrapped, around his feet. He said he had been blown right across the room and had been on top of his sister under the wreckage. Yaeko now said from underneath that she could not move, as there was something on her legs. With a bit more digging, Mrs. Nakamura cleared a hole above her, and began to pull the child's arm. "Hai! Hai! It hurts! Ouch!" Yaeko cried. Mrs. Nakamura shouted: "There's no time now to say whether it hurts or not," and yanked her whimpering daughter up. Then she freed Myeko. The children were filthy and bruised but none of them had a single scratch.

Mrs. Nakamura took the children out into the street. They had on nothing but underwear pants, and although the day was very hot, she worried rather confusedly about their being cold, so she went back into the wreckage and burrowed underneath and found a bundle of clothes she had packed for an emergency, and she dressed them in pants, blouses, shoes, the padded cotton air-raid helmets called bokuzuki, and even irrationally, overcoats. The children were silent except for the five-year-old, Myeko, who kept asking questions: "Why is it night already? Why did our house fall down? What happened?" Mrs. Nakamura, who did not know what had happened ( had not the radio declared an all-clear?) looked around and saw through the darkness that all the houses in the immediate neighborhood had collapsed. The house next door, which its owner had been tearing down to make way for a fire lane, was not very thoroughly, if crudely, torn down; its owner, who had been sacrificing his home for the general safety, was dead. Mrs. Nakamoto, wife of the head of the local anti-airraid Neighborhood Association, came across the street with her head all bloody

-5-

saying that her baby was badly cut; did Mrs. Nakamura have any bandage? Mrs. Nakamura did not, but she crawled into the remains of her house again and pulled out some white cloth she had been using for her tailoring, ripped it into strips and gave it to Mrs. Nakamoto. As she had fetched the cloth she had seen her sewing machine; she went back in for it and dragged the head of it out. Obviously she could not carry it with her, so she plunged her symbol of livelihood unthinkingly into the receptacle which for weeks had been her symbol of safety: the cement tank of water in front of her house, of the type every household had been ordered to construct in defense against a fire raid.

A nervous neighbor, Mrs. Hataya, called to Mrs. Nakamura to run away with her to Sentei -- to the woods by the Kyo River on the estate of Count Asano, not far off. Seeing fire breaking out in a nearby ruin -- for except at the very center, where the bomb itself ignited some fires, most of Hiroshima's city-wide conflagration was caused by inflammable wreckage falling on cook-stoves and live wires -- Mrs. Nakamura suggested going over to fight it. Mrs. Hataya said, "Don't be foolish: what if planes come and drop more bombs?" Mrs. Nakamura started out for the Asano estate with her children and Mrs. Hataya, and she carried her rucksack of emergency clothing, a blanket, an umbrella, and a suitcase of things she had cached in her air raid shelter. On the way she passed her brother-in-law's house, and she called out the name of her young nephew, Yukio, at least twenty times; but the boy was dead. She passed her sister-in-law's house and called for her; she was dead. Under many ruins, as they hurried along, they heard muffled screams for help. The only building they saw standing on their way to Asano Park, was the Catholic Fathers' house -- by the Catholic kindergarten to which

-6-

Mrs. Nakamura had sent Myeko for a time. As they passed it she saw Father Kleinsorge in bloody underwear running out of the house with a small suitcase in his hand.

After the explosion, which drove him out of his mind for a time, so that he never knew how he got down from the third story of the mission house, Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, S.J., found himself standing in the vegetable garden beside the mission cook, who was praying loudly. Earlier he had taken off his clothes, all but his underwear, because of the heat. Soon Father Superior LaSalle came around the corner of the house in the darkness. His body, especially his back, was all bloody, because the flash had made him turn away from his window and tiny pieces of glass had flown at him. Father Kleinsorge, still bewildered, managed to ask: "Where are the rest?" but just then the two other priests living in the mission house appeared -- Father Cieslik, unhurt, supporting Father Schiffer, who had blood spurting out of a severed artery above his left ear and was terribly pale. Father Cieslik was rather pleased with himself, for after the flash he had dived into a doorway, which he had previously reckoned to be the strongest place inside the house, and when the blast came he was not wounded. Father LaSalle told Father Cieslik to take Father Schiffer to a doctor before he bled to death, and suggested either Dr. Kanda, who lived on the next corner, or Dr. Fujii, about six blocks away. The two went out and up the street.

The daughter of the mission catechist ran up to Father Kleinsorge and said that her mother and sister were buried under

-7-

the ruins of their house, which was on the Catholic compound. While Father LaSalle and Takemoto, a theological student who lived in the mission house, and Murata, the cook, dug the Catholic kindergarten teacher out of the remains of her house at the front of the compound, Father Kleinsorge went to the Catechist's house, at the back, and began lifting things off the top of the pile. There was not a sound underneath; he was sure the Hoshijimas had been killed. At last, under what had been a corner of the kitchen he saw Mrs. Hoshijima's head. Believing her dead, he began to haul her out by the hair, but suddenly she screamed: "Itai! Itai! It hurts!" He therefore dug some more and got her out. He managed, too, to find her daughter in the rubble and free her. Neither was badly hurt.

The public bath next door to the mission house had caught fire, but since the wind was northerly the priests thought their house would be spared. Nevertheless, as a precaution, Father Kleinsorge ran inside to fetch some things he wanted to save. He found his room in a state of wierd and illogical confusion. A first aid kit was still hanging undisturbed on a hook on the wall; but his clothes, which had been on other hooks nearby, were nowhere to be found. His desk was in splinters all over the room, but a mere papier mache suitcase which he had hidden right under the desk, stood handle-side-up in the door of the room, where he could not miss it, without a single scratch on it. This Father Kleinsorge later came to regard as a bit of Providential interference inasmuch as the suitcase contained his breviary, the account books for the whole diocese, and a considerable amount of paper money, for which he was responsible. He hurried out of the house and deposited the suitcase in the mission air raid shelter.

-8-

At about this time, Father Cieslik and Father Schiffer, still spurting blood, came back saying that Dr. Kanda's house was ruined and five blocked them from getting out of what they supposed to be the local circle of destruction to Dr. Fujii's private hospital, over by the Kyo River.

Dr. Masakazu Fujii's hospital was no longer beside the Kyo River: it was in the river. The bomb's blast had toppled most of the building into the water, with its occupants trapped within as it fell: Dr. Fujii, his niece, six nurses, a maid and manservant. After the overturn, Dr. Fujii was gripped by the chest, as if in gigantic pliers, between two beams, which held his head just above the river level, his body under it. His left shoulder hurrteredely. He was so stupefied and so tightly squeezed that he was unable to move at first, and he hung there about twenty minutes in the darkened morning. Then a thought which came to him -- that soon the tide would be running in through the seven river-branches of the delta, and his head would be submerged -- inspired him to fearful activity: he wriggled and turned and exerted all his strength (though his left arm, because of the pain in his shoulder, was useless), and soon he had freed himself from the wooden vase. After a few moments' rest, he climbed onto the pile of timbers, and finding a long one which slanted up to the river bank, he shinnied painfully up it.

Like Father Kleinsorge, Dr. Fujii had stripped down to his underwear. It was not soaking. His undershirt was torn and blood ran down it from bad cuts on his chin and back. In this disarray, he walked out onto the Kyo Bridge, beside which his hospital had stood. The bridge had not collapsed. Though he could see only

-9-

fuzzily, since his glasses were lost, he was amazed at the number
of houses that were down all around. On the bridge he encountered
a friend, another doctor named Machii, and he asked in bewilderment:
"What do you think it was?"

Dr. Machii said: "It must have been a Molotoffano hanakayo!"
-- a Molotov flowerbasket, a characteristically delicate Japanese
variant of the "cocktail", or self-scattering cluster of bombs,
named for the Soviet diplomat.

At first Dr. Fujii could see only two fires, one across the
river from his hospital site, and one quite far to the south. But
at the same time he observed something which puzzled him and his
friend, and which, as doctors, they discussed: although there were
as yet very few fires, wounded people were hurrying across the
bridge in an endless papade of misery, and many of them displayed
terrible burns on their faces and arms. "Why do you suppose it is?"
Dr. Fujii asked.

Even a theory was comforting that morning, and Dr. Machii
stuck to his. "Perhaps because it was a Molotov flowerbasket," he
said.

There had been no breeze earlier in the day when Dr. Fujii
walked to the raliway station to see of a friend, but now a brisk
wind had sprung up: here on the bridge it was easterly. New fires
were leaping up, and they spread quickly, and in a very shrot time
a terrible blast of hot air and a shower of cinders made it
impossible to stand on the bridge any more. Dr. Machii ran to the
far side of the river and along a still unkindled street. Dr.
Fujii went down into the river under the bridge, where a score of
people were already taking refuge, among them his two servants,
who had extricated themselves somehow for the wreckage. From there

-10-

Dr. Fujii saw a nurse hanging in the timbers of his hospital by her legs, and then another painfully pinned at the breast. He enlisted the help of some of the others under the bridge and freed the pair. He thought he heard the voice of his niece for a moment, but he never saw her again. Four of his nurses and the two patients then in the hospital dies, too. Dr. Fujii went back into the water of the river and waited for the fire to subside.

The lot of Drs. Fujii, Kanda and Machii, and, as these three were typical of the majority of the physicians and surgeons of Hiroshima that day, with their offices and hospitals destroyed, their equipment scattered, their own bodies incapacitated in varying degrees, explained why so many citizens who were hurt went untended and so many who might have lived expired. Of one hundred fifty doctors in the city, sixty-five were already dead and most of the rest were wounded. A hundred and one hospitals, half dead and too badly hurt to work. In the biggest hospital, that of the Red Cross, only six doctors out of thirty were able to function, and only ten nurses out of more than two hundred. The only uninjured doctor on the Red Cross Hospital staff was a twenty-five-year old surgeon, Terufumi Sasaki. When the bomb exploded, he had been walking along a corridor, and by luck was in a spot where the eddying blast took the glasses off his nose, the slippers off his feet and a bottle of someone else's block out of his hand, but that was all. He ran directly afterwards to the office of the Chief Surgeon, Dr. Takeuchi, whom he found severely cut by flying glass. He hurried to a storeroom nearby, to fetch bandages. The storeroom, like everything he had seen as he ran through the hospital, was a terrible mess -- bottles of medicines

-11-

thrown off shelves and broken, salves splattered on the walls,
instruments strewn everywhere. He grabbed up some bandages and an
unbroken bottle of merchurochrome, hurried back to Dr. Takeuchi and
bandaged his cuts. Then he went out into the corridor and began
patching up the wounded patients, doctors and nurses there. He
blundered so without his glasses that he took a pair off the face
of a wounded nurse, and although they only approximately compensated
for the errors of his vision, they helped, they were better than
nothing; he was to depend on them for more than a month.

He worked without method, taking those who were nearest him
first, and he noticed soon that the corridor seemed to be getting
more and more crowded. Mixed with the abrasions and lacerations
which most people in the hospital had sustained, he began to find
dreadful burns. He realized then that casualties were pouring in
from outdoors. There were so many that he began to pass by the
lightly wound; he decided that all he could hope to do was to
stop people from bleeding to death. Before long patients lay and
crouched on the floors of the wards and the rooms and the laboratories,
and in the corridors, and on the stairs, and in the front hall, and
under the port-cochere, and on the stone front steps, and in the
driveway, and courtyard, and for blocks each way in the street
outside. Wounded people supported maimed people; disfigured families
leaned together. A distressing number of school girls crept into the
hospital, for just that morning all girls of the first two years of
the secondary school had been taken from their classrooms to work
outdoors clearing fire lanes. In a city of 400,000, nearly 100,000
had been killed at one blow; as many again were hurt, and at least
10,000 of the wounded made their way to the best hospital in town,

-12-

which was altogether unprepared for such a trampling, since it
only had six hundred beds and they had all been occupied and
mostly had collapsed. The people in the suffocating crowd
inside the hospital wept and cried, for Dr. Sasaki to hear, "*Itai!*"
and "Sensei Doctor!" and the less wounded came and pulled at
his sleeve and begged him to come to the aid of the worse wounded.
Tugged here and there, in his stockinged feet, bewildered by the
numbers, staggered by so much raw fleah, Dr. Sasaki lost all sense
of his profession and stopped working as a skillful surgeon and a
sympathetic man: he became an automaton, mechanically wiping,
daubing, winding, wiping, daubing, winding....

Some of the wounded in Hiroshima were unable to enjoy the
questionable luxury of hospitalization. In the section of town
called Kannon-machi, in what had been the personnel office of
the East Asia Tin Works, Miss Toshiko Sasaki lay doubled over,
unconscious, under a tremendous pile of books which had fallen
forward on her from the bookshelves of the plant library, behind,
her desk, and under concrete and wooden and corrugated tin
*xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx* debris from an upper floor and the roof. She
was wholly unconscious (she later estimated) for about three
hours. Her first sensation was of dreadful pain in her left leg.
It was so black under the books that the borderline between
awareness and unconsciousness was fine; she apparently crossed it
several times, for the pain seemed to come and go. At the moments
At the moments when it was sharpest, she felt that her leg had
been cut off, somewhere below the knee. Later she heard someone
walking on top of the wreckage above, and as the footsteps passed
overhead anguished voices spoke up, evidently from within the
mess around her: "*Tsaukete kure! Please help! Get us out!*"

-13-

mess around her: "Tasukete kure! Please help! Get us out! "

Father Kleinsorge stemmed Father Schiffer's spurting artery as well as he could with some bandage that Dr. Fujii had given the priests a few days before. When he had finished he ran in the house again and finally found the jacket of his military uniform he owned and an old pair of gray pants. He put them on and went outside. A woman from next door ran up to him and shouted that her husband was buried under her house and the house was on fire; Father Kleinsorge must come and save him.

Father Kleinsorge, already growing apathetic and callous in the presence of such cumulative horror, said: "we haven't much time" -- houses all around were burning, and the wind was now blowing hard. "Do you know exactly which part of the house he is under?"

"Yes, yes," she said, "come quickly."

They went around to the house, the remains of which blazed violently, but when they got there it turned out that the woman had no idea where her husband was. Father Kleinsorge shouted several times, "Is anyone there?" but the man did not answer. "We must get away," Father Kleinsorge said to the woman, or we will all die." He went back to the Catholic compound and told the Father Superior that the fire was coming closer on the wind, which was now from the north; it was time to go.

Just then the Catholic kindergarten teacher pointed out to the priests Mr. Fukai, the secretary of the diocese, who was standing in his window on the second floor, facing the direction from which the explosion had come, weeping. Father Cieslik, because he understood the man.

-14-

thought the stairs unsteady, ran around the Mission House to look
for a ladder. Behind the house he heard people crying for help
under a nearby fallen roof. He could not lift it, and called to
passersby running away in the street to help him, but no one paid
any attention, and he had to leave the buried ones to die. Father
Kleinsorge ran inside and scrambled up the stairs, which were awry
and piled up with plaster and lathing, and called to Mr. Fukai from
the doorway of his room.

Mr. Fukai, a very short man of about fifty, turned around
slowly, with a queer look, and said, "leave me here."

Father Kleinsorge went into the room and took Mr. Fukai by
the collar and said, "Come with me or you'll die."

Mr. Fukai said, "Leave me here to die." Father Kleinsorge
began to shove and haul Mr. Fukai out of the room, but then the
theological student came up and grabbed Mr. Fukai's feet and Father
Kleinsorge took his shoulders and together they carried him
downstairs and outdoors. "I can't walk," Mr. Fukai blubbered. "Leave
me here." Father Kleinsorge got his apaer suitcase with the money
in it and took Mr. Fukai up pick-a-back, and the party started out
for the East Parade Ground, their district's "safe area". As they
went out of the fate Mr. Fukai, quite child-like now, bent on
Father Kleinsorge's shoulders, and said, "I won't leave. I won't
leave." Father Kleinsorge turned to Father LaSalle and said, "We
have lost all out possessions, but not our sense of humor," although,
as a matter of fact, nobody had said anything funny at all.

The street was cluttered with parts of houses that had slid

38

38.

he found out that morning that it had been stolen. We all became indig-
nant when we realized that there were marauders taking other people's
belongings even during such a great catastrophe. This could not have been
done by injured people. We thought it must have been done by intruders
from the outside. Later, in public, we saw people opening unclaimed safes
from which they took documents, jewelry, and other valuables. On most
occasions they were in groups and were using poor Japanese. I felt re-
lieved when I found out that at least they were not residents of Hiroshima.

Leaving the ruins, I went out to the Ushita district. I found
sufferers here and there who had stayed in the fields overnight. Every-
one there was eating things which grew in the fields. I hopped into one
of the gardens and was about to pick up a pumpkin lying there when a
young lady called out "Say, that belongs to my house". I was surprised
but answered "Young lady, there are many badly injured persons lying across
the river with nothing to eat. I thought of giving it to them.....
Well I'm very sorry". In such a great disaster which should rank first--
the right of possession or the sustenance of life? As I remembered the
thieves of the same morning, I was embarrassed and ran away from the place.

I went back to the river bank. A messenger came saying, "A civil-
an medical station has been established in the Toshogu yards. Every one
who wishes to receive treatment, Go and get it!" The hospital mentioned
last night had not come. While I was offering water during the middle of
the night, people would ask "Hasn't the boat come yet?" Not knowing what
to reply, I despised the indolence and cowardliness of physicians. Now,
however, as I heard that an aid station had been established, I made up
my mind to bring the doctor to this place. I firmly believed that Sentei
gardens was the most dreadful refuge spot and that all the doctors in Japan
should rush over to this area. Actually, similar places of refuge could
be found all over the city.

After gathering a group of people who wished to go to the aid sta-

39.

tion, I got across the river with them. On the way, one refined old
lady clung to my side. She said, "Where do you think my son is?
Please find him for me." She told me that she had selected Hiroshima
as a safer place than Tokyo, which was then frequently raided, and had
come a few days before to be looked after by her son who was a physician.
From her appearance, I knew that she had had a narrow escape. She was
barefoot. I took her hands saying, "My lady, don't worry. There's an
aid station over there and maybe your son is working there helping people".
I comforted her and we went to the place together.

The aid station was in one corner of the East Parade Grounds in the
yards of the Toshogu Shrine. A group of medical people had arrived from
the city of Mihara and had begun work here. A few doctors and about ten
nurses were busily engaged in treating the wounds. I approached one of
the doctors that seemed to be the leader, "Doctor, I am a town committee
man of Noboricho and I have all our wounded gathered in one place. Would
you kindly come and look at them?" I asked. He answered, "I would like
to, but look here. Look at the great number of people.... and more are
still coming. I am not able to leave this place." In front of the doc-
tor thousands of people were lined in four or five rows and were waiting
for their turn. "But," I insisted, "But doctor! There are much more ser-
ious cases in Sentei than here. It is crowded with seriously wounded
people." However the doctor coolly replied, "In an emergency like this
we act quite the opposite from the way we do on normal occasions. In
ordinary times, the serious cases come first and the slight ones later.
On this occasion, the slight ones come first and the serious ones later.
You see, we must save as many people as possible." I said, "Well, that
may be so, but....." I could find no words to continue. Never before
had I thought so ill of a doctor as at that time, when I saw this one
carrying on his treatment of these wounded as if he were paying no atten-
tion to my appeals.

40.

It was then that I saw Mr. Matsuo calling out towards the rows of people "Yoshiko! Yoshiko!" He had not found his daughter yet. He had looked for her at her husband's home in Ushita and her relatives' place in Gion-machi and whatever place that had come to his mind, but she could not be found. Mr. Matsuo had thought he might, by chance, find her among the patients at the medical aid stations, so he went to all such places that he could find and even checked up on the name lists, but it was all in vain. She had got up early the previous morning and was on her way to her husband's home in order to prepare meals for me since I was evacuating her things. It was then that she met disaster on the road. She was still missing. According to later findings, she was burned and had slept a few nights out of doors. Then she reached home and after a few days under her parents' care she had died.

By the time the sufferers had finished their breakfast, at about eight o'clock, the sun had begun to shine on the greatly changed Hiroshima. Many wounded persons were still lying on the banks. The sun shone upon their painful wounds without any restraint. They were panting in the hot weather and were hiding their heads in the grasses. Those who had already died were smelling terrible. We decided to gather all the dead bodies in one place and to fix shady places for the injured. I gathered the slightly injured people again and organized two parties, giving them each an assignment.

Before the raid, I had once asked for the cooperation of other churches in evacuating the articles of the church. I had borrowed one large canvas tent for street preaching from the Miyuki Bridge Church. As there were no other places to put people, I had thought of keeping them in the tent. Remembering that it was left with the Tada family in Ushita. I went after it with a group of men to carry it back. Even though there were storehouses and a treasury house in Sentei, they had all been burned. One hut, which was a little way off, had been destroyed but had not been burned.

41.

Inside it we found a cart which we pulled out. We started out with it, but every path was blocked with the remains of burned down telephone poles and wires, and broken concrete walls. There was not a single place where we could pull the cart so we took it apart, and carried it.

Finally, we got to the street car tracks in Hakushina-cho. The iron frames of streetcars were standing here and there. Standing beside the bank there was a derailed car with its roof torn off, but it had not caught on fire. Inside the car, there were two young men who were scarcely breathing. An army officer called and stopped us, asking us to carry these two injured people. Unable to reject them, we put them into our cart as was asked and took them to the medical aid station which had been established in the ruins of the barracks of the Second Unit.

The large West Parade Ground was crowded with the dead bodies of people who had been unable to escape. Iron sheets and scorched trees which had been spun up into the air, were lying around. The grounds south, west and east of the Second Unit Camp were devastated fields destroyed by fire. Not a single tree was standing. A few huge steel-reinforced concrete buildings stood lonely among the ruins. Where ever the eye could reach, it was like a prairie destroyed by fire!

We went back again to the road in Hakushima and crossed the Tokima bridge. From this bridge the upper and lower parts of the river could be seen for a considerable distance. Numerous dead bodies could be seen floating up the river as the tide gradually rose. Strange to say, the bodies of those killed by the atomic bomb were all swollen. The bodies were much more swollen than they had been yesterday. They were floating lightly on the water as if they were about to burst like toy riding horses made of paper. We passed by the Nigitsu Shrine and today there were dead bodies lying around, in place of the crowds who were taking refuge yesterday. After loading the tent on our cart, we eventually got back to the Sentei banks again. We could not return by the same road, so we went to the oppo-

42.

site side of the river in Sentei by passing through Osuka-machi and getting across the river in a boat after first taking the cart apart. The ashes in the ruins were still hot, and sometimes my feet would sink a foot or two in them. This was dangerous as one could very easily get burned. We had been able to bring the tent back with much trouble, but it was even more trouble to put it up. We had no tools to use, but finally we managed, somehow to put up the tent. It was big enough to hold about twenty or thirty people.

After we finished our work, we were served some half-stale meals. It must have been around two or three o'clock. I felt extremely tired and could no longer work in the heat so I lay down in the shrubs as if dead.

The other party was cremating the dead. This was done mainly by the bereaved. They were also wounded but with the help of their friends, they were cremating the bodies of their dear ones. Some of the people, who were cremating others died two or three days later and, in turn, were cremated by their friends. Knowing nothing about their own fates, these people worked in silence. They cremated the others without shedding any tears. I had regarded the burial of the dead as my own mission, but now I came to think that those relatives who had volunteered for this work, were more suitable.

Later, Mrs. Kamai, would ask, every time she saw me, "Did you see my husband"? Every time this happened I was afraid to tell her the truth so I began trying to avoid her. Her friends had told her, many times, to cremate her dead baby which already smelled terrible. She would cling to her baby saying, "I want to have my husband see her one more time". On the following day she finally consented to cremate her baby. The sight of this young mother carrying her dead baby among the ruins for three whole days had made even the men cry.

By the time the sun had gone down I had become somewhat revived. Some hopeless cases on the banks began to die. Others, who seemed a little

43

43.

revived, sought refuge with their relatives. Mr. Imanshi, chairman of our neighborhood association, who had stubbornly insisted on remaining in the ruins, notwithstanding his bad wounds, was sent off to his relatives in the country at my suggestion. Only the people who had no other place to take refuge were gathered into the tent. Some who were making other use of their shelters were also taken in.

In the evening, I went to the parsonage in the ruins and made a detailed inspection. The shelter, which I had built myself and in whose strength I had confidence, was completely burned down. I had buried some food-stuff in the ground and it was all baked. I gathered up the burned rice, put it into a tin can, and took it back so that I could feed my wife and child.

On my way I had accompanied Mr. Nishimura who was the oldest member of the church. I had met him that morning on my way to the aid station. I did not notice him, until he called to me because his face was so much changed. As he said he had no place to take refuge, I took him along with me thinking that I might be able to ask some of my church members to take him in. However I could not take him directly to another place, so I took him to Mrs. Tada's house where my wife was staying. On my way back, I dropped in at the Yokoyama and Tomita homes. These people were members of the church. Both houses were in the hills so they were safe.

In the Tada home, there were about five or six soldiers who belonged to the transport troops at Fukayama. They said that yesterday when they were in the mountains about ten miles from Hiroshima they had seen, through field glasses, a B-29 dropping something in a parachute. After it had been learned that Hiroshima had been bombed, they had been dispatched to the ruined city to help clean up the debris. There were two or three outsiders staying in every house nearby.

I washed myself in the dark brooklet and went to bed, but I could not sleep the whole night. My feet were tired and my whole body was cold.

44.

Inquiring about Church members.

August 8. (Wednesday)

In those days, Hiroshima was divided into a few hundred districts, and the protection of life and property was looked after by the respective localities. In the event the whole city was raided, our church members had to rely on this "neighborhood system" for there was no other means of protection. Therefore, I had done my duty as a citizen rather than as a pastor, but I returned to my original duties as a minister on this third day after the bombing.

Putting aside all other matters, I thought I should make inquiries about my church members. However, as most of the city was in abodes their locations could not be ascertained. Thinking that the best way was to start by visiting the members in the suburbs I had selected Ushita as the first place to go. Ushita lies in the northern end of the city and is about three or four kilometers from the center of the explosion. To its west flows the Oto River, and to the east there rises the Futaba Hills which made this the safest area in the city.

Shortly after breakfast, taking my wife and the baby, I began my task of visiting the homes of all of my church members who lived in the Ushita district. First, I called on the Kametaka's. The house was, unexpectedly, badly damaged. Mr. Kametaka was lying inside a mosquito net which was hanging out in the garden. He had long served as a ship 'captain' in the China Line. While he was standing outside, his left cheek and hands had been burned by the radiation from the atomic bomb. He was badly hurt. The family had already taken in several survivors and was taking care of these people. Mrs. Kametaka was a well-educated Christian lady. She had graduated from the Tokyo Women's Normal College.

Next I visited the Sawanos. This house was also half destroyed but Mrs. Sawano and her daughter Rieko were safe. Mr. Sawano was in the navy so he was not home. I asked Mrs. Sawano to take care of old man Nishimura.

45.

The old Mr. Nishimura had served as the dean of the Hiroshima Jogakuin Girls College Department for some ten years, and Mrs. Sawano had been one of his students. She gladly consented to look after him.

The Awaya's had also survived, and both husband and wife were well. The Hayashi house was badly damaged. Mr. Hayashi had been putting on his shoes inside the house, and he was about to go out when he was hit hard on the head. He was covered with blood, but it was not a fatal blow. Mrs. Hayashi was safe. In the Sato home, Mrs. Sato had been cut all over the body with glass, but she was not a critical case. Mr. Sato, a rear-admiral and the commanding officer of the Kure Navy Corps, came home and was astonished at the great damage.

It was terribly hot weather so I went back for a while. I tried to go out again in the afternoon, but my body was heavy and I seemed to have a little fever, so I changed my mind and went to bed.

My wife's younger sister Nuvoko, who had heard of the Hiroshima air-raid came anxiously to see us. The train could go no further than Koi station so from there she took the same road which I had used on the day of the bomb and reached our Nobori-sho. Carrying her baby Kumiko in her arms she arrived there after passing through the ruins. She was panting in the hot weather. On her way, she had seen numerous bodies. When she reached Nobori-sho she saw the parsonage in ashes and began to search around the place crying, "Oh sister, sister!"

Finally she found the place where the people of Nobori-cho were taking refuge, and, hearing that the Tanimotos were in Ushita, she came to see us there. Without taking much rest, she headed back for Koi again- a distance of seven kilometers- because her mother was to come the next day. She thought that her mother, on account of her weakness, would become ill upon seeing this terrible condition. My wife Chisako went to see Niwako off to the Nobori-cho refugee camp and they said good-bye. At that time I was sick in bed.

46.

On her way back my wife had seen an express paper which said, "The bomb dropped over Hiroshima is a new weapon". This had been announced by the Imperial Headquarters. She told me of this, and, as we ourselves had fully experienced its power, we could not keep from feeling bitter because the authorities were taking the bomb so lightly.

After supper, as I felt rather good, I got up and started to inquire about my church members again. This time I headed for the hills. As the Notoyoshis lived behind some mountains, the house was only slightly damaged and all the members of the family were safe. Professor Matsushita and his wife and his mother were taking refuge here. His old mother was safe as she had been a little way out in the hills where the Jogakuin's training camp stood. The Matsushitas had been buried under their house, but they had survived with only slight injuries. Mrs. S. Shibayama and her daughter Nanako were taking refuge here too. Mrs. Shibayama's shoulder blade was fractured and she had a piece of cross-shaped wood supporting her arm. Miss Kobori was also injured, but her wounds were not serious.

Shimezir, the husband of the Motoyoshi's second daughter Midori, had been in their home until recently. As he was on duty with his company on the day of the bomb, he had gone to his father's home in the city, and they had both been killed. The ashes of their bodies were later recovered. Mrs. Shimizu had been waiting for a bus, in order to go home, and was standing at the terminal in Ushita when she felt the flash of the bomb. The silk parasol she held went up in flames in a moment, and her hands and face were burned.

Mrs. Motoyoshi was very busy taking care of all of the above mentioned refugees. She had graduated from the Lambeth Training School for Christian Workers in Osaka and was a fine lady. Her house had been used as a temporary office for the Jogakuin. It was a center for liaison work between the school and the parents of the students.

When I came out of their house, thinking of going further into the

47.

hills to make a few more visits, I encountered Mr. T. Takahashi, a lawyer. He was carrying cooking utensils which he had dug out of the ruins. As we walked along I asked about the family. His wife, aged mother, and three of his children had been evacuated to the training hall and were safe. This training hall had not been absolutely safe even though it was six kilometers from the explosion. The green trees nearby, had caught on fire from the radiation of the atomic bomb, and the ladies there had fought fiercely to stop the fire.

His daughters Ruriko, Beniko and Nemuko were staying at their main house in Teppo-sho. Ruriko had lived in Tokyo after her marriage, but she had returned to Hiroshima because she thought it was safer than Toyko with its frequent air raids. The night before the explosion, her husband had come, by a midnight express train, to see her in Hiroshima. Rejoicing Ruriko had met her husband.

She was making breakfast for him when the bomb exploded. He was asleep upstairs at the time. Having been thrown out into the garden from upstairs, he thought that he was still in Toyko and had run out into the streets and joined some of the crowd. He had been bruised all over his body.

By the time he realized that he was in Hiroshima he had reached the Takiwa Bridge. "My goodness," he thought, "What has happened to my wife and her sisters?" By the time he had hurried back to the house it was already in flames and he could not approach it. Finally he climbed the hills and went to the place to which his wife's parents had been evacuated. Now, he was sick and was being cared for there.

Mr. Takahashi had, on this day, dug out the bones of Ruriko and Beniko. Nemuko, who was a student, was missing since she had gone to school for labor service early in the morning. "She must be lost because she isn't back." he said in a gloomy voice. In deep thought Mr. Takahashi, who had lost three members of his family at once, said, "What a terrible thing man has invented! Why can't war be avoided if men are ingenious enough to invent such things?"

Next I visited Dr. Matsumoto, principal of the Jogakuin, and his daughter, Yuko, at the training camp and then returned home. The Ebuchi brothers who earnestly attended the young people's department of my Church lived next door to Mrs. Tada's house. As they could not go to sleep because of their bitter feelings after finding out that their youngest brother, Akufuki had been killed, I went over to sleep with them. When I laid my hands on their heads and prayed they slept quietly.

August 9 (Thursday)

As soon as I got up I fixed an altar in the alcove of a room of the Ebuchi house. On it I placed the relics and a photograph of the deceased.

At Mrs. Kusuhara's home, next door to Mrs. Tada's, a funeral service was also being prepared. Their daughter had been a student at the Jogakuin, and she had been badly burned while helping to tear down houses. She managed to get home and was taken care of but had died the night before. I had learned about this for the first time when Mrs. Tada told me about it as she was preparing to go over to help her neighbors. I took my wife along and went next door. I read the liturgy and offered a prayer. In tears the mother and brother went to the bedside of the girl. Non-Christians in Hiroshima whose temples were gone and whose priests were injured welcomed the religious services conducted by a Christian pastor.

I wanted to devote myself to my duties as a pastor, but still I could not forget my other duties as a citizen. As the food was all distributed through the district organizations, I had to contact the municipal authorities and make arrangements to get rations for my family and also for the survivors in my district. The Chugoku Press' steel reinforced concrete building had been destroyed by fire and was used as the temporary distribution center. I took along a few girls from the district and we received some cookies. I divided these among the survivors and also took some of them to the refugees whom I had sent away from Sentei two days before to the houses of my church members in Ushita.

In the afternoon, I cleaned up Mrs. Tada's house where I was staying. Wall plaster covered the rooms, and the roof had lost tiles. This cleaning work was really difficult. Of course, since the soldiers began to stay,

the house had been cleaned and repaired, but it had not changed much since
the day of the bombing.

Usually the soldiers would leave early in the morning and come back late
in the evening. They were assigned to very heavy work which could not be
undertaken except by soldiers. Their job was to dispose of the dead bodies
that were lying all over the city. They picked up all the bodies, which
were already suppurating and swollen. They carried them on stretchers,
one by one, and gathered them all in one place. Then they poured oil on
the bodies and set fire to them. They worked daily from morning till night
without relief. No one could do this work except on orders issued by the
army. I had seen many soldiers engaged in this work in the sandy river
beds and at the foot of the Tokiwa Bridge.

In the evening, I went to see the ruins of my parsonage again. I
wanted to dig out foodstuffs, cooking utensils, and fuel which were buried
underground. In the strong air raid shelter of the Mitsui house next door,
Mr. S. Tanaka was groaning with pain. His daughter called "Tanimoto-san,
please come for a moment. My father is not well. Please help me." As it
was already becoming dark, I had borrowed a candle and match from Mr. Itaya
who was living in a stronger shelter of the Matsui nearby and
entered the shelter where Mr. Tanaka was lying. Mr. Tanaka's face and
hands were swollen and suppurating. He smelled like a dead man. He seemed
to be in terrible pain. The daughter said, "For a little while were were
glad to see our four missing children. However, how terrible it is now
to see our father pass away in this condition." The grandchildren were
crying, "Grandpa, oh Grandpa."

I took the children out and comforted them. Then I sat by Mr.
Tanaka's pillow and encouraged him, saying, "Tanaka-san, cheer up you have
served our town very well in the past. You have a glorious end. His daughter

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"We'll continue, Mr. Tanimoto-san, please pray for him." I continued, "I'll read from the Bible. These passages which I quote from the Scripture will express your life. Listen closely." Then I read from Psalms, Chapter 90:

in a loud voice
As I finished reading, I prayed from God's blessing to be given to Mr. Tanaka. He took his last breath as I was saying the prayers.

When Mr. Tanaka had been the head of the district association in Nabori-cho, he had always disagreed with the vice heads and other members. I had intervened in order to preserve peace in the district. Unexpectedly I had incurred the hatred of Mr. Tanaka. Making use of the disadvantageous position of the Chrisitan church which was then closely watched by bother civil and military police, he had spread rumors that I was an American spy. the fact that I had received some American education was another reason why he wanted to eliminate me.

He rose to Heaven with the protection of the prayers of a man he had once slandered as a spy.

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August 10 (Friday)

There was one other home in Ushita where family belonged to our church.
It was the family of Mrs. Shizu Nobutoki. Kayoko, her second daughter, had
the best attendance record at Sunday School. She had been missing since
she had gone out for labor service. When I received notice saying that her
ashes had been returned home, I immediately set out for her house. Kneeling
in front of the box containing her ashes, I read the Bible, sang from the
hymnal, and said prayers.

The students, in those days, had been mobilized and each one had some
kind of assignment. The primary school children were evacuated from the
City and were living separated from their parents in the country. The high
school senior classes were sent to plants and the junior classes were used
in public works. Kayoko had been in her first year at the Prefectural Girls'
High School. On the day of the bomb, from very early in the morning, she
had been helping to break down houses near Dobashi which is about five
hundred meters away from the center of explosion. Kayoko and about ten girl
friends from Ushita district who used to go to school with her had been
taking a rest behind the clay wall of a temple when, all of a sudden, the
group had been struck and had been buried underneath the thick wall. According
to one of these girls, who had made her way out and was later taken to
the Red Cross Hospital, the other girls resolved to suffocate in the smoke
when they realized that there was no way to escape. Without anyone's suggestion
they began to sing the *Kimiga Yō*, our national anthem, and died
together.

A few days later, Mrs. Nobutoki found Kayoko's body without serious
wounds under the clay wall. Takae, the younger sister of Mr. K. Kurahashi,
one of my Church members, who used to be her classmate was still missing.

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Mr. Nobutoki, her father, who was an agricultural engineer, in the Prefectural Office was also missing. The prefectural government office was near the center of the explosion so the six hundred employees there had all been killed immediately.

I went out to Sentei gardens in order to fold up the tent. There were no patients now, and the tent already folded, had been left behind.

The tent flaps were the only present which could be given to people who had to sleep on the ground. Mr. Tanaka had died with one of them under him, and the son of Mr. Hori had died with the other underneath him. Mr. Ando was also using one now, but I did not say a word about it. I decided to use it as the office of our district after brining it from Sentei to the ruins.

I did so because relatives and friends, upon visiting the district, would come, one by one, to make inquired about many people. This tent had been borrowed from another church, and it had to be returned sometime. However, I was thankful that in such days of distress it had become an article of comfort to people.

With the above arrangements completed I went to the ruins of the church. Up till now I had often seen its ruins from far away, but this was the first time I had studied it carefully. There was no trace left of the Sunday School Building except the cellar. Only the steel frame of the Chapel was still standing. The whole place had been turned into a desolate ruins. I sat down on the ashes for a while and offered a silent prayer.

A gentleman was standing in front of the gate. He asked me, "Where is the district office?" He had been wandering about in the ruins of the barber shop which had stood in front of the Church. When I approached him he pointed down to a ditch and said, "There's a dead body here." I looked in as he spoke and saw a body that had been burned to death. It seemed to be that of a woman.

It was already badly swollen.

"Could it be somebody from the barber shop?," I inquired. "No, It's the next doore neighbor," he replied briefly. "Who do you mean," I asked again. "It's Mrs. Hiraoka," he said. "It can't be," I replied, She must have been living in Hakushima." He continued, "She got killed on that last day. She had said that she would start moving out on the following day." He talked as if he knew everything about her. He proceeded a few steps and pointing down he said, "Her daughter Toshiko's body lay here. Yesterday, I took it away. She was in some white ashes in a place that seemed to be the stairway. I'm her Uncle. I wondered about my sister's body but now I've found it here." "I see," I said, "I'M the pastor of this church. I knew Toshiko very well. She had lost her father, but I could see her helping her mother with the vigor of yer youth. Keeping her deep sorrow to herself, she used to pull cartloads of goods for evacuation. What a pity it was for her to die like this. Let me offer my prayers for her."

Under the burning sun, we both knelt down to pray, "Oh God, I pray Thee, give They tender blessings upon Toshiko for her life of faith ever since she way young. May she rest in bountiful peace. Her uncle first very happy and thankful that Toshiko had been related the the Church. I parted with him after asking that the body of Mrs. Hiraoka be reported to the police so that they dould have it cremated by the solders."

Neat the Church there was the steel reinforced concrete Industrial Bank, but its interior had been burned. There on the ground now lay crowds of severely injured people. They were lying on straw mats or on sheets of newspapers. The nurses were working among the patients for a full 24 hour shift. I walked about peering into every face, to see if I could find some of my Church members. They were all smelling from infections and were scarcely

5-5

breathing.

Among them I found the son of Mr. Hori. He was a small boy about eight years old. Some medicine was being applied to his arms and back which had been burned. He cried in pain, "Itai, Itai! Ouch, Ouch!" when a cloth covered with pus was removed. His father who was looking after him, gave the boy a rice ball to eat to relieve his feelings, he took it and ate a bite. In the meantime, the treatment was finished.

The bodies of those who had already died were lying with straw mats over their faces. At the entrance and on the walls outside, the names of those who had been taken in were listed on large sheets of paper. The names of those who had died here and who had been identified were also listed. Many people came and stood in front of the lists and looked for the names of relatives and friends.

It was known that the second atomic bomb had been dropped on Nagasaki. As electric wires were still down and radios could not be heard, outside affairs were not immediately known. XXXXX Even newspapers were not yet available. This afternoon the news was brought by someone who had heard it from a traveller. My heart was heavy with grief as I thought of the fate of Nagasaki.

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August 11 (Sat.)

I left home early in the morning carrying lunch as I was going to make further inquiries about my church members. First, I dropped into the Sawano home. There I found that the injured leg of the aged Mr. Nishimura seemed to be infected. Dr. Hirawa was taking in refugees here.

One day of the bomb, Dr. Hiraiwa was downstair having a talk with his son who had just come home from the University in Tokyo after a long absence. Just after they had finished their breakfast they had been buried under the house. In pitch black darkness they were caught under beams so heavy that they could hardly breathe. After calling his son's name he could hear a reply from somewhere, "Father, I can't move because I'm pressed under a heavy beam." They both struggled hard, but the beams only seemed heavier. After a short while the son said, "Father ...... Listen, can you hear that? -- a crackling sound? It seems like the house had caught fire ...... Father, we're lost. We'll never get away, Father. Let's give up ..... Tenno Heika Banzai, Banzai, Banzai ....." The father also joined him in these cheers.

He stopped his story, looked up at me, and said, "Pastor. The Japanese are strange people aren't they? After I had determined to die for the Tennō's sake, I felt a calmeness in my hear." This man was a professor of physics in the Hiroshima University of Literature and Science, and his father was a bishop of the Methodist Church of Japan. He was a fine Christian who had received Christian education since his boyhood.

Shortly afterward, his son began to move and crawled out on top of the roofing. He tore away the roofing where his father had been buried and pulled him out like a carrot from the ground" to use his father's expression. The father had been crippled and the son was also injured, so every time they moved, the father was dragged along like a large piece of baggage. They

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finally managed to reach the streets where they were rescued by a group of university students and taken to a safety zone. However, the son went after his mother in spite of the danger involved. Mrs. Hiraiwa had been on duty with the neighborhood association and had gone out to help evacuate houses. She was still missing, although her son had risked his life for her.

Departing from the Sawano house, I went out to Noboricho. Our church organist, Mrs. T. Hata, who had served for a long period, was safe as she had been in the Teacher's College which was several kilometers away in Tanna. Two pianos which had been in her house were burned and nothing was left them. No trades had been found of Mrs. Oguro. According to the stories told by her neighbors, she must have been carrying her baby "Jun" to Hakushima that morning. She was still missing. Her husband was a Methodist pastor and was away at the front. In the ruins of Mr. M. Enya's home there was a sign saying, "Family safe in Tokaichi. Minoru is missing."

From Shino-Nagarekawa street I headed towards Komachi. This area was within the ×pikukurō× sphere one kilometer from the atomic explosion. The aged Mrs. ××××××× Noguchi and her son's whole family were missing. They were all great believers, and ××× Mr. Noguchi had served as treasurer of the church for several years. In the ruins of Arita's house, there stood a sign with

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the following words, "Parents safe in Yoshijima. Kijoko, Ariko and
Taro rest in peace here." I sang the hymn "We Shall Reach the Summer
Land" and prayed.

A few hundred yards nearer to the center of the explosion, there
was the house of Mr. Komori, a lawyer. No sign stood. It was learned
later that the husband and wife, with their daughter who had come from
Tokyo accompanied by her three children,--a total of six persons-- were
killed. I proceeded on toward the center. At every step the brown ashes
under my feet would fly up. The August sun was shining brightly, and, sweating and panting, I walked on. There was not a single tree under which one
could rest. There was not even a place where I could sit to eat my lunch.
Being very thirsty, I drank water out of pipes which were leaking here and
there.

Finally, I stood at one end of the 'T' bridge near the Jizenji-bana.
Dr. Koizumi was operating a private pediatric hospital here. Bible classes
were frequently held in this house. This was the place which the scientists
later established as the approximate center of explosion. At the time of
the bombing she must have been in the house, for she was rather weak and
always used to get up late. I looked around carefully, in search of the
ashes of nurses or house-maids who might have been there, but not even one
piece of bone could be found. The shelter in the ground, which I had made
for them a month before, had disappeared and left no traces. The one
characteristic of this area was that with the exception of the Industries
Promotion Hall of which only a bone-like frame remained, there was absolutely nothing left. All war-devastated areas have similar scenery, but
here in Hiroshima, everything within one kilometer from the explosion had
been completely destroyed. (The homes were annihilated which required no
liaison at all.)

I passed through the banking district around Kamijō-cho and stood
amidst the ruins of the Yoshida house, but there was no sign there. I made

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my way into one of the large bank buildings to avoid the heat for a short
time. All the banks were destroyed in the fire, and although the concrete
walls were standing, the interiors were crushed from the roofs down to the
grounds.

Survivors with painful appearances were hurrying along the streets to
get certificates as sufferers and also for receiving food. The soldiers were
were busily engaged in cleaning up the streets. At dusk I returned home
and saw on the way that the farther I went away from the center of the city
the greater were the number of places cremating the dead. Although I could
not see well in the dark, I could hear voices pronouncing Buddhist words
here and there. Perhaps the bereaved were picking up the ashes of the dead.
August 12 (Sunday).

This was Sunday. During the war, the attendance at Sunday services
had greatly decreased, and only a little more than ten could be counted in
the large chapel. I was now terribly lonesome for I had lost a place for
both sermons and for the people in the congregation who used to come at the
risk of their lives. With Mrs. Tada and the Ebuchi brothers, I held my
first service since the disaster. We had no hymn books or Bibles and the
sermon was without preparation, but the service was a very impressive one
for the prayers had power and everyone felt enthusiastic.

In the evening I brought my family with me to Tsuzu on the train. We
went because we needed rest as not only myself but also my wife and baby
were suffering from the same kind of diarrhea. We could also get food there
The Hiroshima railway station was two kilometers away from the explosion.
Nothing was left except its black frame. As this station was the traffic
center leading to various districts in the Chugoku region the station was
terribly crowded. When the bomb exploded at quarter past eight every plat-
form was crowded with passengers. It is said that all except those who
were walking in under-passages were injured. The station turned into a
bloody chaos. As just a few days had passed since the railroad began to

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operate again, the station was still filled with injured refugees. As long
as we had certificates showing we were refugees we could where ever we
wanted without paying any fare. The passengers getting on at Hiroshima were
all refugees in ragged clothes with injuries so terrible that they could
hardly be looked at. The passengers on the train invited us with respect,
into the coaches, as if we were brave heroes. Here and there conversations
went on about experiences during and after the bombing and also about the
"new weapon".

August 13 (Monday)

We still suffered from diarrhea. Following the advice of my wife and
sister, I lay down and rested the whole day. While I was in bed, I read,
for my first time since the bombing, all papers of those days and got my
own comments on the announcement of the war-leaders.

The Imperial Headquarters seemed to be so astonished at the unprecede-
ted bombing that it issued an announcement: "Details are now being investi-
gated. It is presumed to be a new weapon." On August 9th, the following
precautions to be taken against the new weapon had been announced by the
Air Defense G. HQs:

1. Air raid shelters are found to be very efficient against the new bomb. Have confidence in your shelters and make full use of them by reinforcement and good maintenance.

2. If you wear clothes similar to military clothing there is
no need to worry about burns. Your hands and feet will be fully protected
from burns if you wear air-raid-defense hoods and gloves.

3. In sudden attacks when you cannot make use of the above
mentioned shelters, fall to the ground or take refuge beside strong build-
ings.

4. Avoid shelters inside buildings and take refuge only in
outdoor shelters.

There is no need to fear the new model bomb if you observe the above

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stated precautions.

Other counter-measures against the new model bomb had also appeared. They suggested with great confidence that they were the best steps to be taken for protection from the atom bomb. On this day, however, the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The Air Defense General Headquarters announced similar kinds of counter measures on the 11th. The newspaper that published them had an article on the same page showing by the experience of one of the survivors of the Hiroshima bombing that the counter measures drafted by the Air Defense G. Hq. would be effective.

However the experience related was that of Mr. Seiichi Miyata, a civilian working for the military forces, who lived in the southern part of the city at Minami Kawnon-machi. 2 chome. This was 1.5 kilometers from the explosion, and the houses in this area were so scattered that there was not as much damage as in other places. Therefore, the counter measures released by the Air Defense Headquarters might have helped those outside a sphere of 1.5 to 2 kilometers from the explosion, but, most of those within this sphere had been killed. Although the government knew how thousands of people had been killed, it still issued orders which ignored the facts.

At the time of the bombing, my friend Mr. Keikichi Koizumi was in his home a 2 chome, Minami-machi and had not been hurt. His grandson Hisao was a fifth grader in the Honkawa Primary School, located near the center of the explosion. Risking his life in the conflagration, he had rushed into the city in anxiety because of the boy. Following the Ujima streetcar line he had reached the Hiroshima Branch Office of the Japanese Bank which was 300 meters from the explosion. There he saw one streetcar remaining on the tracks. Inside the scorched car he could see heaps of white bones piled on top of each other. There was one skeleton which had hold of the handle of the street car door and had one foot standing on the iron step at the entrance. In a moment's time that person had been

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changed into white bones by the heat of the atomic bomb radiation. Since such cases were known it was quite clear how inadequate the counter measures suggested by the Air Defense General Headquarters would be.

The suggestions for the prevention of fires from atomic radiation were useless for they encouraged everyone to be alert for fires which might start in damaged buildings. However there had been very few in Hiroshima who were in condition to fight fires. Some of the conflagrations in Hiroshima may have been caused by the remains of fires used in cooking, by electric lights, and by gas ranges, but they must have been only a few out of the total number. The heat radiating from the atomic bomb had been so great that it had immediately started fires.

The wooded mountains in the Ushita and Roi districts, several kilometers away, had even caught on fire. A house that stood in the middle of paddies in the neighborhood of Dr. S. Matsubayashi, my church member, had had some straw stacked against the house. Instantly it had burst into flame from the heat. The whole house had burned down in spite of a fight against the fire. The majority of houses in the city had been burned down in a similar manner.

It had not even been safe inside the steel reinforced concrete buildings. Even though the frames had stood against the fires, the interior damages had been great. Of all those who were in such buildings those who had survived were few. All people who had been inside the Fukuya Department Store or the Chugoku Building had been killed. The human casualties within one kilometer of the center had been terrific.

While we were still suffering from such great damage the pressure of the Allied Forces had continued without mercy. On the 8th, the Russians declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria. On the 9th, the second atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Still we had thought only of fighting to the last of our 70,000,000 people or of ending the war with a negotiated peace.

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August 14 (Tuesday)

As we had regained our vigor a little, we decided to return to
Hiroshima. The second station at which the train stopped was Iwakuni.
This was where the Gantōku line parted from the Sanyo main line, and it
was a strategic point. As the B-29s had heavily bombed this place with
its army petroleum tanks, everyone wanted to look out from the train. How-
ever, as was usually done, the blinds on both sides of the train were pulled
down, and each coach was closely watched by the "Special Police" and "M.Ps."
We had to pass through blindfolded, but, as the train travelled so slowly,
is made us wonder even more about the place. People, like ourselves, who
had experienced the atomic bomb were very bitter about such secret actions
which were taken by the authorities.

When we got home everyone in the family felt fairly well, but the
diarrhea still persisted. I worked to repair a bicycle which I had brought
back from the ruins several days before. Fortunately the bicycle itself
was undamaged, but half of the tires on both wheels had been burned. I
remedied the situation by using some of the rubber hose used as fire equip-
ment as a substitute for tires. The bicycle was very heavy, but it could
go through ruins filled with broken pieces of tiles without getting a flat.
I felt vigorous and had courage and strength as if I had obtained a million
yen. Under these good conditions I made more trips to inquire about my
church members.

In the afternoon, at about three o'clock, I headed for Hakushima
for the first time. It lies within two kilometers of the explosion. At
the ruins of Mrs. Y. Yoshida's house there stood a sign saying "Safe. Now
at c/o Yoshiya Satuzo, Omori-mura, Asa-gun". Next I dropped in to see Miss
Yamamoto. Her home had been almost completely destroyed. Only one corner
of the house remained untouched by the fire. What little remained of her
house was in confusion. She was a teacher at the Hiroshima Jogakiun, and,
as she had been working in a war-plant with her students outside of Hiro-

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shima, nothing had happened to her. Her father had been at home and had been injured. She cared for him, but he had died in a few days. Her mother had died a few months before the bombing so she was now all by herself. Living in a ruined house with no lock, she would get scared at night and imagine the footsteps of a cat to be those of a robber. However she was grateful to her father because all the necessities which were preserved were due to his efforts.

Right next door lived the Kawase family. Their house had been completely burned down, and they were now living together with another group of people. They had built a rough hut which was made of a few galvanized iron sheets hung from branches. They were injured but were still strong enough to make a living.

From Hakushima I headed toward Ote-machi which is in about the center of the city. On my way, I passed through the ruins of the former Imperial Headquarters. The castle which was used by the Asano lord had towered in the sky and symbolized the feudal Hiroshima. At the time of the Russo-Japanese War, the Imperial Headquarters had been located here by the Emperor Meiji. Ever since then the city had been known as the base for the Hiroshima Division which was known in the Japanese Army for its bravery.

The five or six story castle tower had been crushed, its roof had been blown off, and only huge logs, piled in a great heap, remained. The other military buildings were all in ashes. Nothing was left of the cavalry, infantry, and artillery barracks and Army Hospital surrounding the castle except their foundation stones. This place was within one kilometer from the explosion, and from it one could view all of Hiroshima. The city which had lost everything in the fire, as only a desert, as far as the eye could reach. Hiroshima, the militaristic city, had been completely destroyed from its very roots.

Panting from the heat, I reached Ote-machi. Street-like paths could not be found. Eventually, I stood in front of the Tsuru house. Mr.

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Tsuru was an old church committeeman and the principal of the Electricity School. The aged principal had insisted on dying with his school. However because of the strong advice given to him by his children and friends, he and his wife had moved to a house in Shinjo, in the country, just before the bombing. A sign stood in the ruins saying, "Students were all in Toyo Industries Co. and all are safe." Keiko, Kazuko, Tomiko, Kujoshi, missing. The missing were son and daughters of Mr. Tsuru who had been looking after the school. This was eight hundred meters from the atomic explosion.

Next I proceeded about two hundred meters south and arrived at Mr. Ishii's place. He was a Shizuoka prefecture man who used to be engaged in the tea trading business in New York. He was a devoted Christian. There was a sign saying, "Master missing. Mistress in Ondo". They had recently come to Hiroshima and had had trouble finding a house. Through my office they had rented a room in the house of the Tadehara family. The Tadeharas were in Ondo, and their two daughters had been looking after the house. A sign, that must have been written by the parents, read, "Teruko, Shizuko died here". Neither of the next door neighbors, the Makis and Omotesu had signs. The Fujies who lived next to them had left a sign which read, "Took refuge to Etajima".

Looking around toward the riverside about twenty yards away, I saw a pitiful-looking woman lying in a shelter which had not burned. As she was one of the residents of the district, I asked if she knew where the Omote and Maki families were, and she had answered, "I haven't the slightest idea".

It was already getting dark. As I stood among the ruins the homes of my church members who were now gone, the loneliness cut into my heart. In tears, I strolled around the ruins about a kilometer from the explosion, calling, "Omote-san, Maki-san, Ishi-san, Teruko....."

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August 15 (Wednesday)

I received a notice asking me to attend the district-town associa-
tion council meeting which was to be held in the Nobori-cho primary school
at ten in the morning. There were only a few who were able to gather in t
the school ground which itself had only two stone gate-pillars remaining.
Usually there had been about thirty present. Those who attended were
mostly representatives coming on behalf of the regular committeemen, each
one more or less injured. Only the so-called "Take-san" was one of my
acquaintances. His daughter was a good organ player, and she used to come
to help at church services. She had died with her mother in their home,
and her younger sister was said to be in a critical condition. All those
present, except myself, were suffering under similar circumstances. The
matters discussed were the distribution of food and clothing and other
relief work for serious cases.

A messenger from the City Hall arrived and said "Some important news will be broadcast at noon, and everyone is expected to listen". One of the representatives in the group remarked, "Um---Important news? What in heaven should the government have to say that is important now? Haven't they announced that the air-raid damages in Hiroshima were slight? We can't endure their deceitfulness any longer."

However, we concluded that we might as well listen to what there was
to be said so we gathered in front of the radios which had been installed in
various parts of the city. I went to the one in front of the Hiroshima
railway station. Great masses of people were already gathered in front of
the loudspeaker.

Eventually, the broadcast, which was unprecedented in history, began.
The announcer asked that the program be listened to with a sober attitude.
Then the _KIMI Ga Yo_ was played. Next the Emperor himself, began talking
directly to the people. Because of the sound control, the words were diffi-
cult to catch, but it was definitely an Imperial message in a loud voice.

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The words could not be understood, but the masses of people crowded in front of the station grounds, in spite of the hot weather, were already overwhelmed and moved to tears as they listened to the Emperor's voice.

Most of the people were in bandages. Some were on crutches and other injured people were leaning on the shoulders of their children. Some were standing at attention with their hands folded as if in prayer and were facing the loudspeaker and crying, but they were happy. The injuries and the sorrows because of lost dear ones were forgotten with the words of the Emperor. Everyone was sighing with gratitude.

While my eyes had been attracted to this scene I had forgotten about the radio for a short time. The essence of the broadcast was that the proposals of the four great powers had been accepted. This was followed by a talk by Prime Minister Suzuki. There were explanations about the past events which had led to the present situation and about the contents of the proposals of the four powers, but all through the broadcast things were not too clear. However, in brief, the war had ended and we had been defeated. It was too unexpected!

The people had been accustomed to being asked to prepare for a hundred years war and had even known that their land might be devastated. Not a single word of resentment had been expressed after the Hiroshima bombing. "I am always leading you. Wear yourself to the bones. Be ready to die as the protectors of the country" was what they had expected to hear. The termination of the war was far beyond their thoughts. It was such a great surprise. However it was the only step that could be taken to meet the appearance of the atomic bomb and the Soviet participation in the Pacific War. Peace was forced by our defeat!

I returned home, panting and gasping, without meeting anyone. I had no appetite. I did not talk to my wife, but instead crawled into bed and cried. Mrs. Tada, in doubt, walked among her neighbors trying to convince herself of the truth of the news. In the evening, I visited the Yokoyamas

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and received some goods I had left with them. Mrs. Yokoyama and her daugh-
ter Haruko heard of the important broadcast from me and broke into tears.
After a little while, Mrs. Yokoyama injected vitamins B and C into me and
I returned home.

Later, the soldiers came home completely discouraged. A certain
commanding officer who had not heard the news had drawn his sword in a rage
and declared, "The Emperor could not have announced the defeat of Japan.
I'll kill anyone who spreads such false rumors!" However, he had cried a
man's cry after he had been handed an express news sheet telling the truth.
The Emperor's broadcast had crushed our fighting spirit much more than the
atomic bomb had.

August 16 (Thursday)

In the morning papers, the important announcement appeared in detail.
As I gradually learned its real meaning, I became more disappointed and dis-
couraged. The grief of defeat in a war in which we had made such great
sacrifices from morning till night, cut deeply into my heart and really hurt.
I no longer had the vigor necessary for work. Ever since, the end of the
war many young people who were serious minded had fallen into the so-called
"vacuum state".

I read the papers, word by word, with a heart as heavy as lead. I
was deeply moved on coming to these words: "I cannot endure seeing the people
suffer further. I do not care what may happen to myself. In order to save
my subjects and the people of the world from the destruction of war, I have
accepted the Four Powers' proposals, enduring the unbearable and standing
all hardships." It was also mentioned in the Imperial rescript that a road
to eternal peace should be opened. I had received an inspiration from this
and found in it my future life aims. Let me struggle forever to construct
peace for eternity. War was denounced and a new Japan was born!

However to reach this mental attitude still took me days. I went out
daily with my lunch and ran around inquiring about my church members and

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friends. First I. dropped in at the Sawanos. Captain Sawano, of the Navy
was at home. He had long been the Sunday School superintendent of our
church and he spoke out enthusiastically, "The Japanese should make a new
start. The idea of world dominance was really an arrogant attitude. This
defeat in war is a divine providence for the Japanese to return to that
they are--The missions of religious people and educators are very important".
Leaving these as his last words, he retired to the mountainous
village in Yamaguchi prefecture with his family and has become a farmer.

After consulting the elderly man Mr. Nishimura, church committees
and Mr. Hayashi, the Treasurer, we decided to pour out all the church had
on this occasion to 1.- express consolation by offering to families who
had suffered damages or lost lives an amount of thirty yen for flowers and
2.- present 100 yen to those severely injured. With this token of
Christian fellowship I had visited 34 families in all since the disaster
and had offered prayers at their bedsides or in front of their relics.

From Ushita I went out to the Yokogawa district. The home of Dr. Goto,
a physician, had been completely burned to ashes. On a signboard was
written, "Injured but now in Gion-mura". The hihara's extravagant mansion
in Oshiba-machi was in ashes, but its occupants seemed to be safe.

From Yokogawa I went out to Nakahiro-machi. The farm fields here and
there had made natural fire barriers, and although there were houses which
had been badly damaged, some of them had not caught on fire. The Matsuo
and Knodo homes were in ashes. From surviving neighbors, I learned that
Mr. Matsuo had been killed instantly, his aged mother had been burned to
death, and his wife had been wounded and evacuated to Fukawa. The father
of the Konda family had been buried underneath the house and been burned
to death. His daughter Matsuko had been out in the country and was safe.
Although she was only a young girl, she was already at the ruins of her home.
She was living under a roof of galvanized iron sheets which had been laid
across the stone lanterns in the garden. She was away when I dropped in so

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I picked up a piece of charcoal and jotted down on a stone a notice of my visit.

August 17 (Friday)

I started out towards the center of the city and also its western districts. It was hot under the sun every day, but the number of people walking about was the same as usual. They were busy people like myself. Some were seeking information about their friends and relatives, some were carrying food stuffs and daily necessities which they had dug out from the ruins of their homes, some were picking up relics of dear ones and others were carrying the wounded to medical aid stations.

In the ruins of the home of Rev. Tagashira, a friend of mine, his wife's relics were discovered, but his body is still missing till this day. The diligent pastor must have met death while he was out, as usual from early in the morning, making visits to preach in the homes of his church members. The Yonehara's house had completely collapsed, but it had not caught on fire. However, it could never be occupied again. Mr. and Mrs. Yonehara had been evacuated and were staying in Shimane prefecture while their daughter and their son were remaining at the house.

Next door was the house of Mrs. Yoshimura, president of the church's ladies club. As Dr. and Mrs. Yoshimura had been evacuated to the country, the house had been occupied by their children and Mr. Shishido their relative. The story was as follows:

The Yoshimura house was within two kilometers of the atomic explosion. As the house was strongly built, it did not collapse and was only about half destroyed. Mr. Shishido was an Army Lieutenant. As he had worked hard most of the previous night without sleep, on account of an air-raid, he had been asleep when the bomb fell. His mosquito net had saved him from being cut by pieces of glass. He got up immediately and did marvelous work.

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When Hiromitsu, fourth son of the Yoshimura family, stepped out of the house he was covered up by roof tiles which fell on him. However he was saved without receiving any serious wounds. The elder sister Ryoko was also safe as she had been in the storehouse arranging furniture. The youngest girl Kyoko, who was then out for labor service tearing down houses, was being worried about when she came home with a ghost-like appearance and very bad burns. She had run back all the way home from Zakoba-machi which was about one kilometer from the atomic explosion. The minute she reached home she lost all her spirit and collapsed on the ground. Her sister, carried her into a concrete shelter. Katsutoshi, their elder brother,--who was a physician--happened to be nearby and came home. He took care of Kyoko, but because of the atomic disease and the severe burns she suffered a heart attack and died peacefully at five o'clock in the morning on August 7th.

In the afternoon, at about one o'clock, helped along by her young brother, Miss Yonehara reached the house of the Yoshimuras. Being a teacher at the Hiroshima Jogakuin, she had taken her students, early on the morning of the explosion, near the City Hall, a kilometer from the atomic center and was just about to begin work. As she took off her coat the explosion took place. She fell to the ground having received burns on the left side of her face, both forearms, and back. When she got to her feet she saw a miserable scene in which some of her students were buried underneath a house and were presumably dead, while many were suffering from burns and cuts. "I'll die here. I'll save my pupils even if I must die". she decided.

Paying no attention to her wounds she did her best and worked the whole day through rescuing others while incessantly praying to God. She was once surrounded by smoke and fire and dashed into the gutter to avoid the heat for a while. However she went back again to help others. Nevertheless, on such an occasion, it was difficult to rescue all the students

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no matter how heavily one worked. Eventually, the sun had set, and she left the spot with several pupils who were able to walk to the Japan Red Cross Hospital. She spent the night in the hospital's air defense shelter. She hardly felt alive because of her fatigue and the pain in her wounds.

The following morning she was found by her brother who came around looking for her. Having entrusted her pupils to the hospital, she started for home. The home, however, had been completely crushed to the ground, and there was no place for her so she went over to the Yoshimuras. Kyoko was so shaken at seeing Miss Yonehara's change in appearance that the latter scolded her, "Come now. Brace up, we're at war. Don't say you're already out of the game."

By this time the pains had increased, and she had become feverish. Her appetite faded, and she was unable to rise. On August 11, her mother came from Shimane prefecture to look after her. The next day, as she couldn't receive medical treatment at the Yoshimura house, she was transferred to the Red Cross Hospital and passes away on the 13th, at 9:10 A.M.

The pain from her injuries had been terrible, but she had not complained. Instead she would say that Japan should study this powerful weapon at the earliest possible date, or she would worry about her pupils conditions. As her last hour drew near, she had called her mother to her bedside and in a firm voice had said, "I'm lost now." She expressed words of gratitude towards her parents, brothers, school, church and friends and even spoke about her funeral services before she passed away in peace. Just before she dies she had sung "Nearer My God To Thee."

After saying goodbye to the Yoshimuras, I went out to Kaunnon-machi. Mr. and Mrs. Sakaide had lost all their property and they were taking refuge in the house of the Koga family. The Kogas' lived about three kilometers from the atomic center, and their house had been only partly destroyed. Next I dropped in to see the Matsubayashis in Takasu and the

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Sakodas in Furue, both located in the western suburbs of the city. They were all safe as their houses were rather isolated among the paddies.

However the house located near the front of hte Matsubayashis
had been completely destroyed by fire. Because of the radiation, some
straws which were piled in the front yard had caught on fire. The occu-
in vain
pants had fought/against the fire. This place was about five kilometers
from the explosion. In similar manner the hills surrounding the city
had suffered from mountain fires at various spots. All were due to the
rays from the atom bomb.

August 18 (Saturday)

I continued to make my tours of inquiry about my church members.
The streets as usual were busy with refugees. Most of them were search-
ing around in the ruins. Nearby Takanobushi, I happened to meet Mr. Arita
and old man. He was completely deaf and talked in a loud voice. I spoke
to him by writing words on my palm. He told me that Kitaro, his second
son, was away in the Army and his wife Kiyoko with her baby sone Taro,
who was seven months old had come to Hiroshima on the day before the bomb-
ing from the place in the country to which she had been evacuated.

At the time of the explosion, she had been sitting in the corri-
dor facing south and had been having a chat with the lady who lived next
door. Taro, the baby had been at her side fumbling around with a toy
automobile. The neighbor's son Makoto, a sixth grader had been engaged
in his studies.

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Akiko, wife of his third son Soichi, was about to open the postoffice doors next door when the bomb exploded. In a moment all were buried underneath the house. The neighbor managed to get away and jumped into the swimming-pool of the First Prefecture Middle School, located to the south of her house. Kiyoko could not move, but when she recovered from her unconsciousness she saw her injured baby in front of her. From the fire, she screamed out, "Tasukete, Help!" and after a great struggle with one arm she pushed her baby out on to a stepping-stone which was about two feet away. However, in no time, they were both burned to death. The white ashes of Akiko and Makoto were found in the ruins. The lady she was chatting to was severely injured, and she also died a few days later. This spot was about one kilometer from the explosion.

Tanio, the fourth son of the Aritas, was then aprobational army officer and was in the Army Hospital suffering from malaria when the bomb exploded. Both arms and his face were burned, but his fatal wound came from a concrete frame which fell heavily upon his chest from above the wall where the stove-pipe went through. He died in the Army Hospital in Mesaka after taking refuge there. During his last moments his mind was clear, and he said to his younger sister, who was looking after him, "Give my best regards to father and mother. Thanks for everything you've done--- I'm going to heaven to see sister." (His elder sister had died in a raid on Juri with her four children.) "Let us pray." m He folded his swollen hands in prayer and passed away while praying.

The Arita family had lost four persons in the atomic bombing. However, the old man did not seem at all sad. With much energy he

exclaimed, "If Kituro and Shoichi return home from the army, we'll
restore our family and reconstruct Hiroshima. But if we don't have
faith in God, it's no good." I sat down on the ruins with the old man
and prayed before we parted.

The Nakamuras were all missing. At the Koudos, both were wounded.
A sign stood at their place, stating "Now in sanitorium, 12 chome,
Ujina." At Mrs. Keta's ruins a sign read, "Now in Nishshima." On the
walls of the home of Mr. J. Yashimura, who had a drugstore, was written,
"Now c/o Amano, Post Office, Oshome, Ujina." These three houses were
located in Takeyaicho, within two kilometers of the explosion.

I went out to Ujina, but I could not find the Koudos. There I met
Mrs. Yoshimura. According to her, Mrs. Yoshimura was usually so weak
that he avoided manual labor, but on the day of the bombing he had
gone out to work in the city for the first time. He arrived home with
burns and rescued his wife from the collapsed house, and they had run
away to Ujina. On the way he dropped in at Mr. Amano's place, for he
could not stand the pain of his burns. In the evening, hearing that
a medical relief station had been opened on Kanawa Isle, he started
out by himself. No one was permitted to go there unless he was seriously injured. As Yoshiko, his daughter, was then working at the Army
Transport Base, he was able to reach the isle through special arrangements made by her. The following day his wife and daughter visited
the island, but they found that he had passed away during the night.

I then went to see the Sakuma house. A sign stood saying, "All
safe. Now in Tanpi Village." Taking a detour, I visited the Enomoto
home near the Second Prefectural Middle School. On the walls of the
ruins was written, "Atsuko, second daughter, died. Others safe. Now
in Kusatsu."

Mr. and Mrs. Tamura were living in Machobori, one kilometer away from the explosion. They were both very fond of their child. Their only son was now in Saijo, twenty miles away, sent away with the other school children. They were both buried under the house in a sudden instant. Mr. Tamura had managed somehow to crawl out, but his wife was suffering under heavy pressure. Furious flames were now surrounding her. He fought with all his might to try and take away the logs. His wife, realizing the peril, cried out to her husband, "Run away quick and leave me!" "I can't leave without you!" he shouted, but she pleaded, "If we both die, what would become of our child? Please go for our baby's sake." Mr. Tamura, with heartbreaking grief, said farewell to his wife just for the sake of his son. But, a few days later, he also died and went after his wife. Their son had become a destined orphan and is now looked after by Mr. Yamada, working in the City Hall.

There were numerous cases like that in the area (two kilometers away from the explosion). But, even if one of the two should be saved, the other would die of the atom disease.

August 19th (Sunday)

I was terribly tired, as every day I had walked around the ruins in the hot sun without finding any shady places in which to rest. For the past few days I had been attacked by diarrhea. Summoning up my courage, I left the house.

A tent had been set up in the ruins in front of the Higashi Police Station and I saw many lines of people there. Dropping in, I found that clothing was being distributed among the survivors. I showed them my certificate and received some shorts and a slip for my wife, free of charge.

In the ruins, here and there, temporary offices of banks and post-offices were opening and giving service to their customers. As almost everyone had lost all his important documents, each person had to submit reports. The banks paid fifty yen to everyone, regardless of his amount of deposit or whether he had a pass-book or not. There were long lines at all the offices. It was a pity, however, for there were people who had come from the far off evacuation places who had had to spend a night or two in the fields while awaiting their turns.

Some streetcar tracks had been cleaned up, so that the people could somehow pass through, but some places were still blocked by the remains of fire-destroyed streetcars still standing on the tracks. Every day workers were busy clearing up the city, but it was no easy task. Cars and bikes had been piled in heaps. The rehabilitation of roads was the first step toward reconstruction.

From the center of explosion I went but to Tera-machi. Here was a Methodist kindergarten which I had often visited to give talks. Mrs. Watanabe and her daughter should have been there. There was no sign-board, so I thought they might have both died. I dropped

into see Mrs. Tanchiya in Dobashimachi and Mrs. Fujimoto in Fu-
nairi-machi. Making a detour, I went over to Shinonome-machi to
see the Nukis and to see the Yamamotos in Ozu-machi. These peo-
ple were all safe, as they lived quite a distance from the explo-
sion.

I went back in the evening. At night the ruins seemed fright-
ening. The streets were deserted and light from the burning of the
bodies could be seen. The air still smelled. Hirishima is a city
influenced by Buddhism, and all the temples have large yards. In
the darkness the toms seem a glittering white. I saw some of the
bereaved who had come from distant places to bury, in the ances-
tral tombs, the relics of those killed by the bomb. They were
working until far into the night. When passing near the grave-
yards, people would sometimes jump out in front of me and fright-
en me. My bicycle had no speed, and it required several times the
normal amount of physical strength to ride it.

Seeing my "ad" in the newspaper, Mrs. T. Maki came over to
see me in the evening. She had been about one mile away from the
place where we had taken refuge, but none of us knew of it. She
was living at 8 chome, Ote-Machi (12 kilo) with her daughters,
Hiro-ko and Tomiko. Just before the air raid, she was the only
one staying out in the country, for she was already an old woman.
On the day of the bomb, Hiroko had been in her office for work in
the Sea Transport Unit in Ujina. Tomiko, who had just finished
breakfast with her friend Miss K. Sumitani (woman doctor) was sud-
denly buried under the house as it crashed down. Her back was
strongly hit and she also received a severe cut on her head, which
revealed its skull. Miss Sumitani also was fractured. They both

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had managed to get out so far as the gate, but they could not walk.
They asked for help of one old man who happened to pass by. This
old man carried Miss Sumitani on his back and the three all fled
together. As this old man was suffering from rheumatism, he could
not carry her so long, so he entrusted her to another younger man
and left. The man no sooner had deserted her. Tomiko was injured
in the back and could not carry Miss Sumitani. She let her lie
down beside a water tank and ran about seeking aid. She went as
far as to the City Hall, but no one would listen to her appeals
The City Hall was also like hell. She thought of going back again
to die with her, but then she was reminded of her mother and sister.
Realizing she must live, on second thought she ran back to the City
Hall again. It was now in a fury of flames. She now lost her way
of escape. She took refuge in a ditch near the Public Hall and
stayed in the water for six hours. Her skin was scorched by the
violent flames. Later she rushed to the Red Cross Hospital and
was treated, but she slept that night in the gutter in front of
the City Hall.

The following day, when she was thinking of going to her
uncle's home (Mr. Fujita) in Takasu, she met the uncle's son, who
lent her a canvas shoe and took her home with him.

The following day on the 8th her sister Hiroko, who was look-
ing for Tomiko, dropped in at the uncle's home and found the house
terribly destroyed. Also the daughter in that house was already
dead. They moved away to an Army barracks in Inokuchi, where her
mother, Tuya, came to see her from far away in the country. Full
treatment was given. On August 13th she was sent to Jissen Girls'

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High School, where she died at 2 a.m., August 23d.

Receiving good care from her mother and sister, she would often say, "I am deeply sorry for Sumitani-san. Please, visit her grave and send my prayers to her. Would you ever have left her, if you had been in my place?"

I felt rather tired and had frequent attacks of diarrhea, so that I could no longer run around. As I had made some of the connection of the church members and as my wife and baby were in the same condition as I was, I made up my mind to visit my sister's home in Pudong, in order to get some rest. The certificate showing us to be suffering were enough to get us away to Pudong. The travelling of Hiroshima suffering had decreased a little, but every train was overloaded with crowds of people.

People were standing on the steps of each station and on the platform. Any also packed the area between the conductors. So we stayed for three hours at the station, as there had been no train to ride on any train. Transportation was in terrible shape. The conductors, conductors, and platform attendants, were being treated after demotion. In addition, there were no tickets being distributed to mean "Independent" country.

August 20th (Monday)

I visited the Kusamas at the Tomita house. The wounds Miss Kusama received when her house collapsed had not seemed to heal. I advised her, "You should go back home, while your certificate showing you to be a sufferer is valid, and take a good rest." I also gave her detailed information about the church members. I told her that the future policy for the management of the church had not been planned, that the death toll of church members was unexpectedly large, that there were scarcely any members left except those in the Ushita District, and that I would let her know as soon as I had settled down to work.

I felt rather tired and had frequent attacks of diarrhea, so that I could no longer run around. As I had made sure of the condition of my church members and as my wife and baby were in the same condition as I was, I made up my mind to visit my elder sister's home in Fukuoka, in order to get some rest. The certificates showing us to be sufferers were enough to get us one-way tickets to Fukuoka. The travelling of Hiroshim sufferers had decreased a little, but every train was overloaded with crowds of people.

People were hanging on the steps of each coach and on the locomotive. They also packed the areas between the coaches. We had waited for three hours at the station, as there had been no room to ride on any train. Transportation was in terrible shape with soldiers, conscripted technicians, and mobilized students, all now being transported after demobilization. In addition, there were Koreans being repatriated to their "independent" country. It did not matter whether cars were for freight or for passengers. The freight cars without roofs were jammed full of people. The

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traffic was more confused by the baggage, which the demobilized
had received to take home. The public railway was now operating
without any government regulation. We nearly risked our lives to
get on the train. Without having had any room in which to move
about, we reached Fukuoka in the evening. We rested there until
the 26th.

Two wounds that my wife, Chisako, had received, began to suppurate, and her joints began to hurt. Koko's diarrhea was due to our inability to provide her with the nutrition she required at her weaning period. My diarrhea still continued for another three days, but it finally stopped, due to the rest I had taken.

During my stay in Fukuoka I met the Rev. Honda, who was my predecessor at the church. He asked me about my future plans, and I answered, "By all means, I shall remain in the church for its reconstruction." I renewed my determination to do so.

I was lost in the five-and-a-half hours, but most people had been through the procedure once more complicated. Even if the procedures were duly completed, it did not mean that the money could be obtained. No matter how much money one had, he could receive only 5000 yen in cash out of the total amount and would be given a certificate called "Five year term deferred special deposit." During these procedures, visits also had to be made to the banks. As the work was so complicated, it was a pity to see aged, illiterate persons and uninformed people finding themselves bewildered by it.

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August 27th (Monday)

The one key to the rehabilitation of the church was our fire insurance. We had contracts for three accounts amounting to 155,000 yen. I went out early in the morning to begin the procedures necessary to collect the insurance money. First of all, I had to look around for the temporary offices of these three companies. Finally, finding one of them, I was told what procedures to take and what papers to prepare. Then I had to prepare all the necessary papers. Besides the certificate issued by the municipality for war sufferers, I had to obtain a certificate from the district office confirming the fact that the church had been destroyed by fire. After that papers asking for the payment of the insurance had to be prepared at the company.

However, in case one's insurance papers or payment papers had been lost in the fire--and most people's had been--the procedures were more complicated. Even if the procedures were duly completed, it did not mean that the money could be obtained. No matter how many accounts one had, he could receive only 5000 yen in cash out of the total amount and would be given a certificate called "Five year term deferred special deposit." During these procedures, visits also had to be made to the banks. As the work was so complicated, it was a pity to see aged, illiterate persons and uninformed people finding themselves bewildered by it.

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August 28th (Tuesday)

The Satos had left Hiroshima and returned to their home in Sakaide on Shikoku. Mr. Sato, who had been a rear-admiral, wasn't now a social outcast. He had no reason to stay in Hiroshima. As we could not keep on giving Mrs. Tada trouble, we had arranged to rent Mr. Sato's house after he left for his native place.

Passing by the City Hall, I happened to meet Tsuya, a niece of the Omote family. As soon as she saw me, she clung to me and started crying. Soothing her, I heard of her conditions. She had been living in the Omote house to help with the housework. Just before the bombing she had gone on a trip to her relatives' place in Kyushu. Finding her way back, she found that all the members of the family were missing. She had done everything she could and eventually had learned what happened, as mentioned below.

The family had been eating breakfast when the bomb exploded. In one brief moment the house collapsed. Buried under the house Mr. K. Omote, a lawyer, died an instant death. His wife, Tsuta, got a broken arm and cuts all over her face, but she somehow managed to crawl out. Their son, Takeshi, a university student, had been upstairs sound asleep. He was blown across to the neighboring house, and was buried under it. Miss Yamane had dropped into say a few words to the Omotes. She lived in the neighborhood and had returned from Kyushu, where she had been evacuated, to check on some baggage at her house. She was thrown, nude, out into the garden and received radiation burns all over her body. Mrs. Omote and Miss Yamane worked together and dug Takeshi out.

Miss Yamane knew that her appearance was frightful to see,

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so she insisted on remaining while the others escaped. However, Takeshi pulled her along. When they reached the Meiji bridge they found a raft in the river and got on it. Because of the pain coming from her burns Miss Yamane begged, "Let's go into the water! Let's go in!" Takeshi and his mother stopped her, saying, "NO, it's dangerous!" However, while they were busily engaged in propelling the raft, she disappeared. It is thought that, while unwatched, she had jumped into the water and been drowned.

Takeshi and his mother took refuge at the Ship Training Station, where an army lieutenant, who was boarding at their house, was serving. Two days later Takeshi went out to borrow a blanket and two hundred yen from Mr. Y. Yamamoto in Kakinowia. He intended to return on the same day, but there was no ferry-boat, so he stayed overnight and returned the next day. Reaching home, he found his mother already dead. Takeshi stayed at the barracks for some time, but he suffered from blood excretions because of the atom disease. It was mistakenly thought that he had an infectious disease, so he was taken to an isolation hospital, where he died on the 13th.

Tsuya, who had told the story so far, burst into tears again. She was the only one of the Omote family who had been saved. The Omotes were rather wealthy and had deposited a considerable amount of their property at various homes. Tsuya had visited one of those homes in order to get some of her clothes back, but she had been told, "I can't give you anything because I don't know whether or not you are a relative of the Omotes. If you insist, bring me a certificate of identification." This person had frequently visited

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the Omote family and knew that she was a relative of theirs.
Tsuya pleaded that people were trying to steal the Omote family
property. I had heard such rumors before but had doubted their
authenticity. Now that I felt that I had a definite fact, I was
filled with indignation. I wrote a letter for Tsuya and told her
to call on me in case it did not bring good results.

Of course, I do not mean that all people were so greedy. I
know of a number of people who did heroic work in rescuing many
sufferers and also know many who aided others afterwards. A farmer
who lived in Midori Village, Mr. K. Makota, a church member, was
one of these people. During a two month period he took about
twenty or thirty sufferers into his home for care. He looked after
them without taking any payment. A few of them had died in his
care. Moreover, he had three orphans living with him. Prof.
Matsushita and I had accepted his kind offer and had deposited a
large amount of our evacuated articles with him before the bombing.
There had been a great flood in Midori but he had saved everything in
his custody and would accept no compensation for this service.
Most people were hereos such as he, but there were some greedy and
selfish persons. I was surprised to learn that uncultured people
would shamelessly do inhuman things when they became greedy.

In front of the City Hall there was a heap of spoiled pumpkins. As food was then extremely scarce, I got permission from the person in charge and cut some good pieces out of the spoiled parts and took them home. I felt sorry that I had to degrade myself to the level of a beggar.

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On my way back I dropped into the district office in Noboricho. Mr. Nori and Mr. Itaya, who had been using the tent, had gone away and no one had any idea of their whereabouts. The tent was exposed to the rain and wind and was wearing out, so I pulled it down and folded it up. As Mr. Ando had no relatives with whom to take refuge, he had already set up a small shack in the ruins. It was made of iron sheets and half-burned logs. I asked him to look after the tent.

In the Sentei gardens, two barracks had been built by interlacing galvanized iron sheets on top of each other. One was occupied by some neighbors from Nobori-cho, and the other was occupied by Mr. Kato and some people from his district who formed one settlement. He had served the citizens for a long period as the head of the District Association. These barracks were only flimsy shacks which had boards and iron sheets upon which people could lie at night. They were, by all means, very unhealthy places. After the surrender it had rained a great deal, and on such occasions the rain would leak through the holes in the burned sheets and make puddles. They would be soaked to the skin and would have to keep standing the whole night. A high percentage of the sufferers living under such conditions died. It was here that Mr. and Mrs. Yamasaki and Mr. Naida had died so suddenly.

I reached home rather late in the evening. Receiving notice from the Takahashis that Mr. Shebata was critically ill up in the mountains, I started for his place immediately. As it was raining, it was pitch black. I stumbled along the hilly paths, but my pet dog, "Shiro", cleverly guided me up the mountain. Shiro was a very clever <u>Akita</u> Japanese dog. Although the poor animal had been burned

August 29th (Wednesday)

Early in the morning I went to the police station and submitted a report of Mr. Shibato's death. After that I went to the City Hall with papers for the funeral. The procedures were very simple, for there were so many dying each day.

Near the City Hall the Chugoku Rehabilitation Foundation had opened a service station which sold sugar-water for twenty sen a cup. As we had not tasted sugar during the war, it was very popular. It meant, "First sweets, then reconstruction." This was the first kind of shop to be restored in the city. It was only an open space which had been fenced in. The customers had to drink standing up, but there were always lines of people at this place.

In midday, I dug a grave in the side of the mountain and in the evening buried the body of Mr. Shibata. Dr. Matsumoto helped me do this Mr. Takahashi also brought a small jar, containing the ashes of Kuriko and Beniko which he had picked up in the ruins, and had it buried together with Mr. Shibata. He said softly, "This is the best cemetery in Hiroshima. I'd like to live here forever, myself."

In these days, a new phrase, "atom disease", made its appearance. Attention was called, by some intelligent people, to the fact that, aside from the actual wounds it caused, the atomic bomb was harmful to the human body. The ruins seemed to be dangerous, for there were people who had had no relation with the bomb, except to go to the ruins in order to pick up the relics of their relatives or to dig after food stuffs and cooking utensils, who had suffered a sudden death in the following few days.

However, the people of Hiroshima continued to carry on their

August 30th (Thursday)

With my wife I went to see the condition of the house which
Mr. Sato had vacated. The structure was still strong, but the
plaster walls had been torn off and the rood tiles had been blown
away. The debris on the inside included shattered furniture, broken
pieces of glass, and tile, which was scattered all over the floor.
However, in the entire city at that time there was no other house
available for rent. I went over to see the owner immediately and
rented the house for sixty yen a month with the condition that all
repairs would be paid for by the renter.

August 31st (Friday)

For the past few days my wife and daughter had been attacked frequently by diarrhea. As bood was mixed in their excrement, although in very small amount, I was quite surprised and called for a doctor. This doctor had fortunately evacuated a large quantity of medicine to the hillsides in Ushita. As he had escaped with only slight injuries, he had started work after taking two weeks' rest and was now very popular among the people. He suggested the injection of vitamins and the taking of as much nutrition as possible. Therefore I decided that after they improved a little I would go to my native town of Sakaide to bring better food back to Hiroshima.

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September 1st (Saturday)

The train, as always, was terribly crowded. Everybody was getting on and off through the windows, as all the glass had been broken. Once one did get on the train, he could never move around. It was almost like riding on someone else's shoulders. In the evening I got to Sakaide, but I could not get out of bed until September 3d because I had a terrible attack of diarrhea. My old father and my other relatives took good care of me. Worried about my family's health and about my church members, I rested quietly and entrusted everything to the hands of God.

At about 8:00 P.M., a group of P.O.W.s came out to see the train of Kotokura. They were walking in formation and were protected by some Japanese soldiers. It was the first time I had seen American prisoners. They were all very jolly--perhaps because the Americans had won the war. There must have been chewing-gum in the packages dropped to them that morning, because they were not giving gum to children along the way, who were looking at them in fright and curiosity from street corners. A Japanese soldier with them urged them: "Come on, take it. There's no poison." So I said this because they had been taught that the Americans were terrible demons who would drop poisonous chocolates and caramels from planes. With uneasy feelings about this country people took the chewing-gum. They did not know how to use it and swallowed it whole.

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September 4th (Tuesday)

As I felt rather well, I went to see my relatives in Kotohira. This place is noted for worshipping the guardian "Konbira", who supposedly protects all seamen. On my war, on a streetcar passing through "Zentsuji," I saw through the windows an American place flying across the sky. Suddenly, it dropped some packages. Parachutes of various colors: red, blue, white, yellow, and green, opened up, and about twenty packages came down. This town had a P.O.W. camp, and the packages contained food dropped by the Allied Forces for the prisoners.

At about 2:00 P.M. a group of P.O.W.'s came out to see the town of Kotohira. They were walking in formation and were protected by some Japanese soldiers. It was the first time I had seen American prisoners. They were all very jolly--perhaps because the Americans had won the war. There must have been chewing-gum in the packages dropped to them that morning, because they were now giving gum to children along the way, who were looking at them in fright and curiosity from street corners. A Japanese soldier with them urged them: "Come on, take it. There's no poison." He said this because they had been taught that the Americans were terrible demons who would drop poisonous chocolates and caramels from planes. With uneasy feelings these country people took the chewing-gum. They did not know how to chew it and swallowed it whole.

September 5th (Wednesday)

September 6th (Thursday)

My relatives celebrated my family's survival and gave me so much food stuff that I could not find a way to take it home. With great difficulty, I got on the train. I had to transfer three times before I reached Miroshima. This made it even more difficult. The trip, which normally took only eight hours, actually took twenty-four hours, and I reached home after transferring to a freight train at Okayama. On my way I suffered such a terrible diarrhea that I wished I would die.

At six o'clock in the morning, on the way home, I met. Prof. Motoyoshi, who told me of the deaths of Mrs. Shibayama and Mrs. Matsushita. I really regretted that I had been absent. I visited the Motoyoshi home immediately and expressed my sympathy to Prof. Matsushita and Miss N. Shibayama.

Mrs. Shibayama had only fractured her left shoulder. Nothing else was wrong, and she seemed to be getting better. However, she had suddenly been attacked by a high fever on August 30th, and her temperature of 40 degrees (104 degrees F.) would not go down. She had died on the night of September 2d, on the fourth day after her fever began.

Mrs. Matsushita had been only slightly wounded and had soon recovered. On August 20th she had even visited Fukuoka with her old mother-in-law to see their relatives who were living under better conditions. After returning to Miroshima she had no sooner reachwd home than she was also attacked by a high fever which reached over 40 degrees (104 degrees F.) Within a few days she had died. They had both been clear of mind to the very last mom-

ent. Listening to readings from the Bible and to hymns sung by Prof. Motoyoshi, Prof. Matsushita, and Dr. Matsumoto, all of them ordained and seniors of mine, they had passed away in peace.

Today was one month since the day the atomic bomb exploded. As I felt terribly tired, I took a short rest and then called on Dr. Miraiwa.

According to Dr. Miraiwa, his wife had finally been discovered after a continuous search by his son and his daughter, who had joined the search after she returned from Tokyo. His wife had been called for labor service on the day of the bombing and was about to begin work when the house collapsed, and she was buried under it. A half-burned body, partly covered with wall plaster, was later found in the ruins. It was identified as Mrs. Miraiwa by the color and design of the slacks and the ribbon of the clogs. The rest of the body they cremated and saved the ashes. We held a memorial service for her and offered our prayers in tears.

September 7th (Friday)

Another church member who was still missing was Mr. M. Enya.

I took the Geibi railway line and after a four hour ride reached Tokaichi where his older brother Masataka was living. I held a funeral service with his parents, his wife and children, and their relatives. His ashes had not been found, but his relatives and friends had everything prepared to hold a fine funeral service, under the presumption that he had died. I related his wonderful character to his parents, wife and children, and relatives, as I conducted the Christian funeral service, which was a strange event to the people in this district.

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(Sept. 7 - cont.)

Most of those who attended had been accustomed to the conventional Buddhist religious services. The various opinions seemed to agree that it was an impressive service. For myself the funeral was a good opportunity for evangelistic work.

In the middle of the night I suddenly awoke to find myself soaked with perspiration. My nightgown and bedding were wet. I had never experienced such perspiration in my whole life.

The evangelist of Christianity what he was made as scientific as medicine. "As Christ's method of prepping like a medicine?" I have been asked about the matter to this question many times. A few days later the doctor died. During his younger days, he had invented various kinds of medicines and had operated the largest hospital in Hiroshima. He was also launched a wonderful prohibitionism. Actually this doctor, in his later years, became a great dissenter himself. Made the very best he could against such an attitude. When I think of this, the picture of the human doctor remains vividly in my impression, even after my morning at his death.

The service for Byako was postponed. I put up at their place for the night. Feeling feverish, I took my temperature and found it to be 38.8° (100.6°). That night I changed my nightgown three times because of my extreme perspiration and sleeping.

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Sept. 8 (Saturday)

On my way home, after an hour's ride, I got off at Shivaguchi. I visited Dr. and Mrs. Yoshimura who had been evacuated to this place. Through Mrs. Yoshimura's initiative a memorial service had been planned for her daughter, Kyoko, but Dr. Yoshimura had suddenly been taken ill and was being taken care of by his son and daughters who had come to attend the service.

He called me to his bedside and said, "Japan was defeated because there were too many perpetual dissenters, ("links," as this doctor used German words), who were so stubborn that they were not satisfied unless they opposed everything. Christianity must help to cure such people."

The evangelism of Christianity must be made as scientific as medicine. "Was Christ's method of preaching like a medicine?" I have been asked about the answer to this question many times. A few days later the doctor died. During his younger days, he had invented various kinds of medicines and had operated the largest hospital in Hiroshima. He had also launched a wonderful prohibition campaign. Actually this doctor, in his later years, became a great dissenter himself, butto the very end he continued to speak against such an attitude. When I think of this, the picture of the humorous doctor remains vividly in my impression, overshadowing my mourning at his death.

The service for Kyoko was postponed. I put up at their place for the night. Feeling feverish, I took my temperature and found it to be 38.8° C (102° F). That night I changed my nightgown three times because of my extreme perspiration while sleeping.

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Sept. 9 (Sunday)

As soon as I reached home, I went to bed and rested the whole day.

Sept. 10 (Monday)

Feeling much better in the morning, I started out to make visits. Having been notified that Mr. and Mrs. Takahashi showed symptoms of the atom disease and were suffering from high fevers, I climbed up the mountain to see them. Their fevers seemed to have decreased. Judging by their fevers, the spots on their bodies, and the diarrhea from which they had suffered, they seemed to be in the same condition that I was. I picked some wild "dokudami" medical weeds and took them home. They were said to be a good medicine for the atom disease.

At this time there was rain almost every day. The house we were renting leaked and the mats would get wet. The wet mats would not dry very quickly, and, as it usually rained again before they could dry, they began to get mouldy. Mats are the most important thing in a Japanese house. Whenever the sun came out I would run over to our new house to dry the mats. They were really heavy.

I realized that I should repair the roof as soon as possible. Before the bombing workers could be hired for thirty yen a day, but now they charged a hundred yen. Since a poor man like me could not afford such expenses, I decided to do the work by myself. It was not very easy work. I got up on the roof and assorted out the broken and good tiles. I threw the former into the garden below and piled the latter in one place. Then I swept away the earth that had been laid under the tiles. Finally, I had to place the tiles in rows. A heap of ten tiles is very heavy, and as I had to carry them while walking on top of the slanting roof where the footing was uncertain, it was not only dangerous but also required a great deal of energy.

Within a month after the bombing numerous people had died. Even the injured people in the Ushita district had died, one after another, after receiving medical treatment. In Ushita there were several places where the bodies were cremated. A

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10/

(Sept. 10 cont.)

small park in the middle part of the district was one of these places, and, as I had passed by the park so often, its impression still remains vivid in my mind. Every day, at any time I happened to pass by, there were three or four bodies being cremated.

Besides those mentioned above, other church members of mine suffering from the atom disease continued to die. According to information which I had obtained while paying visits, Mrs. Fujisaki and Mrs. Takano, who had not been so badly injured, had suddenly died as soon as they had returned to their home town of Tukuoka. Mrs. Ishii, who had escaped to Ondo to the Tadehara family, died with a high fever. Mrs. Miki, who had taken refuge at Hatsukaichi, had also passed away a few weeks after the bombing. Mrs. Oguro's younger sister, who had taken refuge in the home of Mrs. Onouye, her older sister, who was living in Otake, had died soon after her hair had dropped off and she had vomited blood. In such ways the atomic bomb had a terrible effect, at a later date, on many who had not been seriously injured.

One thing that had surprised us was that a number of people, who had not been in the city at the time of the explosion but had entered later, had died. Mrs. Oguro's mother, who was then living in Otake twenty miles away, had come to Hiroshima many times in order to search for Jun's bones. She had thus contracted the atomic disease. Within a few days she had suffered from a high fever and had finally died. Mrs. K. Okinishi, from Furuichi ten kilometers away, had come to pick up the bones of her daughter who had died in her home located near the Buddhist temples in Kōkū Tera-machi, a kilometer from the explosion. She had also died a few days later, Mr. I Nishimoto had a daughter who recently had been married and was running a

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fish shop in Mikawa-machi one kilometer from the explosion. He had visited her ruined place and then had died a few days later. There had been many cases like that, but, among the survivors, there were also cases of people, like ourselves who were still safe although they had lived in the ruins ever since the explosion. Perhaps, this was due to some difference of reaction according to the area in which one was. At any rate, it was a fact that the atom bomb had injured the inhabitants of Hiroshima for a considerable period.

Since I had not felt strong, I had not accomplished much work that day.

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Sept. 12 Wednesday

I visited the ruins of the parsonage. During the war I had taken away the stone-lanterns and flowers in the garden and had made a vegetable garden. I had pumpkins, corn, egg-plants, cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes and carrots. My pumpkins had been very popular among the neighbors. I had looked forward to this year's crop. Finding that nothing was left in the garden which I had been taking care of, I felt bitter feelings towards the atomic bomb for the first time. I had thought little about my house and city being burned down, but witnessing the destruction of the crops over which I had worked so hard, made me furious. I had loved my garden so much. However, on coming to the garden after a short absence and finding two or three egg-plants, one of which bore a fair-sized fruit, I yelled in exaltation. The branches had been burned, but the roots in the ground were still alive. They had gradually sprouted, flowered, and born fruit. It had been feared that people would not be able to live in Hiroshima for seventy years. However, in spite of such warnings, the plants had already begun to grow in the ruins.

I picked this fruit and put it in my pocket. Then I went to the Communication Bureau Hospital in Hakushima to visit Mrs. H. Matsushita. Her eyeballs had been taken out. She was still in a critical condition. I let her take the egg-plant in her trembling hands and said, "Look, this egg-plant has sprouted from the ashes and has born a fine fruit. I hope you can overcome the atom bomb as this plant has done. She turned her head sideways in the direction of the plant which was shing with a pretty purple color and said with a smile "Is that so!"

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According to the story told by Aiko, who attended her, Kimiko, the youngest Matsushita daughter, had been found by her father on August 7. She was thirteen years old and was attending the first year of the Hiroshima Jogakuin. She was being taken care of at the Army Clothing Supply Depot. She had been helping to break down houses in Zakoba-machi when the bomb exploded. She had been lying down suffering from a high fever when she was found. Once in a while she would recover consciousness and sing "Mitami ware" and the "Patriotic March!" Other sufferers surrounding her, encouraged by her valiant voice, had stopped their painful groans. In order to carry her home, her father had laid his hand upon her back when he was suddenly frightened. Her back had been completely burned and was now suppurating. The following morning, she asked her father for water and died after taking a small sip. I offered a prayer for Kimiko at the bedside of her mother and left.

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Sept. 15 Saturday.

I visited the Omishi family whose daughter, Mrs. A. Goto had been a member of my church and I expressed my sympathy because of her death. As she was living in Ushita, she would have been safe if she had stayed at home. However, at the time of the explosion, she had been visiting her aunt in Osuka-machi two kilomiters away. She had been buried under the house with her baby Masae and had been killed by the fire. Her parents and brother, a university student, were Christians. After my memorial service, her younger brother said, "This defeat in war is not necessarily something to grieve about. This is the lesson of penitence which God has taught Japan."

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Sept. 16 Sunday

Two or three church members in the neighborhood attended the Sunday service in our house. We talked about the conditions of our church members in the Ushita district. It was a good meeting. The house had not yet been repaired, so the furniture which had been saved from the fire got all wet and spolied, because of the long rain.

One great change that the people had to face was the loss of their jobs. Therefore, those who had considered it unnecessary to in Hiroshima any longer, had started for their home towns where they had better opportunities. Mrs. Yokoyama and her daughters had moved back in the country to Yoshida which is about fifty miles from. Hiroshima. Mr. Kametaka, a ship captain, who had been injured, moved to Konko in Okayama prefecture. There is nothing which makes a pastor feel more forlorn than seeing church members move far away.

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Sept. 17 Monday

I went to Tsuzu. My wife's brother had gone there from Osaka to inquire about us. He had feared that we were all lost, but he had brought some clothing, foodstuffs and a thousand yean for us. Lieut. Hoshino of the navy was there then- just after his demobilization. His home was in Seoul, Korea, but, as he was not allowed to go there, he had come to seek help from his wife's mother. We talked together, and for the first time, I learned about the corruption in the navy. Lt. Hoshino said that he had been on a submarine which had sunk four transport ships in dangerous waters. The operations had been really exhausting, but he had endured all the hardships with great patience. However, his superior officers and the commander in chief had been feasting and enjoying themselves while imposing perilous duties upon him. He was a sober man and would never tell a lie. Since the navy had been demobilized after the surrender, he was finally able to speak.

As we had heard the inside story of military life which had been a 'taboo' to us up till this time, we had come to think of the past as an evil dream. I had, of course, sensed a bad smell in the radio programs and editorial articles which, as soon as the war ended, had been produced in order to break the bonds between the people and the authorities by exposing the corruption in the Japanese forces. These were the same papers and radio stations that had driven the people to a "Holy War" by talking only of national defense and the unification of 100 million people. However, I was deeply impressed by the confessions of this sober young officer.

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The rain of yesterday turned into a storm. I le ft Tsuzu
at night in a heavy downpour. Soon after I reached home, the Ota
River overflowed its banks causing great damage to life and prop-
erty and the railroads were paralized by the invading waters.
The distressing conditions which prevailed in Hiroshima cannot fully
be expressed through words alone.

I reached home carrying a heavy load of gifts which were now
soaking wet. There, I found my wife and child and Mrs. Tada with
her child, all shivering in one corner. They were unable to lie
down on account of the leaking house and the strong wind. Finally,
I stopped the leaks in one corner. We sat up all night, but we
thought we should be thankful for what we had in comparison to
those who were living in small tim sheet shacks or inside air raid
shelters.

Some time later, I heard the story of Miss H. Hirata who is now
living in Kotachi. She had been helping to tear down houses near
Asurumi bridge when the bomb exploded. She had been bruned all over
her body but had still lived. The refuge places to which she had been
taken, had closed one after another. Therefore she had been com-
pelled to make a tour of them. While she was sleeping in the Miho
primary school grounds on a straw mattress, the latter had been
soaked by heavy rains. Her father, who was taking care of her, had
to wipe her body frequently. The mass of injured people, who had
lost houses, had to endure similar terrible hardships.

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Sept. 18 Tuesday

Today I worked on the roof again in the intervals between rain and shine. As it was slow work by myself, I had asked my wife to help me. Being a little feverish, my legs seemed weak but I encouraged myself to keep on working. It must have been humorous to see a man and his wife working together, smeared with dirt on the roof. However, we could see whole families working together on other roofs, so it was not so embarrassing. A few days ago, half of the roof had been finished, and, today, the other half was completed. Out of a board, I made a sign which said "Temporary hall and parsonage, Hiroshima Nagarekawa church, Japan Church of Christ and nailed it on the house. We prepared to move in in the near future."

He would say, "At the pika-don time --," This pika-don word, whose author was unknown, had appeared soon after the atomic bomb. While the authorities were calling it a "new-weapon" or "new model bomb," the citizens were referring to it as pika-don. At first, I had thought the word pika-don was funny and not very serious; so Idezised it. As the days passed, however, this word seemed to be very natural. Pika means "it-flashed" and don refers to the sound of the explosion. Pika-don was an attempt to express the actual impressions the bomb made on the people. However, it merely recorded the impressions of outsiders who were a good distance from the explosion. Nevertheless, the people of Hiroshima, when they spoke of the past, came to be fond of using pika-don rather than such words as "new weapon" or "atomic bomb."

Mr. Tanabata repeated this word frequently while talking. He explained in detail about conditions in the Radiation area. As he was a learner in the air-defence work of the town, he had undertaken

9

Sept. 19 Wednesday

Today it was the memorial day for the Oda family in Kusatsu.
I visited their home as they had asked me to. As the street cars
were not yet running, I made the round trip of twenty kilometers
on a burned bicycle.

Mrs. Oda was a clerk in the Employment Office of Kusatsu and had
been bringing up four children. Her oldest son who was then in
the second year in junior high school, had been killed by the atom-
ic bomb while he was attending the morning school service outdoors.

Mr. Takemoto, who was the head of the directors of this office
and was taking great care of the Odas, happened to be the main
guest for the day. He spoke bluntly of the atom bomb experience.
He would say, "At the pika-don time ---." This pika-don word,
whose author was unknown, had appeared soon after the atomic bomb.
While the authorities were calling it a "new-weapon" or "new model
bomb", the citizens were referring to it as pika-don. At first, I
had thought the word pika-don was funny and not very serious; so I
despised it. As the days passed, however, this word seemed to be
very natural. Pika means "it flashed" and don refers to the sound
of the explosion. Pika-don was an attempt to express the actual
impressions the bomb made on the people. However, it merely re-
corded the impressions of outsiders who were a good distance from
the explosion. Nevertheless, the people of Hiroshima, when they
spoke of the past, came to be fond of using pika-don rather than
such words as "new weapon" or "atomic bomb."

Mr. Takemoto repeated this word frequently while talking. He
explained in detail about conditions in the Kusatsu area. As he
was a leader in the air-defense work of the town, he had undertaken

1/2

a job which other people did not want, namely, the disposal of bodies. The Kusatsu Primary School grounds had soon been crowded with the injured who kept rushing in. Such people had died one after another and no one, had disposed of their rotting bodies. Therefore he and the principal hooked the bodies with a pole and piled them into stacks of ten. Later, they covered them with oil and burned them. People who had engaged in such work had no feelings as human beings after disposing of so many bodies.

I had finally returned home exhausted. From that night on, I could not move for a while. My temperature was 100 degrees F. and my limbs ached.

After getting shots of vitamins B and C and also calcium, I felt terribly bad. It seemed as if I could not walk, but I managed to get home by walking slowly with the aid of a stick. In the afternoon, my fever was 102 degrees and I could hardly move my body. On the 14th, I could not stir an inch without feeling dizzy. On the 16th, my wife went to ask Dr. Nishiyama to visit me. But there was no success, no time for such a visit as he was looking after so many others from morning till into the night. However, he sent a well-trained nurse on behalf of himself and she gave some injections. In the evening, the church western began for sor-cery about me after learning that I had contracted the stoma disease.

Mrs. N Horie, whose husband was a naval officer, lived in Oita. Their daughter, Mako, who was a runt-back, was收from my church members. On I used to hold a weekly class at the church and he had

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Sept. 21 Friday - Oct. 20 Saturday

I was finally sick in bed. My temperature rose as follows: on the 21st. 101 degrees F.; 22nd. 101 degrees; 23rd. 102 degrees; 24th. 103 degrees and the 25th. 103.5 degrees. I had contracted the atom disease. I began seriously to check on my temperature and pulse, and made out a statistics chart. On the morning of the 23rd. my temperature was 101 degrees; so I walked feebly over to see Dr. Nishiyama for treatment. There were about twenty or thirty persons waiting for their turns. A few nurses were assisting the doctor. Among them, was a boy who appeared to be about fifteen years old. He was giving injections to the patients so skillfully that they were receiving treatments with smiles although they felt rather uneasy about the whole procedure. This boy was Dr. Nishiyama's son.

After getting shots of vitamins B and C and also calcium, I felt terribly bad. It seemed as if I could not walk, but I managed to get home by walking slowly with the aid of a stick. In the afternoon my fever was 102 degrees and I could hardly move my body. On the 24th., I could not stir an inch without feeling dizzy. On the 25th., my wife went to ask Dr. Nishiyama to visit me. But there was, of course, no time for such a visit as he was looking after so many others from morning till into the night. However, he sent a well-trained nurse on behalf of himself and she gave me some injections. In the evening, the church members began to worry about me after learning that I had contracted the atom disease.

Mrs. Horie, whose husband was a naval captain, lived in Ushita. Their daughter, Masako, who was a hunch-back, was one of my church members. So I used to hold Bible classes at their house and we had

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become well acquainted with each other. Mrs. Horie knew a Buddhist priest who was an expert at moxibustion treatment. Mrs. Horie had said, "There are many patients being cured by moxibustion so why don't you try it?" I gave her my consent and in the evening, she called again accompanied by this young priest. He put the moxa on the Christian pastor, who was his opponent in a mild way, and left after making a polite bow. He was visiting many patients and treating them with a moxa.

I had hated moxa ever since my boyhood. When I was a child, my mother would punish me by burning the moxa which I disliked so much. Moxibustion for children in Japan is only a tool of torture. Although I had such bad memories and further thought that such an unscientific article would never work, I nevertheless accepted the priest's treatment. I did not want to reject the priest's kindness and also felt that it was a good idea to try a treatment which had helped other people.

The moxibustion was very simple. At first, I was spotted with black ink. There were spots on each hand and arm, three near the bottom of the abdomen, five on the back, and one on each knee and foot for a total of sixteen. The moxa was then cut into tiny pieces, put on the spots, and lighted. The amount of moxa differed with the location of the spots. One treatment took half an hour. Of course I had to endure the burning all through the treatment but I found out after it was over the 103.5 degree temperature had been lowered to 101 degrees F. After that I continued the treatments in earnest, and my temperature would go down one degree Centigrade after each one.

13

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Sept. 26 (Wed.)

Today we moved into the new house. I was determined to move out today because the move had been already scheduled and because I thought I had given so much trouble to the Tada family since my sickness. Mr. Ando, whom I had previously asked for help, brought a push cart with him. After loading the cart with daily necessities, I got upon the load myself. My temperature was 102 F, and I felt rather dizzy. According to those who sent us off, "The pastor looked like Jesus". They said this because my beard was long and I was carrying the Cross of the chapel in my arms.

The house I moved into was very near to the doctor's place so the nurse soon visited me and gave me injections. Beginning today my temperature stayed around 104 F for about a week. It was said that fresh vegetables, meat and fish were good for the atom disease, so my wife's mother kept bringing food stuffs from Touzer. As we often had long days of rain, the railroads were sometimes paralyzed and would have to walk a long way. The nurse came daily to give me injections. The moxibustion was my wife's job.

Sept. 29. (Sat.)

My wife's brother came from Osake again to see me. I could hear him in the
kitchen, saying to his mother, "It's a pity, but I think he's lost." All the
family took care of me. They thought that I would die, but I was not at all
moved about this. No matter how feverish one was from the atom disease, the
mind would remain clear. Resting quietly, many kinds of thoughts came into my
mind about the future work I would undertake, and I enjoyed this day dreaming.
I confirmed my determination to serve the evangelical work of Christianity by
making the best use of my experiences with the atomic bomb.

What tortured me most while I was in bed was the pain in my hips. I even
thought I had better have them cut off. But to my relief, God did not have
me suffer for long. After October 5th my fever gradually went down and came to
an average of 99 F to 100 F.

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Oct. 9.

The American forces, by this time, had come to occupy the Kure naval port. My neighbors were making a great fuss about it. Some were saying, "Those who have daughters, should take them into the country." While others said, "It's O. K, to go out, but go out in plain dresses and appear to be old." This fuss seemed ridiculous to me, but, as it was the first time that Japan had been occupied by foreign troops, the people were terribly uneasy.

As I was sick I had not been able to see the first landings of the Occupation Forces. So the Americans had finally come! My feelings were an incomprehensible mixture of joy and sorrow.

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118

Oct.

While I was sick in bed there were several church members who came to see me. Prof. Matsushita was one of these. I had studied under him in my Kwansie Gakuin University days. Even though he had lost his wife and was also suffering from the atom disease he came to see me. The aged Mr. Hayashi also visited me frequently.

It was Mr. Sakoda, though, who really moved me. This old man was a Christian and had resided in America for a long time where he was a farmer. He and his wife had returned to Japan and left their son and daughter in America. Just before the atomic bombing he had evacuated to the suburbs, so he had been safe. However he had lost all his property. He was not active at all in the church and his existence was not even recognized. Nevertheless he had been the very first person to come and see us in our new location. He had first gone to the church and parsonage ruins and had finally found us after a long search. He left ten yen saying, "Reverend, please reconstruct the church. Things have turned out this way because we had no faith." I took the money in both hands and swore to myself "That's right, Here lies my mission for the remainder of my life."

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Oct. 20. (Sat.)

My temperature dropped to normal. I was now able to sit up in bed, but I still could not get up.

Through the offices of Rev. Y amagata, rector of the West Chregoku region, Mr. K. Motoda, a member of the Heian Church in Kure, came over to assist me. Therefore I asked him to make a collection of facts about the general state of the church members and put them into a small pamphlet. The Ushita Primary School nearby was badly damaged, but a part of the building was already available for use after repairs, so I had borrowed a duplicator machine from the school. One thing the pamphlet showed was that the casualties of the church were 58 dead, 5 missing, and 113 injured.

The recovery of my illness was due to the doctors injections and the fresh vegetables and fish I had taken which my wife's mother had continuously brought to me. But what had in particular good effects was the moxibustion. Therefore, in order to express my grateful feelings to the Buddhist priest I had sent him a fairly good piece of porgy fish. But the priest did not accept my token of gratitude, stating "Through the blessings of Buddha, I have been able to learn the technique of Moxibustion since the days I've grown up to manhood. If my work has been of any use in this emergency, my wishes are fulfilled and I am terribly grateful. I had never thought of expecting any gifts. My compensation is enough so long as I have been able to make you happy. This is something you need for yourself, so please take it and get well as soon as possible." He was single and from morning till night he would make visits to the atom bomb patients and give moxibustion treatment, almost forgetting his meals.

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Nov. 1 (Thurs.)

The headquarters of the Japan Church of Christ had sent a mission to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including Rev's Manabe, Murate, Katsube and Takizawa, and Mr. Fujikawa to investigate the damages done to the churches. The party arrived in Hiroshima on ... They went directly to Ushita and stayed in the Tomita, Tada, and Tanimoto homes. On the following day, in the ruin of the Nagarekawa Church a joint service was held by the Christian churches of the city. It was attended by 45 people. Among the pastors were Shikama, Kimura, Yamashiro, Nagase, Hayami, Moriata, Hayase, Mrs. Nakane, and Tanimoto.

1) The number of churches before the war: A total of 22; Methodist (4), Alliance (4), Presbyterian (3), Congregational (1), Baptist (1), Episcopal (1), Nazarene (1), Holiness (3), Salvation Army (1), Seventh Day Adventist (1), and Dendokan (1), Lutheran (1).

2) Number of churches disbanded due to military pressure in war time: 5.
Salvation Army (1), Seventh Day Adventists (1), Holiness (3).

3) Those united: 1. Episcopal (1).

4) Natural death: 3. Presbyterian (1), Alliance (1), Lutheran (1).

5) Burned down by atomic bomb: 8. Methodist (4), Presbyterian (1), Congregational (1), Alliance (1), Dendokan (1).

6) Badly damaged by atomic bomb: 2. Baptist (1), Alliance (1).

7) Burned down or badly damaged in rented houses: 3. Presbyterian (1), Alliance (1), Nazarene (1).

8) Pastors still remaining in city after atom bomb:
Baptist (badly damaged) Rev. Kimura.
Hyiyama (Half destroyed, rented house) Rev. Nagase.
Nagarekawa (completely destroyed by fire) Rev. Tanimoto.

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9) Pastors taking refuge outside city after atomic bomb: Shikama, Tsukishita, Morita, Hayami, Hayase, Yamashiro, Nakauye.

10) Damage done to the church member ?

The head of the party, Rev. Manabe, gave the following address of encouragement: "Miss Kilburn was the only American lady who was permitted to stay in Japan during the war. She was allowed to stay because of her great service to the Japanese people and her friendly attitude toward them. She said to me soon after the end of the war, 'I feel sorry that Japan has been defeated. However I rather envy the defeated Japan. God's judgment shall always come to those who are proud. Japan has been crushed and has learned the lesson of meekness. The Japan of the future is now able to build a country modelled fundamentally on the teachings of God. When I come to think of it I am really happy for the sake of the Japan I will always love.' It was originally Miss Kilburn, who had so heartily devoted her whole life to loving service to Japan, who had pointed out the true significance of the country's defeat. Our defeat is indeed deplorable, but this is our chance to reconstruct our country by the grace of God's forgiveness and through His guidance. Because of this, the missions of our Christians are of grave importance."

After the service we got together in a circle and each one spoke of his atomic bomb experiences. We thanked God for His mercy in the preservation of our lives through His wonderful providence. Later the party toured the ruins of the churches in the city.

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Nov. 3. (Sat.)

The party visited the Prefectural Office which had been temporarily established inside the Toyo Industries Company building. The head of the Chugoku (five prefectures) had been out so they had met his Lieutenant. Then they notified the City Hall which stood in its steel reinforced concrete structure and met the deputy mayor, Mr. Morishita, for the mayor was out. They expressed their words of consolation and learned the results of an investigation of the general damages. The statistics presented by the authorities may be summarized as follows:

A) House damages:

<table><tr><td>1. Total houses before bombing</td><td>68,907</td></tr><tr><td>2. Completely burned</td><td>55,001</td></tr><tr><td>3. Partially burned</td><td>7,295</td></tr><tr><td>4. Completely collapsed or partially damaged</td><td>6,611</td></tr></table>

Since 80% had been burned down and 20% had been partially burned or otherwise damaged, there was not a complete house left in the city. Dwellings that could be used for living were left only in the Ujina, Eba, Furue, Kusatsu, Ushita, Onage, Ohzu, and Shinonome districts. The atom bomb had exploded 500 meters above the Hiroshima Central Post Office, located in the central part of the city, and had destroyed the whole city in an instant.

Yokogawa

Misasa

Ushita

Koi

Onaga

Furue

Mukainada

Kusaten

Eba

Ujina

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B) Casualties (according to the statistics of the City Hall.)

Population at time of bomb: 312,227 - 100,000 tourists besides registered people

1) Instant death 78,150 - Number unknown of those who died after deserting city.

2) Missing 13,983 - There are still persons coming after properties evacuated in country.

3) Seriously injured 9,428

4) Slightly wounded 127,997

5) Student's labor corps 10,000

6) Number of servicemen 40,000 (estimate)

7) Number of persons engaged in labor service, coming from suburbs 30,000 (estimate)

8) Most of those (3) and (4) died later and even those who were not in the city at the time of the A bomb and yet were killed by radio activities 80,000 (estimate) (within one month 50,000, after one month to two months 30,000). Those who were within one kilometer of the explosion were killed instantly.

9) Total (estimate) 250,000

Those who were within two kilometers may be divided into those buried underneby houses and burned to death and those who were fortunate enough to escape. Among the escaped there were the seriously and slightly wounded of which the majority of the former had died within a few days. Among the slightly wounded there were many who died between August 6th and the end of September from the atom disease. By October the number of cases had gradually decreased, and by then most of the patients were surviving. The whereabouts of the missing were still unknown the first part of October when this statistical report was made, so they must be included among the dead. Aside from the known dead, there were the volunteer corps that had come from the farming villages near Hiroshima to help in tearing down houses. All of them consisted of 200 men, 500 persons who were believed to have been killed since they were engaged in outdoor work near the

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explosion.

Mrs. M. Yanagihara, my church member, was selected from the Kawachi-village in Asa county and went out to work along the Tenma highways (1 kilometer) as a member of a labor corps. The persons in this corps were all killed. Moreover there were also junior class girls and boys from the high schools who were helping to tear down houses. These pupils were all sent out from the schools and were led by teachers. Each unit had about fifty persons. These groups also suffered heavy damages. Miss Kamiko Matsushita's class, which I have mentioned before, had 63 pupils of which ten were absent. Of the remainder, fifty had died and three had survived the atom disease although their hair had fallen out. They had been in Zakoba-machi, 1.2 kilometers from the center.

At the time of the bombing there were many troops in Hiroshima. Part of them were engaged in tearing down houses while the others were drilling in the east and west military fields. There were also the army hospital and the division headquarters which were near the explosion. The majority of men in these installations were killed.

There were also considerable numbers of travelers. This number is difficult to estimate, but there were many business men and government officials for tk Hiroshima was an important military city. There were always many visitors to see friends and relatives enter the army or sail abroad. Mr. K. Ibeda, of Asakawa village, Umibe county, Takushima prefecture, was in the army hospital. His mother and two younger sisters had come to see him in Hiroshima and were staying at a hotel. They have been missing ever since the explosion. Great numbers of unidentified bones are still being dug out of the ruins of former hotels. By August 6, 1946 the Religious Association in Hiroshima erected a memorial tower and placed the ashes of 4,850 unidentified dead in a chapel.

It is difficult to estimate the numbers of travelers who had survived

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the actual bombing only to die after reaching their destinations. According to our statistics whole casualties were 250,000. However, it is not an exaggeration, even in our small estimation, to say that there were more than 200,000 people killed. In Nagarekawa-machi, 1.1 kilometers from the explosion, where my church is located was the Toyi hat shop. There had been 45 persons in his nei ghborhood, but by June 1947 there were only three of them still alive. The single blast of the atomic bomb instantly killed more than half the population of Hiroshima and some that had survived the explosion and fire died later from the atom disease. Whole population at the time of explosion was 312,277 and city's damage of people was 172,083.

### C) Reconstruction work.

There were about 6,000 partially damaged houses which could be reconstructed. Carpenters and plasterers from the farming villages were mobilized, and, by using materials from the completely destroyed houses, it was hoped that the mass reconstruction of the habitable houses could be accomplished during September and October. However, in those two months, 45 days had been rainy, and all parts of the city were finally flooded. Due to the great damages caused by the flood, the plans fell far behind schedule. As winter neared, labor materials were badly needed.

### D) Present problems the city is faced with:

1) Seriously injured patients in hospitals 2000

2) Atom bomb orphans 2000 (100 pre school age) others school children.

The city has planned to take these orphans to the Hyōyama primary school and to Ninoshima island. However, there are no social workers to serve them, and we are looking forward to Christians taking over this work.

The party left Hiroshima and headed for Nagasaki.

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Nov. 5

The cause that drove atom bomb patients into death was the lack of medical aid and shortage of food. There are really many examples that had purpose - ly caused people to death while they could have been saved. The emergency medical-aid centers opened in suburbs or adjoining villages were crowded with seriously and slightly injured persons that rushed over and the treatment they had received there was merely putting on the wounds. Moreover, as most of the doctors in the city had died and were injured, the unskillful nurses were called from the nearby villages to look after the injured. As there were too many patients to be treated, the same gauze used for one patient was used on others one after another stubbing along and so it was indeed unsanitary for ones skin disease besides the burns would be infected to others in case the patient did have such diseases.

Furthermore, the food supplied to patients at the camps was mostly just plain rice-balls prepared by the rural women and it had no value in nutrition. When one lived in such camps for some time the patients would fall in want of more food. Even though the mother and child were taking a rest, finally after a narrow escape, the mother would die from atom disease and there would also be no one to look after the child and then it would die as everyone looked on unable to do anything. It was a pit to see a baby dead, clinging to her dead mother's breast.

The food conditions in Japan had turned extremely worse since the defeat of war. It was due to the sabotage of the farmers whose strong reactional feelings were expressed against the Government saying "We were cheated." These farmers had been played around by propagandas stating that the war shall be won and had been forced to deliver unbearable amounts of rice. Those who had to suffer were the common citizens and war suffering people in the cities. Moreover, soon after the war ended, the democratic freedom had been voiced by gov-

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ernment and common people and in the farming villages such democracy was misin-
terpreted as ones free and indifferent ways of living and had the more curtailed
the delivery of rice.

The average output of rice in Hiroshima prefecture was 1,440,000 koku and
the demand of supply was 2,200,000 koku to every population of 2,200,000 persons.
And in ordinary shops it was still short of 600,000 koku and it had to be im-
ported from other prefectures. Above this, only 840,000 koku output of rice
was obtained for Hiroshima had suffered from flood damages for three times sin ce
the atom bomb. That made a shortage of 1,160,000koku. Even if some of the
shortages could be covered up by other such supplies as wheat, irish and sweet
potatoes, there would be still left a shortage of 400,000 koku. And should the
above amount of food be rationed smoothly, the portion for one person a day would
be 1.2. Under such conditions, one could only feed on rice porridge. And in
sage-brush and tangerine peelings weremixed in the rations but they had no cal-
orie value at all.

The other burden for the survivors was the moving of properties that were
evacuated to the farming villages before the atomic disaster. I had no transport
to use and because I had to move them all by myself and was impossible to move
them far away, my belongings were all deposited to homes of church members liv-
ing in the suburbs in Ushita. But all houses had been destroyed and as the ra in
continued so long my books and clothes got all spoiled and were no more useful.
Nevertheless, I had to take over all my properties for once so I began working
in recollecting the things. The organ, drums, pulpit and chairs of the alter,
screens were brought back from the Ebuchits; sacrament service equipments and
and utensils for baptism were from the Tadas; piano and other church equipment
from the Saivanos'; books from the Kamatakas; church documents and boxes from
the Nobutokis'; and twenty chairs from the Agricultural Association in Gion vi lage.

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Nov. 10 (Sat.)

At Kubo church in Onomichi a local conference was held for the Okayama and Hiroshima districts. As I was not yet completely recovered from the atom disease, I attended the meeting leaning on a stick. Rev. Manabe, chairman of the general conference attended and addressed the meeting as follows: "With the abolishment of the religious organization law, there are some people who say that the Kyodan, United church of Japan, disbanded. The establishment of the Kyodan however is historical, and the unification was decided on after repeated discussions and deliberations at meetings held by the respective denominations. Therefore this talk is not caused by government pressure. This organization should be made stronger. We need a united church of all Protestant churches in the history of Christianity in order to meet the expectations of the world."

The occupation forces and the foreign mission board of America have also given approval to this sound, united church in Japan and are trying positively to protect it. Four representatives of the Protestants in America arrived in Japan at the end of October and are immensely friendly. In general, SCAP will not allow foreigners to enter the country for some time; but a few may be allowed to come in. In the case of missionaries, they will come as instruments for our churches and will cooperate with us. Social activities will be much more acceptable than evangelistic work." I was greatly satisfied to know the future road of our respective churches.

A chaplain in one of the Occupation Forces in Onomichi, Rev. Robert C. Smith, visited the Kubo church and asked for a pastor from Hiroshima so I went out to meet him. He was a Presbyterian and very friendly. He advised me to meet Rev. Pond, head chaplain of the 41st Division in Kure. He gave me a bag of candy before we parted. It had been years since I had been able to get real candy so I took it home as a precious gift for my child.

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Nov. 18 Sun.

Today I was shown the real spirit of American chivalry. I started out early in the morning with the name-card Chaplain R. C. Smith had given me yesterday and went to the 41st Division headquarters in Hiro. There I asked for Chaplain Clifton Pond. As it was just before the service, I was guided into the chapel. I had been in America for 4 years to study, but I had never been to an army chapel service. The fact that almost every outfit had a chapel and that servicemen attended every Sunday morning service was a great contrast to the Japanese Army. I was filled with wonder as I watched the soldiers in the Chapel.

I saw everything for a while. What would a short Japanese man, who had been through this time been fighting against so many enemies, have to say to the victorious soldiers? I was not ready to speak his words. However, I felt glad, from the bottom of my heart, for this fellowship of love which transgressed race and national boundaries, and for the tolerant attitude which conquers allFEELINGS, shown to me by Chaplain Pond. saying that I was not prepared for a ser-
mon I asked him to excuse me.

After Chaplain Pond's sermon, I got up on the platform as asked and made a brief address. It was breakfast time, born in a Buddhist family and was brought up under its influence. At the age of seventeen I was converted to Christianity by but my father, who was a devoted Buddhist, disapproved of my new faith and ex-
pelled me from his home. One day my father decided to take me to the Buddhist temple, DalaiLing. In order to have me return to Buddhism, my mother was with
me, and on the way she flubbed it on the road. She had been suffering from slight fever, and on the way she flubbed it on the road. She had been suffering from slight fever, and on the way she flubbed it on the road. She had been suffering from slight fever, and on the way she flubbed it on the road. She had been suffering from slight
illness. She had tried to ease the religious struggles of my
father and me. As the day was in midsummer, by direct sun, she was suf-
fering from cerebral hemorrhage. Within half an hour she passed away into sten-
osis. It happened on August 6, 1928.

In deep grief I decided to dedicate the rest of my life to his service,
knowing I believed that my mother's light might become significant if I would
lay my faith in Christ throughout my life. I took the theological course

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The chapel was made from two class rooms of an ordinary Japanese school which seemed to have been built in a hurry. In the front there was an altar, with a cross in the middle and candlesticks on both sides, which was very impressive. I felt happy on learning that such a style was not only used in the army but was also generally used in the Protestant churches of America today.

A thing that surprised me again was Chaplain Pond's warm welcome to me. He was a tall, nice looking gentleman. He had white hair and seemed to be middle aged. Taking my hands he took me up to the pulpit and asked "Would you mind preaching to me men?" I was so stunned at such an unexpected request, that I could not say anything for a while. What could a short Japaneseman, who had till this time been fighting against an enemy, have to say to the victorious soldiers? I was not ready to speak His words. However, I felt glad, from the bottom of my heart, for this fellowship of warm faith, which transcended race and national boundaries and for the tolerant attitude which conquers all feelings, shown to me by Chaplain Pond. Saying that I was not prepared for a sermon I asked him to excuse me.

After Chaplain Pond's sermon, I got up on the platform as asked and made a brief address. "I was brought up born in a Buddhist family and was brought up under its influence. At the age of seventeen I was converted to Christianity but my father, who was a devoted Buddhist, disapproved of my new faith and expelled me from his home. One day my father decided to take me to the Buddhist temple, Sairenj, in order to have me return to Buddhism. My mother was with us, and on the way she fainted on the road. She had been suffering from slight paralysis. She had tried to make peace between the religious struggles of my father and me. As the day was in mid-summer, by direct sun stroke she was suffered from cerebral hemorrhage. Within half an hour she passed away into eternity. This happened on August 6, 1928.

In deep grief I decided to dedicate the rest of my life to His service, because I believed that my mother's death might become significant if I would carry my faith in Christ throughout my life. I took the theological course

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at Kwansei Gakuin University and graduated after five years of study. Then I spent three years in Kagoshima as a pastor. For eight years I was kept away from my father. Through God's strange guidance, in order to give better service, I got to study for three years in the seminary at Emory University in Georgia. After returning from America I served on Okinawa for two years, and in May, 1943 I came to Hiroshima. Strange to say, my family and I were saved from the atomic bomb. This significant event also took place on August 6, 1945. This experience renewed my decision to dedicate my whole life to His service and to world peace.

During the war we experienced unhappiness, sorrow, and bitterness and we have been really humiliated by our defeat. It is the love of Christ that will save Japan from His solemn judgment and will redeem her sins. Christianity is the real hope for Japan. I hope that you pray for Japan to be saved by overcoming her past feelings."

After the service was over many soldiers shook my hand. I was invited to have dinner at the officer's mess. Whenever Hiroshima was mentioned in the conversations everybody at the table would become quiet.

After lunch Chaplain Pond took me to his room and said "You must have many troubles. Take home anything you want from here." He opened his bureau and showed me all his belongings. Of course I hesitated to take anything, but he packed everything he could lay his hands on in a bag and gave it to me as a gift to my family. My family was tearfully overwhelmed with joy for its members had not tasted anything sweet for a long time.

The American soldiers were reasonable, understanding and sentimental. The Japanese who had feared the American occupation did so because they thought it was now their turn to receive the atrocities which had been committed in China. and in the South Pacific. Such fears belonged only to those who had scars in their own past.

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Nov. 20 (Tues.)

As it was important to get plenty of nutrition and rest to cure the atom
disease, I went with my family, home to Sakaide for a month. I asked Mr.
Motoda to look after the house and get the repairs done by a professional and
to keep in contact with the church community during my absence.

The train was overcrowded as usual, and every car was packed with demo-
bilized soldiers from overseas. It was very troublesome to travel with a
family. The people at home welcomed us warmly and were very kind. Kagawa
prefecture has abundant food compared to other parts of the country, and it ha d
not been damaged much by the war. Therefore it was an ideal spot to rest. We
stayed there spending a week each at my father's, sister's and friend's home, in
turn.

My father was a man of strong beliefs. This was shown by the attitude he
had taken toward me when I brought Christianity into the home. He was a devoted
Buddhist of the Shingon sect, and, at the same time, a most enthusiastic sup-
porter of the Tenno. As he had been weak in his younger days, he had trans-
ferred the supervision of the home to his eldest son when he was in his sixtie s
and had retired.

While digging in the ground as he was building a small hut, he discovered
a pot containing gold and silver coins. Immediately he took it to the former
landlord and placed it on the Buddhist altar in the house. He insisted that
it be returned to the ancestors because it had probably been buried by one of
them. This former landlord became rather confused about the whole thing. Fi-
nally arrangements were made for the money to be taken to the Sakaide Police S
Station where it would be kept under custody, for some time, as lost and found
property. The property, however, had no claimants so it was returned to my father.

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He divided the money into three parts, giving one part to the ancestors of the former landlord, another part to the former landlord, and keeping the last share for himself. With this money he toured the country and visited all the historical spots. He donated one piece each of the gold and silver coins to the historical spots of Honen and Shinran who were the beginners of the Shingon sect. He also made donations at the tombs of the past Emperors. He was over eighty, but he could speak on the histories of such spots as clearly and fluently as any professional guide could have done.

Since the defeat, however, the minds and spirits of the Japanese people had been shaken from their very foundations. The people in my hometown, who had so stubbornly objected to the introduction of all foreign teachings, had now lost their main spiritual support and were in great confusion. It was a rather pitiful sight. Even such an extremem patriot as my father exclaimed: "Since the situation is what it is, I cannot keep any of the Emperor's pictures. I'd be punished if I didn't burn all of his pictures which I've collected."

Up till the present we had been scolded for being so careless or disrespectful as to use papers or magazines containing the Emperor's picture as waste or wrapping paper. Now people were disposing of all such pictures by burning them. It was even said in the neighborhood meetings, that this was an instruction from SCAP. However I had never heard such instructions. Nevertheless, the people in this district were making a great fuss and were trying to purge all Emperor worshippers. To think that the people who had worshipped Tenno as a god were now neglecting him as nothing but rubbish.

What a great change had come! It is wrong to worship the Emperor as a God, but what harm is there in respecting the Emperor as a sovereign and thus integrating the Japanese people? We Christians had never considered the Emperor as a god. Because of this we had been suppressed in various ways

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by the authorities. However we had clung to our beliefs. Now the people are
ready to discard the most valuable symbol of Japan. How feeble their loyalty
was. It is essential to break thoroughly with the feudalistic elements in
order to plan the democratization of Japan. Abolishing the God-like status of
the Emperor has significance in this democratization. However, slandering the
Emperor and annihilating the Tenno system are movements of the Communists and
this means complete subjugation and slavery under foreign power.

During this period of rest I engaged myself in thinking deeply about the
future which Japan was now facing. The radio, newspapers, and other informa-
tional organs had turned from black to white as soon as the war had ended. This
change had confused the thoughts and lives of the Japanese, who had previously
been brought up under nothing but militarism, and they developed a spiritual
panic. (The only principle left was namely, a life motto so traditional and
cunning as "Nagaimono ni makarase," "Be obedient to the conqueror."
I rather doubt if the people who are making a
fuss about the abolition of the Tenno system are doing so from the bottom of
their hearts.)

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138.

November 30 (Friday)

I visited one of the famous parks in Takamatsu. This park, noted for its beautiful scenery of mountains and streams was destroyed by an air-raid just before the end of the war. The ruins were the same everywhere. A total of 118 Japanese cities had been burned, and it was a great loss.

I visited Mr. and Mrs. Kubota who had been my friends on Okinawa. They had been evacuated to Okada village in the country. Mr. Kubota was a graduate of the Hiroshima Normal College and was a teacher of Japanese history in the Sakaide Girls Teacher's School. He had been a nationalist, and since the defeat of Japan he had been very self-critical. He was very eager to study about America. He got hold of me and kept asking me questions about Christianity, the essentials of democracy, and the comparison of Japanese and American race, character, individualism, and family systems. We parted after I asked him to study Christianity.

I had two older brothers. The oldest had been living here, but had recently moved to Fukuoka. The second brother had been working in a bank in Seoul, Korea, but he died just before his repatriation after the end of the war. His wife and three of their children had been safely repatriated to their native home and were living in a small house, but their oldest son had been killed in action in the South Pacific. My oldest sister had sold her large home and was now living in a small house in Kotohira. Her oldest son had gone to war and had not yet returned.

December 10 (Monday)

Kotohira is a town well known for having the Konbira Shrine where the god of seamen is worshipped. In this town my old friend, who had married my niece, was living so we stayed at his home for a week. One day while I was waiting for a suburb electric, a truck used as a bus for the occupation forces came by and a group of soldiers jumped out of it. As I had nothing to do, I went over to start a conversation. One of them asked, "What do

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you think of the Japanese forces?" I did not get the point of his question so I could only answer generally "I think the Japanese forces were fine, for they took the best young men into the military academies after strict examinations. Especially, the morality of the soldiers was based from the past on ounshido --the Japanese chivalry......" I replied. However the soldier interrupted me and declared "The Japanese have ruined Manila like this". He stamped his foot and got very angry. I was silenced by this sudden outburst. I had not heard-known of the actual deeds of the Japanese forces that had made him so angry. He was not a westerner so I think he must have been a Filipino soldier.

For reasons unknown to me, I had not been drafted into the armed forces during the war. Therefore I knew nothing of the atrocities committed by the Army. After the defeat, as the soldiers gradually came home in groups, I was surprised to hear the stories of army violence which they told. I became ashamed of myself for respecting and putting my trust in the Japanese forces. At the same time I could understand the indignation which had been aroused in that Filipino soldier.

December 20 (Thursday)

Glad to find that we were survivors of the atomic bomb disaster, my relatives and friends in my home town had given us many daily necessities. As I had come to the end of my rest period, we left for Hiroshima.

December 23 (Sunday)

This was our first Christmas service since the end of the war. Singing 'Peace on Earth and glory to God' transcended all hostility. In this defeated corner of the world, the Christmas message must be a true consolation and encouragement to the people. On this day, in the damaged ruins of the temporary church, we held a small service at 10:00 A.M. We were joined by several friends from the Occupation Forces. I gave a sermon on the subject, "Christmas and New Born Japan" and revived the church after a solemn communion service.

140.

At 1:30 P.M. we had a Christmas celebration. Miss Kusama, the lady evangelist had made a program. The Tomika, Ebuchi, and Sawano brothers and sisters played a Christmas cantata. As it was rather a warm day it was a very enjoyable Christmas party even though it was held inside a damaged house. Yoshiko Kobayachi sang a song in English, and Dr. Matsumoto of the Hiroshima Joyakuin told stories of his Christmas experiences in his boyhood days which entertained the people. Koko, my little baby, was taking part in a play as Jesus in the cradle in the last scene of the cantata. She crawled out of the cradle while everybody was singing the hymns so the boys and girls' play came to an end amid great laughter. Beginning this Christmas, the Sunday services, prayer meetings, and other usual meetings were resumed.

December 27 (Thursday)

During the Christmas party, the first of its kind since the atomic bomb, a reporter came looking for news and took some snaps of the children's pageant. Upon reading this news in the paper, Mr. K. Shishido, a member of another church, came over to see me in my temporary home. He advised me earnestly, "Reverend, Japan has made a great mistake. The future Japan must be constructed on a Christian basis." "Please do something to reconstruct the church. Since the end of the war, I have been on the staff of the Chugoku Rehabilitation Foundation. This foundation is located near the ruins of the Asano Library along the car line, in Otemachi. I can gather the carpenters and workers under my control at any time you wish. The only problem left is the material, but I can manage to get it somehow ......" As I did not know how to get the necessary material and had no plans for making use of the insurance money, I could not make any definite statements, but I was very grateful for his kindness.

December 30 (Sunday)

Today we held the last service of the year. The attendance was fifteen--eight men and seven women. Most of them were living in Ushita,

141.

but some had come from far away. Every week, in order to attend Sunday services, the people brought their lunches with them. I held a Bible class for the young men at 1:00 P.M. The class was composed mainly of students. Today there about ten present.

As we resumed such meetings, some people began to come from very far away to attend them and they sometimes stayed overnight. These people were not only our own church members but also members of other churches who had missed such services because their own churches had been destroyed. A true united church was being created as the Congregationalists, Baptists, Holiness people and Presbyterians were attending the services. These new people came to feel at home in our church, so our congregation had gradually increased.

On Sunday, January 13th, after the morning service, Mr. Hayashi, the oldest man in the congregation, called on the young people and said "Lets go to the ruins of the Nagarekawa church and clean up the place."

The first voice for the rehabilitation of the church had been raised already January 26, 1946.

A round table of-meeting of the Relief Movement for the Repatriation of Fellowmen Overseas was held at the Aosaki Primary School, and two speakers from the Japan Council of Religious bodies head office came to Hiroshima. They gave a detailed report on the hardships of repatriated people. It was suggested that the only way to give relief to these people was to depend on religious bodies which surmounted racial and national discriminations. What had deeply moved us were the actual conditions of our people who were in Manchuria and North Korea. By summarising the stories told by persons who had risked their lives and escaped from the Soviet Armies, we could see that conditions there were far more terrible than they were in Japan. There had been atrocities committed by the Soviet forces in Manchuria and revenge gained by the Manchurians and Koreans, but above all these pains it was the Japanese themselves that had tortured the Japanese.

142.

There was anarchy, and robbery and rape that had been committed in broad daylight.

The men had been called to arms as soon as the Soviets declared war. Since Japan's surrender, the majority of these men have been used to haul industrial machinery and equipment from Manchuria. Some are engaged in transporting food-stuffs. Their homes, therefore, are looked after by their wives and children and the latter are making their living by selling their goods. Some women are employed as maids and waitresses. According to a secret report from the head of the settlement in Mukden, there is a Japanese prostitution center in the neighborhood of the settlement which holds transactions for 70 yen a person. In the severe cold there are about 1,600,000 Japanese who are about to freeze to death, because they are unable to buy enough coal.

Under such circumstances there is no way to help these people, except through the support of an international religious organization. It is especially necessary for Christians to rise to this occasion.

Facing such grave social problems in and out of the country, I felt our own lack of power.

February 6 (Wednesday)

A campaign to erect a memorial tower amidst the desolation had been started by a resident of Yokagawa-machi. He was a business man named Oda. He published his idea in the papers and called for supporters. I was contacted, so I gave him my promise of hearty support. I had received notice today that the first committee meeting would be held at 11:00 P.M. in front of the monument in the West Parade Ground. I set out for it rather early because I wanted to drop in to see Mrs. Nakanye, wife of Rev. Nakanye, on the way. Rev. Nakanye had been badly injured by the atomic bomb and had managed to escape to the Red Cross Hospital. However the next day his wife found him dead in the shrubs among the pine trees at the entrance of the hospital.

Since then, Mrs. Nakanye had been living in an air-raid shelter

143.

with her three children. I had heard that she was in bed suffering from malnutrition due to the recent food shortage, so I wanted to pay her a visit.

When I got to Kamiya-cho I saw a fellow driving a jeep very slowly so I thought that perhaps he was lost. I asked him, "May I help you if you are lost?" He said, "No, I'm not lost. I'm a reporter and I'm looking around to see if I can find something interesting. Who are you?" "I'm a pastor of a Methodist church" I replied. He asked, "If you don't mind, won't you sit next to me and tell me something about the atom bomb?" As I was not in a hurry, I sat beside him and answered all his questions. Half an hour seemed to have passed, so I made an excuse to part and said, "I must go now for I must visit the widow of an Alliance pastor who was my friend. She is sick in the ruins." He then remarked, "Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I'd like to see her myself if you wouldn't mind. Please take me along."

We went to the ruins in the jeep to 8 chome, Ote-machi and drove in. We got off the jeep and walked about the place looking in at all the air-raid shelters dug under ground the place but could not find Mrs. Nakanye's place. A few boys who appeared to be demobilized men were vigorously playing the guitar in one of the shelters. The reporter found it interesting and took a snap. The boys could not understand his words but they welcomed the reporter and the reporter gave them some cigarettes and were both having a good time.

As we were leaving the place in vain, the reporter called on me inquiring, "What is your impression standing amidst the ruins?" I could not understand what he was really after, so I was confused at what to say. He then asked, "I bet the people in Hiroshima are resenting the Americans." I was such an astonishing question that I asked, "Why do you say so?" He repeated, "Why, you'd really hate the Americans for giving such terrible damages wouldn't you?" Up till this day I had never thought about the ethical problem concerning the usage of the atomic bomb. T

exceedingly vulnerable: Multistory brick buildings with load-bearing walls were 'destroyed or seriously damaged over an area of 3.6 square miles at Hiroshima, while similar one-story brick buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged within an area of six square miles. Wood-frame buildings built as industrial or commercial shops suffered similar damage in an area of over eight miles, while Japanese residences were destroyed or seriously damaged within an area of six square miles. This was at Hiroshima, where the less powerful bomb was used!

These figures indicate what would happen to typical wood, brick, and stucco structures in American cities. Modern reinforced concrete and steel-frame buildings would fare better here—as they did in Japan. But the following table shows how American cities are built, and how few are of blast-resistant construction.

## TYPES OF STRUCTURES BY EXTERIOR MATERIAL (U. S. CITIES)

<table><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">City</th><th colspan="4">Total Structures</th><th rowspan="2">Other Per Number Cent</th></tr><tr><th>Reported</th><th>Wood</th><th>Brick</th><th>Stucco</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>New York</td><td>591,319</td><td>236,879</td><td>299,482</td><td>41,661</td><td>13,297 2.2</td></tr><tr><td>Washington</td><td>156,359</td><td>48,971</td><td>95,939</td><td>5,764</td><td>5,685 3.5</td></tr><tr><td>Chicago</td><td>382,628</td><td>131,148</td><td>238,959</td><td>5,797</td><td>6,724 1.7</td></tr><tr><td>Detroit</td><td>267,677</td><td>165,488</td><td>94,333</td><td>1,923</td><td>5,933 2.2</td></tr><tr><td>San Francisco</td><td>105,180</td><td>61,172</td><td>2,334</td><td>40,902</td><td>722 0.7</td></tr></tbody></table>

Source: 16th census of U. S. (1940) Vol. II.

The overwhelming bulk of the buildings in American cities could not stand up against an atomic bomb bursting a mile or a mile and a half from them.

And the people? We must not too readily discount the casualty rate because of the teeming populations of congested Japanese cities. American cities too have their crowded slums, and in addition tend to build vertically so that the density of the population is high in a given area even though each apartment dweller may have more living space than his Japanese equivalent.

## POPULATION DENSITIES
U. S. AND JAPANESE CITIES

<table><thead><tr><th>City</th><th>Population</th><th>Area Sq. Ml.</th><th>Population Density Per Sq. Mile</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>New York</td><td>7,492,000</td><td>322.8</td><td>25,200</td></tr><tr><td>Manhattan (day)</td><td>3,200,000</td><td>22.2</td><td>145,000</td></tr><tr><td>Manhattan (night)</td><td>1,689,000</td><td>22.2</td><td>76,000</td></tr><tr><td>Bronx</td><td>1,493,700</td><td>41.4</td><td>34,000</td></tr><tr><td>Brooklyn</td><td>2,792,600</td><td>80.9</td><td>34,200</td></tr><tr><td>Queens</td><td>1,340,500</td><td>121.1</td><td>11,000</td></tr><tr><td>Staten Island</td><td>176,200</td><td>57.2</td><td>3,000</td></tr><tr><td>Washington</td><td>663,091</td><td>61.4</td><td>11,000</td></tr><tr><td>Chicago</td><td>3,396,808</td><td>206.7</td><td>16,500</td></tr><tr><td>Detroit</td><td>1,623,452</td><td>137.9</td><td>11,750</td></tr><tr><td>San Francisco</td><td>634,536</td><td>44.6</td><td>14,250</td></tr><tr><td>Hiroshima</td><td>340,000 (prewar)</td><td>26.5</td><td>12,750</td></tr><tr><td>Center of city (1 Aug. 45)</td><td>184,000</td><td>4.0</td><td>46,000</td></tr><tr><td>Nagasaki</td><td>250,000 (prewar)</td><td>35</td><td>7,000</td></tr><tr><td>Built-up area (1 Aug. 45)</td><td>220,000</td><td>3.4</td><td>65,000</td></tr></tbody></table>

Sources: New York: Fortune, July, 1939—other U. S. cities: 16th census of U. S. (1940).

Most of the population densities in this table are merely averages for people within a city limits. Most meaningful, therefore, are the figures for the central areas of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and for the boroughs of New York. The casualty rates at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, applied to the massed inhabitants of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, yield a grim conclusion. These casualty rates, it must never be forgotten, result from the first atomic bombs to be used and from bombs burst at considerable distances above the ground. Improved

bombs, perhaps detonated more effectively, may well prove still more deadly.

## B. WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT

The danger is real—of that, the Survey's findings leave no doubt. Scattered through those findings, at the same time, are the clues to the measures that can be taken to cut down potential losses of lives and property. These measures must be taken or initiated now, if their cost is not to be prohibitive. But if a policy is laid down, well in advance of any crisis, it will enable timely decentralization of industrial and medical facilities, construction or blueprinting of shelters, and preparation for life-saving evacuation programs. The almost unprotected, completely surprised cities of Japan suffered maximum losses from atomic-bomb attack. If we recognize in advance the possible danger and act to forestall it, we shall, at worst, suffer minimum casualties and disruption.

Since modern science can be marshalled for the defense as well as the attack, there is reason to hope that protective weapons and techniques will be improved. Even protective devices and vigilance, however, cannot be perfect guards against surprise or initial attack, or against the unlimited choices of targets offered an enemy through the range and speed of modern weapons. In our planning for the future, if we are realistic, we will prepare to minimize the destructiveness of such attacks, and so organize the economic and administrative life of the nation that no single or small group of successful attacks can paralyze the national organism. The foregoing description of the effectiveness of the atomic bomb has shown clearly that, despite its awesome power, it has limits of which wise planning will take prompt advantage.

### 1. Shelters

The most instructive fact at Nagasaki was the survival, even when near ground zero, of the few hundred people who were properly placed in the tunnel shelters. Carefully built shelters, though unoccupied, stood up well in both cities. Without question, shelters can protect those who get to them against anything but a direct hit. Adequate warning will assure that a maximum number get to shelters.

Analysis of the protection of survivors within a few hundred feet of ground zero shows that even gamma rays can be shielded against. At Hiroshima, for example, persons in a concrete building 3,600 feet from ground zero showed no clinical effects from gamma radiation, but those protected only by wooden buildings at a similar distance suffered from radiation disease. The necessary thickness varies with the substance and with the distance from the point of detonation. Adequate shelters can be built which will reduce substantially the casualties from radiation.

Men arriving at Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been constantly impressed by the shells of reinforced concrete buildings still rising above the rubble of brick and stone or the ashes of wooden buildings. In most cases gutted by fire or stripped of partitions and interior trim, these buildings have a double lesson for us. They show, first, that it is possible without excessive expense to erect buildings which will satisfactorily protect their contents at distances of about 2,000 feet or more from a bomb of the types so far employed. Construction of such buildings would be similar to earthquake-resistant construction, which California experience indicates would cost about 10 per cent to 15 per cent more than conventional construction. Even against more powerful bombs or against near misses, such construction would diminish damage. Second, the internal damage illustrates the danger from interior details and construction which result in fire or flying debris in otherwise sound buildings. The elimination of combustible interiors and the provision of full-masonry partition walls, fire-resistive stair and elevator enclosures, and fire-division walls would localize fires. Avoidance of glass, tile, or lath and plaster on wood stud would cut down damage from flying debris. The studies of the physical-damage

JULY 5, 1946

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division of the Survey support such recommendations and include many others.

The survival of sheltered sections of Nagasaki suggests forcefully the use that can be made of irregular terrain. Uneven ground reduces the spread and uniformity of blast effect. Terrain features such as rivers and parks afford natural firebreaks and avenues of escape.

## 2. Decentralization

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population. The population density of 45,000 or more per square mile of built-up area explains in part the high casualty rate. Significant, therefore, is the fact that deaths at Nagasaki, despite the greater population density, were only half those at Hiroshima: The difference can be assigned in the main to the separation of the dispersed built-up pockets at Nagasaki, in contrast to the uniform concentration of the inhabitants in the heart of Hiroshima. The Nagasaki bomb thus dissipated much of its energy against hills, water, or unoccupied areas, while the Hiroshima bomb achieved almost optimum effect.

The fate of industries in both cities again illustrates the value of decentralization. All major factories in Hiroshima were on the periphery of the city—and escaped serious damage; at Nagasaki, plants and dockyards at the southern end of the city were merely intact, but those in the valley where the bomb exploded were seriously damaged. So spread out were the industries in both cities that no single bomb could have been significantly more effective than the two actually dropped.

Medical facilities, crowded into the heart of the city rather than evenly spread through it, were crippled or wiped out by the explosion. Only the previous removal of some stocks of medical supplies from Hiroshima to outlying communities, and the bringing in of aid, enabled the limited medical attention of the first few days.

These results underline those in conventional area raids in Germany, where frequently the heart of a city was devastated while peripheral industries continued to produce and where (particularly in Hamburg) destruction of medical facilities just at the time of greatest need hampered care of wounded.

The similar peril of American cities and the extent to which wise zoning has diminished it differ from city to city. Though a reshaping and partial dispersal of the national centers of activity are drastic and difficult measures, they represent a social and military ideal toward which very practical steps can be taken once the policy has been laid down. In the location of plants, administrative headquarters, and hospitals, particularly, the value of decentralization is obvious, and can be obtained cheaply if the need is foreseen. For example, by wise selection of dispersed sites, the present hospital-building program of the Veterans' Administration could be made to lessen our congestion without additional cost.

Reserve stocks of critical materials and of such products as medical supplies should be kept on hand. This principle of maintaining reserves applies also to the capital equipment of the country. Key producing areas must not be served by a single source of power or channel of transportation. Indispensable materials must not come from processing plants of barely adequate capacity. Production of essential manufactured goods —civilian and military—must not be confined to a few or to geographically centralized plants. And the various regions of the country should be encouraged to approach balanced economic development as closely as is naturally possible. An enemy viewing our national economy must not find bottlenecks which use of the atomic bomb could choke off to throttle our productive capacity.

## 3. Civilian Defense

Because the scale of disaster would be certain to overwhelm the locality in which it occurs, mutual assistance organized on

a national level is essential. Such national organization is by no means inconsistent with decentralization; indeed, it will be aided by the existence of the maximum number of nearly self-sustaining regions whose joint support it can co-ordinate. In addition, highly trained mobile units skilled in and equipped for fire fighting, rescue work, and clearance and repair should be trained for an emergency which disrupts local organization and exceeds its capability for control.

Most important, a national civilian-defense organization can prepare now the plans for necessary steps in case of crisis. Two complementary programs which should be worked out in advance are those for evacuation of unnecessary inhabitants from threatened urban areas, and for rapid erection of adequate shelters for people who must remain.

## 4. Active Defense

Protective measures can substantially reduce the degree of devastation from an atomic bomb and the rate of casualties. Yet if the possibility of atomic attack on us is accepted, we must accept also the fact that no defensive measures alone can long protect us. At best they can minimize our losses and preserve the functioning of the national community through initial or continuing partial attack. Against full and sustained attacks they would be ineffectual palliatives.

As defensive weapons, atomic bombs are useful primarily as warnings, as threats of retaliation which will restrain a potential aggressor from their use as from the use of poison gas or biological warfare. The mission of active defense, as of passive defense, is thus to prevent the surprise use of the atomic bomb from being decisive. A wise military establishment will make sure—by dispersal, concealment, protection, and constant readiness of its forces—that no single blow or series of blows from an enemy can cripple its ability to strike back in the same way or to repel accompanying attacks from other air, ground, or sea forces. The measures to enable this unrelaxing state of readiness are not new; only their urgency is increased. Particularly is this true of the intelligence activities on which informed decisions and timely actions depend.

The need for research is not limited to atomic energy itself, but is equally important in propellants, detection devices, and other techniques of countering and of delivering atomic weapons. Also imperative is the testing of the weapon's potentialities under varying conditions. The coming Operations Crossroads, for example, will give valuable data for defining more precisely what is already known about the atomic bomb's effectiveness when air-burst; more valuable, however, will be tests under new conditions, to provide sure information about detonations at water level or underwater, as well as underground. While prediction of effects under differing conditions of detonation may have a high degree of probability, verified knowledge is a much better basis for military planning.

## Conclusion

One further measure of safety must accompany the others. To avoid destruction, the surest way is to avoid war. This was the Survey's recommendation after viewing the rubble of German cities, and it holds equally true whether one remembers the ashes of Hiroshima or considers the vulnerability of American cities.

Our national policy has consistently had as one of its basic principles the maintenance of peace. Based on our ideals of justice and of peaceful development of our resources, this disinterested policy has been reinforced by our clear lack of anything to gain from war—even in victory. No more forceful arguments for peace and for the international machinery of peace than the sight of the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have ever been devised. As the developer and exploiter of this ominous weapon, our nation has a responsibility, which no American should shirk, to lead in establishing and implementing the international guarantees and controls which will prevent its future use.

78

THE UNITED STATES NEWS

HIROSHIMA

A NOISELESS FLASH

This is a story of what one small bomb did to the people of a city.

At a quarter past eight in the morning, on August 6, 1945, ......

A PRELIMINARY REPORT ON THE DISASTER IN HIROSHIMA CITY CAUSED BY
THE ATOMIC BOMB by The Research Commission of the Imperial University
of Kyoto

All things in the location direct under the explosion centre showed
a strong induced radioactivity, which was due to a vigorous rain of
neutrons discharged by the explosion of the bomb. About 10<sup>11</sup>-10<sup>12</sup>
slow neutrons per sq cm fell at centre

Kyoto Univ commission went to work in Ono Army Hospital, about 10
miles west of H. On Sept 17. Hospital building, which belongs to
Red Cross, was on beautiful slope, inclining from mountain covered
with pine trees and bushes to beach of Inland Sea. Typhoon which
building stood, but at 10:10 on 17th land behind hospital began to
slide and swept it into sea. Ten members of commission killed and
eight wounded, lost records, instruments and medicines. Almost all
patients who being observed carried away

Immediate effects: burn and pulmonal emphysema. In Nagasaki a young engineer carried about at time of bomb and several days thereafter some keys on his right waist and an aluminum cigaret case in the left pocket of his overalls. As he was later examined at the clinic of Kyoto University Hospital, he had neighbor wounds nor burns on his chest and inguinal regions. Soon after that he got suddenly a wide scalding with vesicles on the chest and also on both groins. These injuries did not heal until the beginning of October, and left scars similar to those of X-ray burns.

Wounds: mostly accidental, as results of falls, etc.

Later manifestations of essential effects:

10) Epilation

2) Disturbed menstruation. 50% of Kyoto U examinees had delayed menstruation.

3) Diarrhea, in some cases with bloody feces. Mostly accompanied with anorexia.

4) Blood: number of red corpuscles is generally decreased, hemoglobin content is obviously diminished, but leucopenia (白细胞 decrease in number of white corpuscles) is most general and distinguished symptom. The closer to center the more.

A young man of 23 years was examined on morning of Sept. 6th several hours before his death. He was flashed on a place of one km from center and had neither burns nor wounds. His general state, when examined, was very severe with high fever. The bleeding time was so prolonged as 40 minutes. Findings at the autopsy: anaemia, haemorrhagic diathesis, degeneration parenchymatosa, edilatatio cordis, Athermatosis, tonsillitis necroticans, pharyngitis catarrhalis, agranulocytosis, spleen of agranulocytose, splenitis exsudativa (necrosis of germinal centres), fatty medulla (femur), colitis ulcerosa, degeneration et stasis hepatica, nephrosis and haemorrhage of kidney, stasis et haemorrhage of lung, bronchitis, pleuritis fibrosa (dext.), necrosis miliaris pancreaticis, degeneration parenchymatosa supraenalis, haemorrhagia pachymeningis, encephalomalatia posthaemorrhagia, atrophia testis,

2

## involutio et oedema thymii.

### Bone marrow:

a far gone disturbance in the process of blood cell formation. The number of nucleate cells in the bone marrow amounts to 5000-20,000, a remarkable decrease. In many severe cases (leucocyte count in blood less than 1000) the formation of erythocytes can be strongly inflicted. The relative number of neutrophils was decreased, especially the unmatured types were poor in number and the percentages of lymphocytes and of plasma cells were increased. A strong decrease of megacaryocytes was usual in the bone marrow of the severe cases, the thrombocyte formation must be there obviously dropped.

**Bleeding and hemorrhagic diathesis:** from two to three weeks after the bombardment many sufferers began to show a symptom complex, a marked tendency to bleeding, epilation, diarrhea, etc.

Many patients in a severe state showed a remarkable tendency to bleeding, many petechia on the skin and on the gum, not only the nose-bleed but also the enterohemorrhage was not slaved. The number of blood platelets was in those serious cases decreased sometimes so far as to about 10,000, sometimes it went down even to several thousands. The function of the blood platelets for the blood coagulation was strongly reduced and as its result the bleeding time in seriously inflicted patients was obviously prolonged. The time of blood coagulation and thrombification was also prolonged, the retraction of the blood-clot very weak. Bleeding less in middle sever patients (leucocyte count 1,000-3,000), hardly any in light (5,000-6,000)

**Bacterology:** several patients had doubtless symptoms of septicemia and a tendency to pustulation. Found in autposies small clumps of bacilli accompanied with necrotic areas of different sizes. These clumps of necrosis in lung, kidney, spleen, liver, etc.

**Ulcerative stomatitis:** these ulcers were variable in size from a millet seed to a small finger tip and were very painful at occlusion. According to patients declarations, ulcerations came out on side toward which patient faced at moment of flash. If patient had some gold crown work or an artificial denture, on that part of gum no ulcer was seen. No loosening of teeth. Many had brown line of 1-2 mm width below the gingival papilla of under jaw; reason unknown.

### Reduced resistance of capillary wall.

Within 1 km mostly died fairly quickly of "acute effects", death curve decreased for about 20 days, then in last 10 days of august rose and reached peak at beginning of September. Those outside 1 km zone died later of "subacute effects"

### In factory dieary Dobashi bridge;

Total on Aug 6 234
unknown 25
buried alive and died from pressure 11
other deaths up to Sept 13 138
survivors 60

3

<table><tbody><tr><td>deaths</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>unknown</td><td>25</td></tr><tr><td>buried alive</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td>burns</td><td>67</td></tr><tr><td>wounds</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>burns and wounds</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><td>deaths from unknown cause</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td>atomic bomb disease</td><td>56</td></tr><tr><td>sufferers of atomic bomb disease</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>deaths</td><td>56</td></tr><tr><td>survivors</td><td>21</td></tr></tbody></table>

17.7% of deaths from atomic bomb disease in first week, 60.0% in second week, 20.0% in third, 2.2% in fourth or later.

Preliminary report of the Damages on Structures due to the A Bomb
Yasua Kondo, Professor in Civil Engineering Kyoto Imp U.

Dead & wounded amount to about 270,000 reported by government, number of houses collapsed to about 80,000, area of burnt planimetred by author to about 12, sq kms, area of houses collapsed to about 20 sq kms.

At epicentre:

Wooden buildings completely damaged and burned down. brick buildings with and without reinforced concrete floor, completely collapsed, reinforced concrete buildings, roof slabs and roof beams damaged. Road almost no damage. Bridge: plate girder bridge with reinforced concrete slab, slab elevated and shifted; wooden bridges collapsed and burnt down, riverside retaining wall, slid at several point. Electric poles: steel poles bent down and broken, wooden poles burnt, electric wire completely cut off. Inside circle of complete collapse -- radius about 2 kms.

wooden buildings completely collapsed and almost all of them burnt; brick buildings with wooden floor collapsed and burnt down; reinforced concrete buildings, almost no damage to main skeleton, sashed blown off, fireproof shutters blown off, some of them burnt, steel building burnt and bent down. bridges handrails fell down when exposed to lateral pressure; main part, no damage; some steel poles bent down, wooden ones scorched and knocked away. Circle of half collapse - 2 kms to 4 kms. Roof tile damage 4kms to 8.5 kms, window glass damage 8.5 kms to 12 kms. (to sea even 16 kms)

Heat said not to be sufficient to fire a wooden structure. Fires mostly due to domestic fires and chemicals under collapsed houses.

Several damaged structures seem to indicate that the pressure lasted a few seconds, or in other words, acted statically instead of explosively.

Pressure intensity at epicentre 1500-2000 kg/sq m. acting vertically; 800 m from epicentre 360-710 kg/sq m acting horizontally at 2 kms over 300 kg/sq m acting horiz vertically.

4

On the Influence Upon Plants of the atomic Bomb in Hiroshima on
August 6, 1945, Preliminary report -- by 4 botanists of Kyoto Univ.

Central zone -- within 500 m of center. Overground organs of all
plants were burned. Even thick trees of more than 160 cm breast height
diameter were broken down. Their trunks and twigs had often been blown
off on the lee side and burned. In center zone, Sept 15-21, numerous
wild and cultivated annuals were found growing vigorously. Most
common samples were sesamum indicum, zea mays, cassia tora, dolichos
lablab, glycine max, pharbitis m nil; and less common ones were cucurbita
moschata, ricinus communis, hordeum vulgare, luffa cylindrica, raphanus
sativus, spinacia oleracea, celosia cristata, xanthium strumarium,
portulaca oleracea, amaranthus blitum, piomoea M. purpurea, setaria
viridis, fimbristylis diphylla, pigitaria ciliaris, panicum crusgalli
var. submutica, and cyperus sp.

It is striking that caccia tora was growing everywhere about the
explosion center, as if this plant had been dropped together with the
bomb. It stood not only in fragmentary rows among dead remnants of the
same plant, but also here and there on riversides and on the sites of
burned houses. Owing to the hardness and very remarkable longevity,
many seeds of this plant may remain ungerminated in the soil. So it is
supposed that such resting seeds were stimulated to germinate by some
agencies caused by the bomb.

While almost all herbs were killed in this zone, the underground
organs of many perennials suffered but little, and at about the middle
of August, these perennials began to sprout: physalis alkekengi, digitaria
ciliaris, houttuynia cordata, ipomoea batatas, paulownia tomentosa,
calystegia japonica, sasa sp. hemerocallis fulva, achyranthes japonica,
ophiopogon japonicus, pennisetum japonicum, trifolium repens, Ixixii iris
japonica, iris tectorum, MIMIKK oryza sativa. The overground parts of
the rice plant, which was found at a place 500 m distant from the
explosion center, had all been killed, and then the new shoots sprouted
and this bloomed about the middle of September. It may be concluded
that the conditions under the ground surface were not so severe as to
damage plant organs there. This has also been proved by the microbe
flora. In the culture experiment, which we made, many bacteria could
be found in the soil collected from various depths at the explosion center.

Second zone -- 500m-2000m. Fire in this area. Wooden telephone poles
mostly of cryptomeria japonica were charred on radiated side -- temperature
must have been raised above carbonization point, which, for cryptomeria
japonica is ca. 240 C. In this zone many plants were found to survive,
such as cercis chinensis, fatsia japonica, buxus microphylla, wistaria
floribunda, spiraea prunifolium, trachelospermum asiaticum, parthenocissus
tricuspidata, ardisia japonica, celtis sinensis, rhododendron, quercus
glauca, bambusa sp. lespeciza bicolor, aspidistra elatior, colocasia
antiquorum, panicum miliaceum, ... If not protected somehow, leaves
were burned by fire or radiation. Trees, deprived of branches and
leaves, were found to grow new shoots from the stem. Annual plants
with will developed stem such as Zea and Ricinus, if not having suffered
much from fire, showed rejuvinescence from the survived stock.

Peripheral zone: 2000m to limit of conceivable influence.
Free of fire, so bomb effects. Leaves and branches of many herbs,
shrubs and trees were scorched, and their color changed into brown.

5

For example, a branch of castanea pubinervis, 3 cm in diameter, was scorched on the irradiated side of the bark, even at a distance of 2500 m from the center; at the same place some bamboo stems were browned, leaving portions shaded by branches and leaves green.

In the scorch leaf tissues, eg of quercus glauca, cryptomeria japonica, osmanthus fragrans var. latifolius, lespedeza sp. camellia sasangua, also in the scorched stem tissus, gilibertia trifidха, broussonetia kazipoki, the starch grains remain more or less perfectly; this suggests that the scorching took place so suddenly that there was no time for transformation of the starch into soluble substances.

According to the information of inhabitants, the rice field at Nagatsuka, about 4 km from the center, had also changed in color, it is said that the color change did not occur uniformly all over the field, but brown strips appeared in green.

The northern part of the city is surrounded by hills, on which pine trees are predominating. The leaves of these trees were scorched by the radiation, so that, the scene changed from green into deep brown. The brown color, however, has been fading away since. A moment after the explosion, forest fires broke out on these hills, even at a distance of 4500 m from the center. At least seven places are said to have been origins of such a fire. And some of them seemed to be on the fire lines of the forest, where the trees had been but and the fuel such as little and withered branches were exposed directly to the radiation. The scorching of leaves and branches were found in places more than 6 km from the explosion center. Fallen trees were seen at a distance of about 2500 m from center.

Regeneration of plants was found everywhere, especially in second and peripheral zones. Yucca filamentosa, sàlix babylonica, cercis chinensis, punica granatum, firmiana simplex, robinia pseudo-acacia, magnolia liliflora, bambusa sp., etc. sprouted new shoots, though the aerial parts of them were severely burned. No rejuvenescence was found in the burned conifers, such as pinus thunbergii, cryptomeria japonica and chamaecyparis obtusa.

Comparing these observations with the usual cases of regeneration caused by pruning, defoliation and other mechanical injuries, the action of the atomic bomb seems to be more effective in promoting the new growth than the latter ones. Often new shoots were seen developing onto only the irradiated side of the crown, showing an apparent promoting effect of the radiation. The stimulating effect for germination is already mentioned.

## The Clinical Investigation of the Atomic Bomb Disease -- Medical Clinic, Kyushu Imp

**Symptoms:** Fever, epilation, stomatitis, petechiae, extreme leucopenia. **Disease in question:** agranulocytosis, or acute panmyelophthisis, or aleukia haemorrhagica.

In the first week after the explosion, fever, headache, anorexia, nausea and vomiting took place in the majority of patients. The onset began immediately after the bombardment and several hours later. In

6

most cases these symptoms disappeared in 2 or 3 days after the
explosion. They occurred in those who were within the circle of 1.5
km radius from the center of the explosion. The causes of these
symptoms could be exhaustion and psychic shock, but they are also
accepted as part of the general disturbances of the effects of
excessive radiant rays.

In the second week, the onsets of the symptoms were relatively
few, and in the 3rd, 4th and 5th week, especially in the 4th week,
many signs appeared suddenly, ie, fever, epilation, petechia and
sore throat, etc. in the 4th week only did we encounter haemorrhagic
signs, including petechia, gingival and subcutaneous haemorrhages,
haematuria, epistaxis, bloody sputum and stool, etc.

The main symptoms were fever, epilation, haemorrhage and
gingivo-pharyngitis. They occurred mostly in the 4th week.

Fever, haemorrhage and gingivo-pharyngitis were the symptoms
of the agranulocytosis.

No difference between males and females in onset of disease.

Fever: in most of the patients fever set in on the day of the
bombardment and continued for several days. This may be considered
as a direct reaction to the exposure to the large quantities of
radiant rays. In a considerable number of the cases the fever
continued an diarrhea set in. Then heart failure occuered and the
patients died in from several to ten days

The fever of the main symptom stage rose gradually or suddenly to high
point. It rose to 39-40 C and showed a continuous course, later
becoming remittant, then the patient died.

Subcutaneous hemorrhage (petechia) occurred mostly over the arm
trunk and sometimes over the limbs. There were vissicles in the skin.
Hemorrhage occurred in them and such vissicles became violaceous.

EpilationL recovery occurred only after two and one half months
after the explosion.

Summary of investigations:

1. After the explosion, a large majority of those exposed suffered from general malaise, headache, fever, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. These are the symptoms of the direct reaction caused by radiation, but they disappeared in several days. Of course, those who were heavily exposed to the radiations died early, and thus could not be seen by us.

2. The new symptoms had their onset within a week after the explosion. That is to say, fever, epilation, gingivo-pharyngitis, haemorrhages and leucopenias -- we call them five cardinal symptoms. These are the main symptoms of the atomic bomb disease. Many patients in this category died.

3. We performed sternal punctures and ascertained remarkable damages to the bone marrow, and could demonstrate that this is

7

principally the essence of the atomic bomb disease (in narrow sense).

4. In serious cases, the sternal marrow proved to be "reticular marrow" after Rohr, and in milder cases "myelocytic or metamylocytic marrow."

5. Most of cases with "reticular marrow" died, we have however, 2 instances who recovered.

80% of the cases of the main symptoms were those within 2 km distance from the explosion center in Nagasaki.

No difference between male and female in appearance of main symptoms.

The white cell counts in the peripheral blood decreased remarkably, lower than 1000 in serious cases. Since the 1st September the white cell counts increased with the lapse of time, and at the end of October showed only a slight drop.

At first, the percentage of granulocytes was low and of lymphocytes high, but with the lapse of time the ratio of these two cells became reversed.

In some cases plasma cells, myelocytes and metamyelocytes were found in the peripheral blood.

At the beginning of September the red cells, in the peripheral blood did not change as markedly as the white cells, but with the passage of time anaemia developed. Recently this is tending towards normal

Nucleated red cells were not found in the peripheral blood. The reticulocytes increased remarkable at the end of September.

The osmotic resistance of red cells increased in some cases.

The haemoglobin value decreased in general, showing no remarkable changes during the rime of our observation.

The red cells counts decreased, while the haemoglobin value did not decrease relatively, the color index increased slightly. Namely, it is a hyperchromic anaemia.

Platelets decreased remarkably at the height of the disease, when the white cell counts were at a minimum. This is the principle cause of the hemorrhagic tendency. They gradually returned to normal. In serious cases, megakaryocytes also disappeared from the sternal marrow.

The bleeding time prolonged very much

No change was found in the coagulating time of the blood.

Prognosis:

Many died suffering from fever, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, that is to say from the direct reaction of the first stage, but in milder cases, these symptoms disappeared gradually with recovery.

8

In the main symptoms, the more severe the cardinal symptoms (fever, epilation, gingivo-pharyngitis, haemorrages) the worse is the prognosis. But some cases recovered in spite of the existence of all severe cardinal symptoms

The prognosis of the cases without fever and gingivo-pharyngitis is good, even is epilation were present. The continuance of fever and gingivitis is of ominous import

The low white cell count indicates a bad prognosis, but some cases in which it was less than 1000 recovered.

Reticular marrow in myelogramm is a poor prognostic sign thought there are exceptions. Although the cases with myelocytic, or metamyelocytic marrow are regarded with optimism, one of them died with progression into reticular marrow.

While severe burns denotes exposure to a large quantity of radiation, we observed some cases with severe burns did not suffer from the atomic bomb disease. The disease sets in often several weeks after the explosion, without wounds or burns.

We observed many serious cases who had not suffered any immediate effects but as a consequence of overwork later suffered with symptoms of this disease.

The earlier the onset of the cardinal symptoms, the worse the prognosis

In general, the mortality should be regarded to be proportional to the degree of exposure to radiation, which in turn appears to be proportionate to the square of the distance from the center. Therefore, those who were nearer to the center would suffer earlier and die earlier and with higher mortality. On the other hand, many of them would die also from wounds and burns. Furthermore in the same distance we must consider the grade of protection. The factors which decide the degree of exposure to radiation are not simple.

## Medical treatment:

Rest, diet and vitamin supplements are, of course, an important matter. In addition, the intravenous injection of glucose is beneficial. We administered whole blood transfusions frequently to the severe anaemic cases and obtained good results. The amount of a transfusion averaged 50-100 cc. We also used oral and intramuscular administration of liver extract, which contained haematopoetic principles and which is rich in lactoflavin and pentose-nucleotides, etc. They were effective. Because of our inability to obtain a sufficient supply of standard liver extract, we with the cooperation of Prof. Dr. Tomiyama of the agricultural faculty of the university, prepared a satisfactory substitute using cows liver, with gratifying therapeutic effects. This product was named marugen. ∗

## Classification:

Considering the described results of our investigations, we advocate the following classification of the injuries to the human

body caused by radiation as: atomic bomb disease.

The atomic bomb disease is differentiated into three stages, and the first stage subdivided into 2 -- direct reaction and stage of main symptoms. Direct reaction, which occurs immediately after the exposure, could be caused by intoxication with so-called necrohormone, produced by destruction of body cells. Those exposed to a large quantity of radiation died in this stage.

The main symptoms develop in a week in some cases, but in 3-4 weeks in most cases. Among the main symptoms, the most important are fever, emesis, gingivo-pharyngitis, haemorrhages and laucopenia. Most of these are due to agranulocytosos or aieukia haemorrhagica (Frank). Many died in this stage. Anaemia is not remarkable in most cases in this stage, though there are some exceptions. There are also a thrombocytopenia and a severe hemorrhagic tendency.

After the first stage, anaemia appears, and it is the second stage, i.e., anaemic stage. We think it is not quite proper to name this stage aplastic or hypoplastic anaemia.

In the stage of main symptoms and second state, the principal seat of the pathological changes is the bone-marrow tissue, hence, essentially the disease the disease should be called "panmyelopathia acuta" In addition, considering the histological changes of lymptissues it should also be called "panhaematophthis acuta."

The third stage is that of myeloid reaction. White cell counts return not only to normal but increase to high levels with the appearance of young forms. Subsequently red cells increase and the anaemia clears up. In this stage, however, some cases may die of complications, for instance, pyothrax, etc. Subsequently the white cells, which once were increased in excess, now decrease gradually and are returning to normal.

At the time of the explosion, all the body tissues would be irradiated, and the symptoms of direct reaction would have been caused by the influence of the destruction of tissues. But, in later stages, the principal matter is apparently the disturbance of haemotopoetic organs, especially of the bone-marrow, from all the symptomatological, haemotological and histological points of view.

Two cases in N treated by penicillin loaned by US Army showed prompt alleviation of fever and infectious symptoms all disappeared.

Case reports on patients caused by atmm bomb
Dermato-Urological Department of the Kyoto Medical College

Parts of body which were directly exposed to the rays of the bomb were reddened in an elapse of several minutes to two hours, and after that they began to swell with a color of dark red.
Blisters, which broken, causing loss of serums.
Keloid
Interruption of menses.

10

Dr. Takatoshi Hasegawa, Professor of Oto-rhino-laryngology, Nagasaki Medical College, himself sufferer from atomic bomb disease: "At times I had a miserable feeling like an after effects of the night drink."

Dr. Yosuke Morizama "I realized that I was living, but the whole place looked pitch dark and I was choked."

Purpura from petechia: As big as pin head, round and reddish purple, appear on trunk and thighs and upper arms. Some as large as soybeans and irregular shape. Small ones could be taken for bug bites. Also a birth mark got purple red and looked like one of the purpura just made.

Flash burn and radiation in inverse proportion

VOL. XVI, No. 2

# EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES ON THE BIOLOGICAL ACTION OF HARD ROENTGEN RAYS*

BY MASAO TSUZUKI, M.D.

Assistant Professor of Oral Surgery, Medical Department, Imperial University

TOKYO, JAPAN

## I. INTRODUCTION

THE biological actions of roentgen rays on the normal tissues and organs have been studied by many scientists, and many valuable observations have been made as to their morphological or functional effects. Especially is this so in regard to the morphological effects, so much so that it may seem that conclusive results have been reached. However as most of this work was done with the older roentgen-ray apparatus and relatively soft rays, there still remain a few problems to be solved, using modern apparatus and more exact measurements of the roentgen-ray energy. As examples of some of the problems, may be mentioned: the relation between doses of roentgen rays and changes in each organ; detailed studies of the changes in each organ after various time intervals following irradiation; the relations between the general condition of the organism as a whole and the changes in the individual organs; also, the reciprocal connection of the changes in the various organs.

The experiments were made as follows: Normal rabbits were irradiated entirely by the hardest rays such as are employed in the so-called modern deep therapy, and the biological actions upon the internal organs were studied as to their variations from the normal.

## II. QUALITIES OF ROENTGEN RAYS WHICH WERE USED IN EXPERIMENTS AND THE METHOD OF IRRADIATION

### 1. Physical Qualities of the Roentgen Rays.

Apparatus: a Neo-Intensiv-Reform-Apparat and H-type Coolidge tube.

Primary voltage: 220 volts, alternating 50 cycles.

Secondary voltage: 170 kv. (peak).

Secondary current: 2.0 ma.

Filter: 0.5 mm. copper and 1.0 mm. aluminum.

Parallel spark gap: 25 cm.

Maximal secondary voltage (measured by the minimal length of the roentgen-ray waves): 139 kv.

Wave length: 0.09-0.30 Å, average about 0.14 Å.

Absorption coefficient: for water $\mu$ = 0.164.

Depth dose: calculated in the so-called "percentage depth dose" by Seitz and Wintz (10 cm. deep, focus skin distance 23 cm., field 6 × 8 cm. 18 per cent).

### 2. Biological Unit of Roentgen Rays.

As the biological unit of roentgen rays, I used a human skin erythema dose as estimated by Seitz and Wintz. That is, 50 minutes at 23 cm. target skin distance.

### 3. Method of Irradiation.

The rabbit was placed in a natural position in a wooden box, the target skin distance always being 40 cm.

The following qualities of roentgen rays were estimated to have been received by the skin of the back of the rabbit, depending on the length of exposure (Table 1).

TABLE 1

<table><thead><tr><th>Time of Irradiation, Minutes</th><th>Doses of Roentgen Rays on the Skin of the Back, Per Cent Erythema Dose</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>15</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td>30</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>45</td><td>30</td></tr><tr><td>60</td><td>40</td></tr><tr><td>90</td><td>60</td></tr><tr><td>120</td><td>80</td></tr><tr><td>150</td><td>100</td></tr><tr><td>180</td><td>120</td></tr><tr><td>240</td><td>160</td></tr></tbody></table>

### 4. Distribution of Roentgen Rays in the Body of Rabbit.

In order to determine how the roentgen rays were distributed through the body of the rabbit, I adopted the following method: (1) the doses of roentgen

*Read at the Twenty-seventh Annual Meeting, AMERICAN ROENTGEN RAY SOCIETY, Detroit, Mich., May 17-21, 1926.

134

135

The Biological Action of Hard Roentgen Rays

AUGUST, 1926

rays were measured in various parts of the rabbit's body, using a Wintz ionto-quantimeter; (2) with the aid of the sectional diagrams of the rabbit's body, the positions of all internal organs were determined; (3) assuming the rabbit's body to be homogeneous, and that 100 per cent dose is given to the skin of the back, the doses of roentgen rays which will reach the internal organs were calculated as follows (Table II).

TABLE II
THE DOSES OF ROENTGEN RAYS FOR EACH INTERNAL ORGAN

<table><thead><tr><th>Organs</th><th>Rays Energy, Per Cent</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Skin of back</td><td>100</td></tr><tr><td>Brain, pineal gland, hypophysis</td><td>80</td></tr><tr><td>Salivary gland, thyroid, parathyroid</td><td>70</td></tr><tr><td>Lung (center)</td><td>50</td></tr><tr><td>Heart, bronchial lymph gland, thymus</td><td>40</td></tr><tr><td>Liver:</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>(Right lobe—near to back)</td><td>80</td></tr><tr><td>(Middle lobe—near to abdomen)</td><td>40</td></tr><tr><td>Stomach (pylorus)</td><td>50</td></tr><tr><td>Intestine:</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>(Duodenum)</td><td>50</td></tr><tr><td>(Middle part of small intestine)</td><td>50</td></tr><tr><td>(Distal end of ileum-lymph follicle nodules)</td><td>50</td></tr><tr><td>Colon:</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>(End of cecum)</td><td>50</td></tr><tr><td>(End of colon)</td><td>50</td></tr><tr><td>Mesenteric lymph gland</td><td>40</td></tr><tr><td>Pancreas (portion near to spleen)</td><td>50</td></tr><tr><td>Spleen</td><td>80</td></tr><tr><td>Kidney, suprarenal capsule</td><td>80</td></tr><tr><td>Testis, prostate gland, bladder</td><td>80</td></tr><tr><td>Bone marrow of femur</td><td>30</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>30</td></tr></tbody></table>

(For the larger organs, the same point is always chosen in order to get exact results.)

### III. INFLUENCE OF THE HARD ROENTGEN RAYS UPON THE BODY OF THE RABBIT

**Experiment 1.**—In this experiment I irradiated the rabbits with various doses (20-100 per cent erythema dose) at one sitting and observed the immediate effect upon the organism and the subsequent course, the longest observation lasting fifty-six days. All of the rabbits were studied as to the gross and minute changes in the internal organs. It was found that the hardest rays had a very marked effect upon the rabbits: for example, a single irradiation of over 40 per cent of an erythema dose on the backs of the animals resulted in their death, sooner or later. Details are given in Table III.

TABLE III

<table><thead><tr><th>Group</th><th>Dose Per Cent E.D.</th><th>Number of Test Animals</th><th>Number of Deaths</th><th>Average Living Days</th><th>Number of Killed</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Small dose</td><td>20</td><td>6</td><td>0</td><td>...</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td>Medium dose</td><td>40</td><td>13</td><td>8</td><td>11.5</td><td>5</td></tr><tr><td>Large dose</td><td>80</td><td>6</td><td>5</td><td>4.2</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Large dose</td><td>100</td><td>4</td><td>3</td><td>6.3</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>..</td><td>29</td><td>16</td><td>8.3</td><td>13</td></tr></tbody></table>

*Post Irradiation Effects.* After irradiation all animals look as if they were exhausted and gradually become thinner, frequently suffer from diarrhea, and their vital resistance is so much weakened that they die from the slightest injury. But few of them show power of recuperation.

The important histological changes in the internal organs are as follows:

**Lymphatic system:** The changes in the lymphatic system are most remarkable: first, there is a destruction of lymphocytes, followed by a phagocytosis, and later by a process of proliferation of reticuloendothelial cells and a regeneration of lymphocytes. Of the various lymph follicles, those in the lymph glands have more active regenerative ability. The atrophied follicles in the spleen show little power of recovery and the organ becomes more fibrous than normal and flattened. Erythrophageous phenomena in the lymph glands are typical, and even though their grades are various, they are observed over relatively long periods.

**Lung:** After heavy irradiation, I have observed hyperemia, edema and serous exudation, but these diminish rapidly and are followed by an increase of the pigment cells. In the lungs of the animals which died in an exhausted condition, a congestion resembling pneumonia was often observed.

**Liver and kidney:** An acute parenchymatous degeneration occurred, followed by recovery within a few days; in the animals which died in an exhausted condition, some grade of atrophy of the parenchyma was seen, in proportion to the intensity of their involvement.

**Suprarenal capsule:** The fat content in the cortex was gradually reduced, but such animals as recovered regained the normal quantity.

VOL. XVI, No. 2

136

**Testis:** Directly following heavy irradiation, the first signs of degeneration of seminal elements were observed, but marked changes usually began only after one to two weeks. The seminal tubules showed different degrees of radiosensitivity, according to their position; thus tubules having no epithelial cells, and others with almost normal structure were occasionally observed, side by side.

**Bone marrow:** Directly following the irradiation, destructive phenomena were noticed, but regeneration occurred after a few days, with a gradual increase in

pigment cells. Regenerative processes consisted chiefly of erythropoiesis, followed in a few weeks often by fibrosis.

#### IV. INFLUENCE OF THE HARD ROENTGEN RAYS UPON THE BODY OF THE RABBIT

*Experiment 2.*—In this experiment, I irradiated 23 rabbits, the exposures varying from 15 to 120 minutes, and killed them after intervals of from 15 minutes to 96 hours, counting from the beginning of the irradiation, and examined them closely for gross and microscopic changes.

TABLE IV

THE CHANGES OF INTERNAL ORGANS WITHIN 60 MINUTES AFTER THE BEGINNING OF THE CONTINUOUS IRRADIATION

<table><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Organ</th><th colspan="2">After 15 Min. Irradiation,<br>Dose on the Back:<br>10 Per Cent E.D.</th><th colspan="2">After 30 Min. Irradiation,<br>Dose on the Back:<br>20 Per Cent E.D.</th><th colspan="2">After 45 Min. Irradiation,<br>Dose on the Back:<br>30 Per Cent E.D.</th><th colspan="2">After 60 Min. Irradiation,<br>Dose on the Back:<br>40 Per Cent E.D.</th></tr><tr><th>Local<br>Dose</th><th>Changes</th><th>Local<br>Dose</th><th>Changes</th><th>Local<br>Dose</th><th>Changes</th><th>Local<br>Dose</th><th>Changes</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Salivary gland</td><td>7</td><td></td><td>14</td><td></td><td>21</td><td>Slight hyperemia</td><td>28</td><td>Slight hyperemia</td></tr><tr><td>Thyroid</td><td>7</td><td></td><td>14</td><td></td><td>21</td><td>Slight hyperemia</td><td>28</td><td>Slight hyperemia</td></tr><tr><td>Lung</td><td>5</td><td></td><td>10</td><td>*Degeneration of<br>nuclei of lympho-<br>cytes in peribron-<br>chial tissues</td><td>15</td><td>†Destruction of nu-<br>clei of lympho-<br>cytes in peribron-<br>chial tissues</td><td>20</td><td>Moderate hyperemia,<br>‡destruction of<br>lymphocytes, infil-<br>tration of pseudo-<br>eosinophile cells</td></tr><tr><td>Thymus</td><td>4</td><td></td><td>8</td><td></td><td>12</td><td>Destruction of nu-<br>clei of small round<br>cells</td><td>16</td><td>Same as after 45<br>min. irradiation</td></tr><tr><td>Liver</td><td>8</td><td></td><td>16</td><td>Slight hyperemia in<br>central parts of<br>lobules</td><td>24</td><td>Increase of fat in<br>Kupffer's cells:<br>glycogen content<br>in liver cells be-<br>gins to reduce</td><td>32</td><td>Moderate hypere-<br>mia, slight paren-<br>chymatous degene-<br>ration (some liver<br>cells have fat gran-<br>ules or vacuoles<br>and irregular struc-<br>tures of chromatin)</td></tr><tr><td>Spleen</td><td>8</td><td></td><td>16</td><td>Slight hyperemia,<br>pseudo-eosinophile<br>cells increase</td><td>24</td><td>Degeneration of<br>nuclei of lympho-<br>cytes in follicles</td><td>32</td><td>Destruction of<br>lymphocytes in fol-<br>licles, phagocytosis<br>of chromatin<br>granules</td></tr><tr><td>Mesenteric lymph<br>gland</td><td>5</td><td></td><td>10</td><td>Degeneration of<br>nuclei of lympho-<br>cytes in follicles,<br>phagocytosis of<br>chromatin and<br>erythrocytes</td><td>15</td><td>Destruction of nu-<br>clei of lymphocytes<br>in follicles, phago-<br>cytosis of iron pig-<br>ments, chromatin<br>and erythrocytes</td><td>20</td><td>Destruction and<br>phagocytosis in a<br>high degree</td></tr><tr><td>Portal lymph<br>gland</td><td>8</td><td>Degeneration of<br>nuclei of lympho-<br>cytes in follicles</td><td>16</td><td>Degeneration of<br>nuclei of lympho-<br>cytes in follicles,<br>phagocytosis of<br>chromatin and<br>erythrocytes</td><td>24</td><td>Destruction of nu-<br>clei of lymphocytes<br>in follicles, phago-<br>cytosis of iron pig-<br>ments, chromatin<br>and erythrocytes</td><td>32</td><td>Destruction and<br>phagocytosis in a<br>high degree</td></tr><tr><td>Intestine</td><td>5</td><td></td><td>10</td><td>Degeneration of<br>nuclei of lympho-<br>cytes in submucosa</td><td>15</td><td>Degeneration of<br>nuclei of lympho-<br>cytes in the epi-<br>thelial layer of in-<br>testine</td><td>20</td><td>Slight hyperemia,<br>destruction of<br>lymphocytes in<br>mucous membrane</td></tr><tr><td>Lymph follicle<br>(intestine)</td><td>5</td><td></td><td>10</td><td></td><td>15</td><td>Destruction of nu-<br>clei of lympho-<br>cytes</td><td>20</td><td>Destruction of<br>lymphocytes</td></tr><tr><td>Kidney</td><td>8</td><td></td><td>16</td><td></td><td>24</td><td></td><td>32</td><td>Glomeruli hypere-<br>mic</td></tr><tr><td>Suprarenal cap-<br>sule</td><td>8</td><td></td><td>16</td><td></td><td>24</td><td></td><td>32</td><td>Reduction of fat<br>content in cortex</td></tr><tr><td>Testis</td><td>3</td><td></td><td>6</td><td></td><td>9</td><td></td><td>12</td><td>No visible change</td></tr><tr><td>Femur bone mar-<br>row</td><td>3</td><td></td><td>6</td><td></td><td>9</td><td></td><td>12</td><td>Degeneration of nu-<br>clei of lympho-<br>cytes, younger<br>myeolic cells, etc.</td></tr></tbody></table>

* Degeneration of nuclei: irregular structure of chromatin figures or destruction of chromatin figures.

† Destruction of nuclei: caryorrhexis.

‡ Destruction of a cell: perfect destruction of protoplasm and nucleus.

139

AUGUST, 1926

bubbles can be pressed out with the contained air, which is reduced in amount, but there is no evidence of pneumonia, and the bronchi contain bright red mucous bubbles. Pericardium and heart, normal. Liver, swollen and hyperemic, rich in blood content; the surface of the incision is turbid, the lobular divisions are not distinct. Spleen hyperemic and swollen, its capsule is tight, and the incised surface appears dark red, the pulp is soft, and the outline of follicles not clear. Digestive organs, full of contents, are distinctly hyperemic, but there is no visible change in the mucosa. Kidneys are hyperemic, turbid and swollen; at the boundary of medulla and cortex, the most marked hyperemia is observed. Suprarenal capsule is comparatively large, often hyperemic, and the medulla is slightly enlarged. Testis normal. Bone marrow has a bright, or dark red color, and is soft.

(b) Microscopic.

**Salivary gland:** Hyperemic to a high degree, glandular epithelium shows dark granular cytoplasm which has less mucous substance than normal and often contains vacuoles. Some of them have dark semi-lunar areas at their base, most of the nuclei show no change, but a few of them are swollen or contracted. Some epithelial cells have eosinophile red violet granules in their cytoplasm, which lies close to the glandular cavity. Some nuclei of the epithelial cells of the small excretory ducts are degenerated and atrophic, and their cytoplasm is stained a diffuse light red-brown color with sudan III.

**Thyroid:** Hyperemic, often shows less colloid than normal and there is a slight degeneration of the nuclei of the glandular epithelial cells.

**Lung:** Hyperemic to a high degree, alveolar capillaries are entirely filled with

TABLE VII
THE TRANSFORMATION OF CHANGES OF INTERNAL ORGANS AFTER 120 MIN. IRRADIATION
(DOSE ON THE BACK: 80% E.D.)

<table><thead><tr><th>Organ</th><th>Local<br>Dose</th><th>Directly after Irradiation</th><th>After 4 Hours</th><th>After 12 Hours</th><th>After 96 Hours</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Salivary gland</td><td>56</td><td>Hyperemia, degeneration of epithelia of small ducts</td><td>Degeneration of glandular cells</td><td>Same as after 4 hours</td><td>Fatty degen. of small duct epithelia</td></tr><tr><td>Thyroid</td><td>56</td><td>Hyperemia</td><td>Same as directly after irradiation</td><td>Same as after 4 hours</td><td>Hyperemia disappears</td></tr><tr><td>Lung</td><td>40</td><td>Hyperemia, edema, hemorrhagic exudate, bronchitis hemorrhagica</td><td>Same as directly after irradiation</td><td>Moderate hyperemia, edema disappears, peribronchial pseudo-eosinophile cell infiltration</td><td>Slight hyperemia, increase of pigment cells</td></tr><tr><td>Thymus</td><td>32</td><td>Restriction of nuclei of small round cells, degen. of medullary epithelia</td><td>Same as directly after irradiation</td><td>Same as after 4 hours</td><td>Degeneration of medullary epithelia</td></tr><tr><td>Heart</td><td>32</td><td>Minute fat granules in muscle cells</td><td>Same as directly after irradiation</td><td>Same as after 4 hours</td><td>Pronounced fatty degen. of muscle cells</td></tr><tr><td>Liver</td><td>64</td><td>Hyperemia in a high degree, degeneration of liver cells, cell infiltration in interstitium, hyper-trophy and fat increase of Kupffer's cells</td><td>Same as directly after irradiation</td><td>Hyperemia less, no glycogen granules can be stained</td><td>Slight hyperemia, slight fatty degeneration and atrophy of liver cells, reduction of fat content in Kupffer's cells</td></tr><tr><td>Spleen</td><td>64</td><td>Hyperemia, destruction of lymphocytes in a high degree, degen. of reticulo-endothelia and macrophagocytes</td><td>Hyperemia, destruction and phagocytosis in a more advanced grade</td><td>All chromatin granules taken in phagocytes</td><td>Follicles atrophy, proliferation of reticulo-endothelia, no chromatin granules</td></tr><tr><td>Mesenteric lymph glands</td><td>40</td><td>Restriction of lymphocytes in follicles, degeneration of phagocytes and reticulo-endothelia</td><td>Same as directly after irradiation</td><td>Less chromatin granules, most of them taken in phagocytes</td><td>Follicles atrophy</td></tr><tr><td>Intestine</td><td>40</td><td>Hyperemia, degeneration of mucosa epithelia of small intestine</td><td>Infiltration of lymphocytes</td><td>Same as after 4 hours</td><td>Degen. of epithelial cells in duodenum and colon</td></tr><tr><td>Pancreas</td><td>64</td><td>Degen. of granular epithelia</td><td>Same as directly after irradiation</td><td>Same as after 4 hours</td><td>Often slight atrophy of Langerhans' islands</td></tr><tr><td>Lymph follicles (intestine)</td><td>40</td><td>Restriction of lymphocytes</td><td>Same as directly after irradiation</td><td>Same as after 4 hours</td><td>No chromatin granules</td></tr><tr><td>Kidney</td><td>64</td><td>Hyperemia, degen. of epithelia of urinary tubules, some of them show fatty degeneration</td><td>Same as directly after irradiation</td><td>Minute fat granules in epithelia in straight parts of convoluted tubules</td><td>Fatty degen. of epithelia in straight tubules and Henle's loops</td></tr><tr><td>Suprarenal capsule</td><td>64</td><td>Reduction of fat in cortex</td><td>Same as directly after irradiation</td><td>Same as after 4 hours</td><td>Medulla slightly atrophied</td></tr><tr><td>Testis</td><td>24</td><td>Degen. of spermatids and spermatocytes</td><td>Same as directly after irradiation</td><td>Degen. of spermatogonia</td><td>Degen. of seminal epithelia in a more advanced grade</td></tr><tr><td>Femur bone marrow</td><td>24</td><td>Degen. or destruction of mononuclear myeloic cells and erythroblasts</td><td>Same as directly after irradiation</td><td>Pigment cells</td><td>No degeneration figure of nuclei, mitotic figures of erythroblasts and others</td></tr></tbody></table>

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140

blood elements and show a scarcity of air content, partial atelectasis, here and there some serous exudate in the alveoli, frequently with cell infiltration and hemorrhage; there is desquamation of the epithelium of many bronchioles and alveoli, with, sometimes, hemorrhage into the bronchioles. In the peribronchial lymphatic tissue, there is a destruction of lymphocytes, and phagocytosis; in the septa are found large fat or pigment cells and infiltration of pseudo-eosinophile cells, some of them showing degeneration of their nuclei.

FIG. 1. Spleen: four hours after a 120 min. irradiation with 64 per cent of an erythema dose; destruction of follicles in a high degree.

**Heart:** Well-marked fatty degeneration of the muscle cells.

**Thymus:** In the cortex, remains of destroyed small round cells are seen, most of them absorbed by the phagocytes: in the medulla, there is often found a degeneration of the epithelial nuclei.

**Liver:** General hyperemia to a high degree; no proliferation of the interlobular connective tissue; in Glisson's capsules, infiltration of many chromatin granules and small round cells, these granules and cells infiltrate also the epithelial layer of the bile ducts; most of the round cells have degenerated nuclei, and some chromatin granules are taken in the phagocytes. The liver cells are arranged in the regular form, their cytoplasm is finely

granular, with many vacuoles of various dimensions and a few sudanophile fat granules, whose nuclei are swollen and the chromatin substance rough granular or condensed: Kupffer's cells hypertrophic, and contain much fat, absorbed granules, pigments, etc. In the blood capillaries or Glisson's capsules, infiltration of pseudo-eosinophile cells which have degenerated nuclei.

**Spleen:** Hyperemic to a high degree, literally full of chromatin granules; all lymphocytes in the follicles are destroyed completely, also lymphoblasts. So many

FIG. 2. Lymph gland: directly after a 220 min. irradiation with 75 per cent of an erythema dose; many macrophagocytes in lymph sinus.

chromatin granules lie scattered about as to resemble stars in a clear summer sky. The endothelial cells of the follicles are degenerated too. In the follicles and in their periphery, many phagocytes of various kinds are found; some eosinophile cells have degenerated swollen nuclei, or have been completely destroyed, and eosinophile granules lie scattered about. In the venous sinus, there are many macrophagocytes which contain chromatin granules; yellowish brown pigments; eosinophile granules; erythrocytes and those undergoing degeneration and appearing as round shadows; amorphous bodies, etc. Some macrophagocytes have devoured so much that they are degenerated or are completely destroyed.

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AUGUST, 1926

**Intestine:** Hyperemia in the mucous membrane of duodenum and upper parts of small intestine; infiltration of destroyed nuclei and degenerated lymphocytes is seen in an advanced state, many epithelia of intestine glands have degenerated nuclei with irregular structure of the chromatin substance. Such a change is most noticeable at the bottom of the intestinal glands. The lower parts of the small intestine and colon show no distinct change.

**Pancreas:** Infiltration of chromatin granules and degenerated lymphocytes

FIG. 3. Lymph gland: directly after a 60 min. irradiation with 20 per cent of an erythema dose; erythrocyteous phenomenon in lymph sinus.

in the interstitial tissue, with no visible change in the parenchymatous cells.

**Lymph follicles of intestine:** Destruction of lymphocytes, many phagocytes which have taken up chromatin granules.

**Mesenteric lymph glands:** Considerable destruction of lymphocytes, both in the follicles and their periphery. There are many phagocytes which have absorbed chromatin granules, pigments, amorphous masses, erythrocytes, etc. In the lymph sinus, macrophagocytes, pseudo-eosinophiles, and other kinds of cells.

**Portal lymph glands:** Much as in the mesenteric glands, the erythrocyteous phenomena are especially noticeable.

**Kidney:** Hyperemia, especially in glomeruli; the epithelium of the urinary tubules shows cloudy swelling, staining diffusely with sudan, and some of them have degenerated nuclei: straight part of the convoluted tubules, Henle's loops and intermediate tubules show the most change, the nuclei having rough granulated chromatin. In the interstitial tissue, there is, here and there, destroyed nuclear substance, and collections of pseudo-eosinophile cells.

**Suprarenal capsule:** The fat content in the cortex is reduced a little, some

FIG. 4. Liver: directly after a 240 min. irradiation with 128 per cent of an erythema dose; hyperemia, degeneration of liver cells, hypertrophy of Kupffer's cells, infiltration of degenerated lymphocytes and chromatin granules.

medullary cells have vacuoles in their cytoplasm and irregular nuclei.

**Testis:** There is a degeneration of the nuclei of the spermatids: some of them show coarse granulations or are ring shaped. No noticeable change in the other cells.

**Femur bone marrow:** Destroyed nuclear substance, with destruction of the nuclei of the erythroblasts, also various forms of degeneration of the nuclei of many young myeloic cells. Some of the polymorphonuclear cells have degenerated and the myeloic giant cells contain atrophied nuclei.

**Brain:** Meninges hyperemic, the plexus chorioideus is infiltrated by serous exudate.

226-238

VOL. XVI, No. 2

142

dation and is hyperemic, and the epen-
dyma cells are swollen and have vacuoles.
Some of the ganglion cells in the cortex
and base, and some of Purkinje's cells,
show irregular cytoplasm and nuclei.

As previously mentioned, in the acute
death caused by the hard roentgen rays,
the changes in the internal organs are
very severe and all of them are destruc-
tive. In my estimation, acute roentgen
death is due to such an intense and wide-
spread destructive action of the hard
rays that the organism, as a whole, is
quite unable to cope with it, or to recuper-
ate, and acute asphyctic hindrance of

lymphocytes. These destructive actions
begin after three or four hours' irradiation,
and phagocytosis reaches its highest
intensity within twelve hours; these phe-
nomena pass off within twenty-four to forty-
eight hours. Later, Krause and Ziegler,²
and others obtained similar results; many
subsequent studies upon the changes of
the blood elements have demonstrated
that the lymphocytes show the strongest
radiosensitivity, about 10 per cent of an
erythema dose being sufficient to cause
their destruction.

The results of my experiments are
similar to these results of Heineke and

FIG. 5. Lung: directly after a 210 min. irradiation with 40 per cent of an erythema dose; hyperemia, serous exudate in alveoli.

lungs may be one of the most important
factors.

VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

I irradiated normal rabbits with hard roentgen rays and studied the changes in the internal organs, both grossly and microscopically, and I observed the results which have been previously noted. It is now my object to summarize these results and to discuss them in comparison with the results of other observers.

(1) *Action upon the Spleen.*

Heineke¹ reported in 1905, the bio-
logical action of roentgen rays upon the
spleen: viz., destruction of lymphocytes,
phagocytosis, and then regeneration of

FIG. 6. Lung: directly after a 220 min. irradiation with 75 per cent of an erythema dose; cell infiltration, hemorrhage and serous exudation in alveoli.

others, but I find that the lymphocytes in
the follicles of the spleen are more resist-
ant, i.e., they usually show the first change
of the nuclear structures with 24 per cent
of an erythema dose, almost all of them
being destroyed with 64 per cent of an
erythema dose, and with over 80 per cent
of an erythema dose all lymphocytes
become scattered as fine chromatin gran-
ules with a few degenerated reticulo-
endothelial cells remaining between them.
To repeat, all lymphocytes of the spleen
are almost completely and simultaneously
destroyed, though they seem more resist-
ant at first. In this they differ from the
lymphocytes of the lymph gland follicles,
as will be described later, and as a conse-

143

AUGUST, 1926

quence, the atrophy of the spleen follicles
is very marked and their regeneration
very poor.

(2) Action upon the Lymph Glands.

Heineke and others are reported to
have observed changes in the lymph glands
similar to those seen in the spleen. Such
was also my experience, with the following
modifications: the lymphocytes of the
lymph gland follicles show the first signs
of degeneration after an 8 per cent ery-
thema dose, and the highest grade of
destruction after a 30-40 per cent ery-
thema dose. But I have never been able
to observe the total destruction of the

FIG. 7. Salivary gland: directly after a 120 min. irradiation with 56 per cent of an erythema dose; degeneration of epithelial cells of small excretory ducts.

lymphocytes such as has been seen in
the spleen, for even after a 60-80 per cent
erythema dose some normal lymphocytes
may still be seen in the follicles of the
lymph glands. Accordingly, the follicles
of the lymph glands do not reach such an
advanced state of atrophy as do those in
the spleen, and their regeneration is rela-
tively rapid.

The phagocytosis in the lymph glands
is noteworthy: 15 per cent of an erythema
dose (45 min. irradiation) is necessary
for the perfect destruction of lymphocytes
in the mesenteric lymph gland follicles,
but even after 10 per cent of an erythema
dose (30 min. irradiation) many phago-
cytes appear in the lymph sinus and

are seen to have absorbed chromatin
granules and erythrocytes. From this it
may be concluded that a destruction of
nuclei and a degeneration of the erythro-
cytes has occurred, either in the circulating
blood or in the lymph. These phagocytes
may come chiefly from reticulo-endo-
thelial cells and histiocytes, partly from
the polymorphonuclear leucocytes. Dur-
ing the [most active period, some of
the phagocytes may devour so much
that they degenerate and may, thus, be
destroyed.

(3) Action upon the Lymph Follicles
in the Intestines.

FIG. 8. Testis: directly after a 220 min. irradiation with 30 per cent of an erythema dose; degeneration of spermatids.

Heineke and others reported the same
changes as in the lymph glands. In my
experiments, I found that the destruction
begins after a 15 per cent erythema dose,
and reaches the highest degree with a
20 per cent erythema dose; further irradi-
ation does not cause a proportionate change.
Many destroyed granules travel into the
intestinal cavity through the mucous mem-
brane. Phagocytosis appears later and is
less marked. Atrophy of the follicles is
not extensive.

(4) Action upon the Erythrocytes.

The erythrocytes are said to have
greater resistance. Heineke¹ has suggested
that the increase of iron pigment, found
in the spleen after irradiation may be

VOL. XVI, No. 2

144

caused by the destruction of erythrocytes. Seitz and Wintz have reported as the results of clinical studies, that the erythrocytes have no strong radiosensitivity, but that they might be destroyed. Milchner and Mosse³ have reported that no visible damage had been done by moderate doses of radiation. Holthusen⁴ has found that the erythrocytes undergo hemolysis *in vitro* following a dose of 50 skin units.

The results of my experiments, as indicated in the paragraph on lymph glands, show marked erythrophageous phenomena in the sinuses of the lymph glands, before the local destruction of lymphocytes has occurred. These erythrophageous phenomena begin immediately following a thirty minute irradiation, and reach their most advanced grade after a sixty minute irradiation. In a long series of observations it may be seen that the erythrocytes in the phagocytes are gradually being destroyed. These erythrophageous phenomena are observed relatively early and they are seen over a long period, even if only in a slight degree. This would seem to indicate that the erythrocytes are, in some way, damaged relatively early; consequently in an organism which has recently been irradiated, the erythrocytes remain during a long time in a condition in which they are easily phagocytosed.

**(5) Action upon the Bone Marrow.**

The biological actions of roentgen rays upon the bone marrow were studied by Heineke and others. At first the lymphocytes are injured, then mononuclear, eosinophile cells and mastcells, and finally neutrophile cells are damaged, and the bone marrow becomes a tissue which is poor in cells. When the damage is slight, the regenerative processes are seen after several days and there is perfect recovery after three weeks. Milchner and Mosse³ reported that experiments on rabbits show that erythrocytes have more resistance than any other myeloic cells.

My experiments produced the same results: in the marrow of the femur, the changes in the lymphocytes and mononuclear young cells begin after sixty minutes' irradiation (12 per cent E.D.), and become more marked with further irradiation. Yellowish brown iron pig-

ments appear in the reticulo-endothelial cells after forty-eight hours, and mitotic figures of erythroblasts and others are observed after a few days; this may indicate a regenerative process.

**(6) Action upon the Thymus.**

Since Heineke¹ reported that like other lymphatic tissues, the thymus is easily injured, and the lymphocytes in the cortex are destroyed, many other reports have been published. For example, Rudberg⁵ reported that he found in his experiments on rabbits that the lymphocytes were easily destroyed and diminished in number, some of them emigrating into the general circulation in order to compensate for the loss of lymphocytes in the blood. Aubertin and Bordet,⁶ and Eggers⁷ reported the destruction of lymphocytes, and phagocytosis by the reticulum cells. Hammar⁸ further stated that the physiological atrophy of the thymus was caused by the wandering away of lymphocytes, but that the atrophy caused by the roentgen rays was due to the destruction of lymphocytes and to phagocytosis by the reticulum cells. Nowadays many authorities believe that the lymphocytes of the thymus are destroyed by 10 per cent of an erythema dose, as are the lymphocytes in other tissues.

In my experiments, I observed that the small round cells in the cortex began to degenerate after forty-five minutes' irradiation (12 per cent erythema dose) and that the epithelial cells in the medulla show nuclear degeneration after ninety minutes' irradiation (24 per cent erythema dose). But the small round cells in the cortex are not destroyed to the same extent as in the spleen or lymph glands, even after a 50 per cent erythema dose. The destroyed granules are absorbed by the reticulum cells and disappear in a few days, the degenerated medullary cells remaining relatively longer.

**(7) Action upon the Intestine.**

In 1912 Regaud, Nogier and Lacassagne⁹ reported that roentgen rays have a marked destructive action upon the gastrointestinal mucosa. Irradiation of the abdominal region in dogs by filtered roentgen rays produced diarrhea and hemorrhage, and microscopically they observed the

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atrophy and disappearance of the epithelial cells. Keller¹⁰ reported that the mucosa of the intestine could be destroyed primarily or that it might be due to the destruction of the lymphatic tissue, the changes coming about gradually. He noted anatomical changes after two days and clinical symptoms after several days. Wintz estimated 150 per cent of an erythema dose as one by which an ulcer of the intestine might be produced, 100 per cent of an erythema dose causing some damage to the connective tissues, which was followed by the formation of a late secondary ulcer.

My own experiments demonstrated that chromatin granules are to be seen in the mucous membrane at a relatively early period (even after 15 min. irradiation) and that these granules and degenerated lymphocytes increase gradually in number. This infiltration spreads into the villi and mucosa. The intestinal mucosa begins to show degenerated structures after ninety minutes' irradiation (30 per cent erythema dose). The degeneration occurs first in the epithelial cells at the base of Lieberkühn's glands of the small intestine, and this degeneration becomes intense after a 60-80 per cent erythema dose. Some of the destroyed cells are mixed with the infiltrated lymphocytes, and the general appearance of the intestinal mucous membrane becomes confused, many of the cells being shed into the intestinal cavity, together with the lymphocytes. At this period, the duodenum also shows a degeneration of the epithelial cells in the duodenal glands, but the cells of the mucous glands show no visible change. The colon shows no change, even in case of acute roentgen death, but some slight epithelial degeneration can often be observed a few days after strong irradiation. An increase of mucous secretion is frequently seen in the cecum.

### (8) Action upon the Liver.

The action of roentgen rays upon the liver cells had not previously been studied in detail. Hudellet¹¹ reported that, after irradiation, adult animals show no change, young ones show atrophy, and new-born animals a necrosis, of the liver cells. Werner¹² reported that following irradiation

with radium, a hyperemia and slight cell infiltration appeared on the second day, the swollen liver cells containing granules and vacuoles, followed by a degeneration of the nuclei on the fourth day. There was no change in the epithelial cells of the bile ducts. Lately, some research workers have tried to explain the cause of the so-called "radiation sickness" as due to the damage of liver cells by the irradiation, but there is no definite proof of this. Borak and Kriser¹³ irradiated the livers of 7 patients and looked for alimentary hyperglycemia and the appearance of bile pigment in the blood, with negative results. They, therefore, concluded that radiation sickness is not caused by the direct action of irradiation on the liver. Neuda¹⁴ reported that he had frequently observed "radiation sickness" in patients with hepatic insufficiency.

The results of my experiments are as follows: A slight hyperemia after thirty minutes' irradiation (16 per cent E.D.), an increase of fat content in Kupffer's cells after forty-five minutes' irradiation (24 per cent E.D.), a hyperemia and slight degeneration of liver cells (vacuoles and granules) after sixty minutes' irradiation (32 per cent E.D.); after ninety minutes' irradiation (48 per cent E.D.) a more advanced degeneration of the liver cells, with chromatin granules in Glisson's capsules; after 120 minutes' irradiation (64 per cent E.D.) hyperemia of a high degree, cell infiltration into the interstitial tissue, liver cells containing granules and vacuoles, and with nuclei somewhat swollen and having a rough granulated chromatin structure; Kupffer's cells hypertrophied and showing phagocytosis. But these changes in the liver pass away relatively soon and after thirty-six to forty-eight hours almost all of them recover their normal structure, only a few cells undergoing atrophic degeneration. The glycogen content in the liver cells is reduced rapidly by over ninety minutes' irradiation, but when the test animals recover, this increases again.

As above mentioned, the liver shows some changes both in its interstitial tissue and in the parenchyma following irradiation and these changes disappear rela-

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tively fast, the greater part of the damaged cells recovering within a few days. As the duration of these changes follows closely the clinical course of radiation sickness, their relationship might be a fruitful problem for further study.

(9) Action upon the Salivary Glands.

When Schmidt¹⁸ reported in 1914 that the irradiation of these glands was followed by dryness of the mouth, attention was called to the biological action of roentgen rays. By Jüngling,¹⁶ serous infiltration, cell infiltration and hyperemia of the glandular tissue were observed twenty-four hours after an 80 per cent erythema dose; and complete disappearance of the parenchymatous cells nine weeks after a 100-120 per cent erythema dose, but no change was noted in the epithelial cells of the excretory ducts. Schmidt¹⁷ found a disappearance of the glandular parenchyma and the formation of cicatricial tissue following strong irradiation. V. Salis¹⁸ reported in 1924 that he could observe glandular degeneration in the submaxillary glands of men and dogs, but no change in the epithelial cells of the excretory ducts.

My experiments gave the following results: The epithelial cells of the smallest excretory ducts only showed early changes, their nuclei degenerated twenty-four hours after a sixty minutes' irradiation (28 per cent E.D.), their arrangement became irregular after ninety minutes' irradiation (42 per cent E.D.), and they showed fatty degeneration ninety-six hours after 120 minutes' irradiation (50 per cent E.D.). Glandular cells showed some degree of atrophy after ninety minutes' irradiation.

(10) Action upon the Thyroid.

Pfeiffer¹⁹ reported in 1906 that roentgen-ray treatment of goiter had no effect, and von der Hütten,²⁰ in 1921, claimed that although irradiation for goiter produced clinical results, yet histologically he could find no change. Clinical experiences have taught us that no changes are produced in the normal thyroid, but that in the pathological thyroid, especially in goiter, marked changes are noticed.

In my experiments the thyroid showed slight hyperemia after forty-five minutes' irradiation (21 per cent E.D.), which was

slightly increased by further irradiation, but no visible change in the glandular cells. When the local dose approached 100 per cent E.D., there followed some slight nuclear degeneration.

(11) Action upon the Lungs.

Few experiments have been done to determine the biological action of roentgen rays upon the lungs. Wohlauer²¹ reported that he found in the lung of guinea pigs only congestion and slight hyperemia two to eleven days after irradiation, but no change in the alveolar epithelium. Wintz²² reported in the meeting of the German Roentgen Society in 1922 that following the treatment of breast diseases, induration of the lung tissue could be seen. Groover, Christie and Merritt²³ reported that after an erythema dose, they observed the appearance of abnormal shadows, which seemed to persist.

The results of my own experiments are as follows: Some lymphocytes begin to degenerate in the peribronchial tissue after thirty minutes' irradiation (10 per cent E.D.), alveolar capillaries fill with blood elements after sixty minutes' irradiation (20 per cent E.D.), and there is a shedding of epithelial cells of the alveoli and a serous exudation after ninety minutes' irradiation (30 per cent E.D.). These symptoms increase with further irradiation, and the changes are very intense in acute roentgen death; cell infiltration and hemorrhage are frequently observed in the exudate. When the test animals survive and recover, these changes pass away within thirty-six to forty-eight hours and there remains only an increase of pigment cells.

These conditions in the lungs may have some bearing on the etiology of radiation sickness, just as are those in the liver supposed to have. It is my hope that this will be ascertained by further studies.

(12) Action upon the Heart.

We have no experimental reports concerning the biological action of roentgen rays upon the heart. Schweizer²⁴ has lately reported that at the autopsy of one patient who was treated for one year and two months by roentgen radiation for a mediastinal tumor, he found degeneration of the heart muscles in a high degree, i.e.,

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specific changes of the myoplasm of muscle
cells.

In my experiments I found fine fatty granules in the muscle cells thirty-six hours after ninety minutes' irradiation (24 per cent E.D.), the beginning fatty degeneration of the muscle cells after 120 minutes' irradiation (32 per cent E.D.); distinct fatty degeneration of the muscle cells is observed here and there, after ninety-six hours. In acute roentgen death fatty degeneration is still more marked and often vacuoles are found in the muscle cells.

It is not clear, whether these granules in the heart muscle cells are caused directly by the irradiation, or whether they are due to intoxication resulting from the destruction of tissue, but as these changes appear directly after strong irradiation, it is possible that some part, at least, of the change is caused by direct damage.

(13) Action upon the Kidneys.

In 1915 Schulz and Hoffmann²⁵ reported that following irradiation of a rabbit's kidney which was transplanted subcutaneously (dose 48 H-ca 500 per cent E.D.), they found vacuoles and less easily stained degenerated epithelial cells after ten days, and proliferation of interstitial tissue after twenty-one days. Warthin²⁶ considers that the real changes in the kidney are not caused by the direct action of roentgen rays, but are produced by the increase of urea due to the destruction of leucocytes.

There are many reports as to the action of roentgen rays upon the function of the kidney, but so far no definite results have been reported. Lately Stephan²⁷ has reported that 10 per cent of an erythema dose of roentgen rays will increase the function of the kidneys. Fritsch²⁸ cured two patients who were suffering from uremia caused by acute nephritis, by the irradiation of the kidney area (local dose 10 per cent E.D.).

The results of my experiments are as follows: Hyperemia of the glomeruli after sixty minutes' irradiation (32 per cent E.D.), degeneration of epithelial cells of the urinary tubules after 90-120 minutes' irradiation (48-64 per cent E.D.). The subsequent course of changes after sixty

minutes' irradiation are: directly after, hyperemia only of the glomeruli; forty-eight hours later slight degeneration of the epithelia; and after ninety-six hours a normal condition. After ninety minutes' irradiation (over 48 per cent E.D.), fatty granules appear in the epithelia of the urinary tubules and in a more advanced grade after a few days. With regard to the various parts of urinary tubules, the epithelia of the straight parts of the convoluted tubule and Henle's loops degenerate first and then those of the first convoluted tubules, fatty granules appear first in Henle's loops and then in the straight parts of the convoluted tubules, intermediate tubules (second convoluted tubules), but the epithelia of the first convoluted tubules are only diffusely stainable with sudan III. In the glomeruli, there is only hyperemia, no degeneration. In acute roentgen death, there is an infiltration of degenerated cells in the interstitial tissue.

In view of these facts, the function of the kidney may increase, as pointed out by Stephan, during hyperemia of the glomeruli, but before any change in the urinary tubules has occurred. And it might be explainable by the indirect action due to the destruction of tissue, as Warthin stated, that the fatty degeneration of urinary tubules was mostly distinguished after a few days.

(14) Action upon the Suprarenal Capsule.

Holfelder and Peiper²⁹ have reported that following a 60-80 per cent erythema dose, no change in the medulla was observed, but degeneration and fat reduction of the cortical cells; these changes were not proportional to the dose. Smithies³⁰ reported an instance of death from Addisonian syndrome, four months after long strong irradiation, in a man aged fifty-eight, to whom roentgen therapy was given as a curative measure for a supposed malignancy of the spine (a diagnosis subsequently shown to have been faulty).

My experimental results: Reduction of fat content in the cortex begins to be observed after sixty minutes' irradiation (32 per cent E.D.), and degeneration of the medullary cells after ninety minutes' irradiation (48 per cent E.D.). When the

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animals survive the irradiation, there is a return to normal. The reduction of fat content in the cortex, together with the destruction of lymphocytes and increase of fat content in Kupffer's cells in the liver, may be an indication of abnormality of fat metabolism.

(15) Action upon the Testis.

In 1903 Albers-Schönberg³¹ reported the first study of roentgen-ray action upon the testis. Many other studies followed, all of them indicating that at first the seminal epithelial cells are damaged, spermatogenesis is stopped and finally the seminal cells are destroyed; but that mature spermatozoa, Sertoli's cells and the interstitial cells are more resistant. Simmonds³² reported that Sertoli's cells did not hypertrophy, but the interstitial cells could hypertrophy. Albers-Schönberg said that aspermia occurred with a 30 per cent erythema dose. Schinz³³ considered that it needed 60 per cent of an erythema dose to produce permanent aspermia.

My experiments produced the same results: slight degeneration of spermatids and spermatocytes (under maturation division) twenty-four hours after sixty minutes' irradiation (12 per cent E.D.) or directly after ninety minutes' irradiation (18 per cent E.D.), but these changes became more marked as time went on and were most distinct after one to two weeks. As indicated in the foregoing reports, the various parts of the seminal tubules have different radiosensitivity. The results of my experiments show that one irradiation of 30 per cent of an erythema dose cannot produce a perfect aspermia.

REFERENCES

1. HEINKE, H. Experimentelle Untersuchungen über die Einwirkung der Röntgenstrahlen auf innere Organe. *Mitt. a. d. Grenzgeb. d. Med. u. Chir.*, Jena, 1904-05, xiv, 21-94.

2. KRAUSE, P., and ZIEGLER, K. Experimentelle Untersuchungen über die Einwirkung der Röntgenstrahlen auf tierisches Gewebe. *Fortschr. a. d. Geb. d. Röntgenstrahlen*, 1906, x, 126-182.

3. MILCHNER, R., and MOSSE, M. Zur Frage der Behandlung der Blutkrankheiten mit Röntgenstrahlen. *Berl. klin. Wchnscbr.*, 1904, xli, 1267-1269.

4. HOLTHUSEN, HERMANN. Willkürliche Beeinflussung der Strahlenempfindlichkeit. *Fortschr. a. d. Geb. d. Röntgenstrahlen*, 1922, xxix, 777-805.

5. RUBBERG, HANS. The Influence of X-rays on the Thymus. Almquist and Wiksells Boktrycken, Uppsala; 1909. Reviewed in *Brit. M. J.*, 1911, i, 1318.

6. AUBERTIN, and BORDET, E. Ueber die Einwirkung der X-strahlen auf die Thymus. *Zentralbl. f. innere Med.*, 1909, xxx, 977-979.

7. EGGERS, H. Experimentelle Beiträge zur Einwirkung der Röntgenstrahlen auf den Thymus und das Blut des Kaninchens, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der therapeutischen Verwertbarkeit in Fällen der Thymushypertrophie des Menschen. *Ztschr. f. Röntgenk. u. Radiumforsch.*, 1913, xv, 1-44.

8. HAMMAR, J. A. The new views as to the morphology of the thymus gland and their bearing on the problem of the function of the thymus. *Endocrinology*, 1921, v, 544-573.

9. REGAUD, NOGIER and LACASSAGNE. Sur les effects redoutables des irradiations étendues de l'abdomen et sur les lésions du tube digestif déterminées par les rayons de Röntgen. *Arch. d'électric. méd.*, 1921, 21.

10. KELLER, E. Die Wirkung intensiver Röntgenbestrahlen auf den Darm und ihre Folgeerscheinungen. *Ztschr. f. exper. Patb. u. Therap.*, 1921, xxii, 284-309.

11. HUDELLET, G.-J. Action des rayons X sur le foie. Bordeaux, 1907.

12. WERNER, R. Vergleichende Studien zur Frage der biologischen und therapeutischen Wirkung der Radiumstrahlen. *Beitr. z. klin. Chir.*, 1906, liii, 51-161.

13. BORAK, J., and KRISER, A. Zur Frage der Beziehung zwischen "Röntgenkater" und Leberbestrahlung. *Med. Klin.*, 1923, xix, 644.

14. NEUDA, P. Ueber eine Beziehung der Leber zum Chlorhaushalt. *Wien. med. Wchnscbr.*, 1923, Ixxiii, 1484-1485.

15. SCHMIDT, H. E. Zur Wirkung der Röntgenstrahlen auf die Speicheldrüsen des Menschen. *Verbandl. d. deutsch. Röntg.-Gesellsch.*, 1914, x, 117-118.

16. JÜNGLING, ORTO. Röntgenbehandlung chirurgischer Krankheit, 1924.

17. SCHMIDT, HANS. Kehlkopfgangrän als Röntgenspätschädigung. *Virchow's Arch. f. patb. Anat. (etc.)*, Berl., 1921, ccxxxi, 557-569.

18. v. SALIS, H. Zu den Röntgenveränderungen nach Bestrahlung der Gland.-Submaxillaris. *Strablentherapie*, 1924, xvii, 395-400.

19. PFEIFFER, C. Die Röntgenbehandlung des Kropfes auf Grund klinischer Beobachtungen und histologischer Untersuchungen. *Beitr. z. klin. Chir.*, 1906, xlviii, 467-390.

20. VON DER HÜT TEN, F. Experimenteller Beitrag zur Frage der Verwachsung nach Strumenbestrahlung. *München. med. Wchnscbr.*, 1921, Ixviii, 983-984.

21. WOHLAUER, FRANZ. Der Einfluss der Röntgenstrahlen auf das Lungengewebe. *Deutsche med. Wchnscbr.*, 1909, xxxv, 1704-1706.

22. WINTZ, H. Röntgenschädigungen in der Tiefentherapie. *Verbandl. d. deutsch. Röntg.-Gesellsch.*, 1922, xiii, 133-138.

23. GROOVER, T. A., CHRISTIE, A. C., and MERRITT, E. A. Intrathoracic changes following roentgen treatment of breast carcinoma. Am. J. Roentgenol. & Rad. THERAPY, 1923, x, 471-476.

24. SCHWEIZER, E. Ueber spezielle Röntgenschädigungen des Herzmuskels. *Strablentherapie*, 1924, xviii, 812-828.

25. SCHULZ, O. E., and HOFFMANN, R. S. Zur Wirkungsweise der Röntgenstrahlen. *Deutsche Ztschr. f. Chir.*, 1905, Ixxix, 350-363.

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26. WARTHIN, A. S. The changes produced in the kidney by roentgen irradiation. Am. Quarterly Roentgenol., 1907, i, 37-47.

27. STEPHAN, RICHARD. Ueber die Steigerung des Zellfunktion durch Röntgenenergie. Strablentberapie, 1920, xi, 517-562.

28. FRITSCH, HANS. Zur Behandlung der Urämie bei akuter Nephritis mit Röntgenstrahlen. München. med. Wcbnschr., 1923, lxx, 841-843.

29. HOLFELDER, H., and PEIPER, H. Die Strahlenempfindlichkeit der Nebennieren und Wege zur Verhütung von Nebennierenschadigungen in der Röntgentiefentherapie. Strablentberapie, 1923, xv, 1-17.

30. SMITHIES, FRANK. Necessity for caution in the employment of high voltage roentgen-rays as a therapeutic agent against malignant disease: acute adrenal insufficiency and death as sequelae. Surg., Gynec. & Obst., 1923, xxxvi, 61-63.

31. ALBERS-SCHÖNBERG. Ueber eine bisher unbekannte Wirkung der Röntgenstrahlen auf den Organismus. München. med. Wcbnschr., 1903, 1, 1859-1860.

32. SIMMONDS, M. Die biologischen Einwirkungen der Röntgenstrahlen auf den Hoden. Verbandl. d. deutsch. Röntg.-Gesellsch., 1914, x, 50-57.

33. SCHINZ, HANS R. Ein Beitrag zur Röntgen-Kastration beim Mann. Schweiz. med. Wcbnschr., 1922, lii, 886-889.

## DISCUSSION

DR. G. E. PFAHLER, Philadelphia. I am sure that we all feel indebted to Dr. Tsuzuki for the presentation of this paper which shows a tremendous amount of detailed work, and which has taught us, I am sure, a number of important things. I think those of us who have not indulged in this type of detailed work probably do not quite appreciate what it represents. He tells me that he has only had two years to work on this, and that there are some other problems connected with it that he hopes to work out later.

It is, of course, utterly impossible for us in these few minutes, to grasp the importance of the facts connected with all these experiments. However, these facts do stand out, to my mind at least: In the first place, these experiments which he has conducted involve exposure of the entire animal and, therefore, the observations that he makes as to the effects upon the various organs must not be interpreted directly in clinical values as we might apply them in our routine clinical work, because we do not expose the entire body; we expose some part of the body or some organ or a part of an organ. When we limit our exposure in this way to some part of an organ, the relative effects must be very much less or we would soon stop doing radiation therapy, as judged by the effects obtained upon these various organs.

You have seen as you listened to this very excellent demonstration that the organs which are most sensitive run something as follows: In the first place, the lymphocytes, then the

lymphatic organs, then the thymus and then the testicle. The other organs seem to stand a considerable amount of radiation, relatively, but in no instance have any of these organs stood the amount of radiation that we give to patients in our routine work. In other words, we calculate, and have calculated for years, to project into certain organs a 100 per cent dose, and yet you see the tremendous amount of destruction that takes place even with 10, 25, 40, and 75 per cent radiation value in the organ. I believe that is due in great part to the fact that the entire body of these rabbits was exposed to the radiation.

The practical lesson, therefore, that we may take from these experiments is, in the first place, to note the progressive changes in each individual organ as the dosage is increased; the rate of recovery, and you will notice that some of these organs recovered more rapidly than others, and the relative sensitivity of the various organs. This will guide us in the amount of dosage relatively that we can distribute or project into each organ and will guide us in protecting certain organs during the exposure.

DR. G. FAILLA, New York City. I would like to mention one point, and that is whether these doses that Dr. Tsuzuki has given us were doses for the tissue, that is, doses at the tissue or the dose at the skin surface. I believe that some estimate was made of the dose delivered actually to the tissue that was being investigated, and if that is the case, I think it would be of interest to the Society to know how this estimate of dose delivered to the tissue was made, because a good deal depends on how that was done as to the relative index of sensitivity of the different organs.

DR. CHARLES L. MARTIN, Dallas, Texas. I would like to ask one question. About three or four years ago I was particularly interested in the study of the changes in collagen fibrils soon after irradiation. If that was mentioned in the paper, I didn't hear it. If it was not, I would like to know whether any study has been made of the immediate effect of roentgen rays on collagen fibrils in connective tissue. We found rather to our surprise that the changes of collagen, that is, the marked thickening of the collagen bundles came on almost immediately after a roentgen-ray dose was given to a guinea pig which would not produce any visible changes in the skin for perhaps eight or ten days after the dose was given. Since most of these changes are early changes, I thought perhaps that had also been studied.

One other point that I think is interesting is that in practically all of our experimental work

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we have paid very little attention to the imme-
diate effect of roentgen rays on tissues and
have tried to study the late effects coming on
perhaps eight or ten or twelve days after the
dose is given when we can see something visible.

It may be that these minute changes which
have been described are the underlying thing
in our toxemias and roentgen sickness since we
have really never found anything very clean-
cut to explain that, and I should like to know
whether the author feels that the amount of
breakdown, which apparently is not serious
permanently, is sufficient to produce a toxemia
which might explain roentgen sickness.

DR. TSUZUKI (closing). I thank you very much for the discussion.

Dr Failla asked me about the dose of roent-
gen rays. At first I estimated the dose of
roentgen rays at the various points of the sur-
face of the rabbit's body by the ionto-quanti-
meter and then took section pictures of the
rabbit. I calculated theoretically the local doses
for the internal organs, as we are doing in the
treatment of patients.

Dr. Martin has asked about the changes in
collagen fibrils soon after irradiation. I studied
some subcutaneous fibrous tissues but I could
find no distinct changes.

PAUL B. HOEBER, INC., 76 Fifth Avenue, New York

November 17, 1955

Mr. Jeffrey Bauman
937 East 82 Street
Brooklyn 36, N.Y.

Dear Jeffrey:

Thank you for your kind note on *Hiroshima*. Following
are the answers to the questions you posed in your
letter:

1. I arrived in Hiroshima eight months after the bomb
had been dropped.

2. I wanted five or six people, all of whose lives
crossed each other's, so that the account would read
something like a novel.

3. I went for the *New Yorker*, but I originally
suggested doing the article.

4. I didn't set out to "prove" anything. I wanted
to bring to readers a sense of what it must have been
like to be there.

5. So far as I know they are all surviving. Miss
Basaki has become a nun. Mr. Tanimoto is very active
with his church. Father Kleinsorge has been hospitalized
often, as has Mrs. Nakanura.

6. I spent three weeks writing the book in the City,
then a month of writing in this country.

7. I started with the Jesuit priests, soon found
Mr. Tanimoto, who speaks English, and interviewed
about twenty-five before selecting the six.

142 Cowley Street
East Lansing, Michigan

January 20, 1956

Mr. John Hersey
Hulls Farm Road
Southport, Connecticut

Dear Mr. Hersey:

I am teaching in the General Education program at
Michigan State University. In our course in Communication Skills (i.e.
reading, writing, speaking, and listening) we are concentrating on
a study of both oral and written reports this term. I have asked all
of my students to buy and to read your book, *Hiroshima* (Bantam Books
edition), because I believe it is the best report of the most signif-
icant event of our time. I plan to spend several hours discussing
the book in class next week, and probably more time later in the term.

As I reread the book I am more than ever impressed
by the tremendous amount of detail you report throughout the book. I
assume that you went to Japan and talked with the six survivors of
Hiroshima about whom you write. But how were they able to recall so
precisely what they were doing before the bomb was dropped, and exactly
what happened to them in the hectic hours and days afterward? This
amazes me.

Could you possibly tell me about the method you used
to collect the data for your report? I would like to know, and I am
certain my students will want to know, especially since it reads like
an eye witness account but obviously can not be one.

I do not like to presume upon your time, but I would
appreciate a reply. How soon after the bombing did you go to Hiroshima?
How much time did you spend there? To approximately how many people did
you talk, while gathering the information? I assure you that any
information on how you gathered the facts for your report will be greatly
appreciated by both me and my students.

Assistant Professor
Michigan State University

February 7, 1956

Dear Professor Woodbridge:

I was of course pleased to hear that you are using Hiroshima with your students. I visited the city about seven months after the bomb was dropped, and after some time in preliminary research, I talked at very great length with each of the six survivors about whom I finally wrote. Some of the interviews extended over several days. One, with Dr. Sasaki, was carried on with the help of three interpreters in Japanese, German (Father Kleinsorge), Australian (not always completely clear to me; Australian interpreter with Allied forces), Chinese (Dr. Sasaki had trained in China and I was born there), and English. The reason for such an elaborate feast of languages was that I wanted to be as accurate as possible about medical terms and interpretations. The six survivors had no difficulty remembering the most minute detail of their experience. presumably they had rehearsed their memories often. One can still question the accuracy of the recollections. The best that has been written on the fallibility of witnesses, at least in my ken, is in those passages of War and Peace

........

- 2 -

in which Tolstoy describes the way the record
of a battle is distorted. I am sure my book
must be inaccurate in Tolstoy's sense, yet I
am obliged to say that in my experience of
interviewing, I have never found people with
more vivid images imprinted on their minds.

I made use, also, of reports of
the United States Strategic Bombing Survey and
of certain medical teams which had completed
their studies at the time I wrote. I was also
given the benefit of some studies made by
Japanese observers from Tokyo University. I
hope this sparse information will be of some
help to you.

Sincerely yours,