In both Hiroshima and Nagasaki the tremendous scale of the disaster
largely destroyed the cities as entities. Even the worst of all other
previous bombing attacks on Germany and Japan, such as the incendiary
raids on Hamburg in 1943 and on Tokyo in 1945, were not comparable to
the paralyzing effect of the atomic bombs. In addition to the huge
number of persons who were killed or injuried so that their services in
rehabilitation were not available, a panic flight of the population
took place from both cities immediately following the atomic
explosions. No significant reconstruction or repair work was
accomplished because of the slow return of the population; at the end
of November 1945 each of the cities had only about 140,000 people.
Although the ending of the war almost immediately after the atomic
bombings removed much of the incentive of the Japanese people toward
immediate reconstruction of their losses, their paralysis was still
remarkable. Even the clearance of wreckage and the burning of the many
bodies trapped in it were not well organized some weeks after the
bombings. As the British Mission has stated, "the impression which
both cities make is of having sunk, in an instant and without a
struggle, to the most primitive level."
Aside from physical injury and damage, the most significant effect of
the atomic bombs was the sheer terror which it struck into the peoples
of the bombed cities. This terror, resulting in immediate hysterical
activity and flight from the cities, had one especially pronounced
effect: persons who had become accustomed to mass air raids had grown
to pay little heed to single planes or small groups of planes, but
after the atomic bombings the appearance of a single plane caused more
terror and disruption of normal life than the appearance of many
hundreds of planes had ever been able to cause before. The effect of
this terrible fear of the potential danger from even a single enemy
plane on the lives of the peoples of the world in the event of any
future war can easily be conjectured.
The atomic bomb did not alone win the war against Japan, but it most
certainly ended it, saving the thousands of Allied lives that would
have been lost in any combat invasion of Japan.
EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT
Hiroshima--August 6th, 1945
by Father John A. Siemes, professor of modern philosphy at Tokyo's
Catholic University
Up to August 6th, occasional bombs, which did no great damage, had
fallen on Hiroshima. Many cities roundabout, one after the other, were
destroyed, but Hiroshima itself remained protected. There were almost
daily observation planes over the city but none of them dropped a bomb.
The citizens wondered why they alone had remained undisturbed for so
long a time. There were fantastic rumors that the enemy had something
special in mind for this city, but no one dreamed that the end would
come in such a fashion as on the morning of August 6th.
August 6th began in a bright, clear, summer morning. About seven
o'clock, there was an air raid alarm which we had heard almost every
day and a few planes appeared over the city. No one paid any attention
and at about eight o'clock, the all-clear was sounded. I am sitting in
my room at the Novitiate of the Society of Jesus in Nagatsuke; during
the past half year, the philosophical and theological section of our
Mission had been evacuated to this place from Tokyo. The Novitiate is
situated approximately two kilometers from Hiroshima, half-way up the
sides of a broad valley which stretches from the town at sea level into
this mountainous hinterland, and through which courses a river. From
my window, I have a wonderful view down the valley to the edge of the
city.
Suddenly--the time is approximately 8:14--the whole valley is filled by
a garish light which resembles the magnesium light used in photography,
and I am conscious of a wave of heat. I jump to the window to find out
the cause of this remarkable phenomenon, but I see nothing more than
that brilliant yellow light. As I make for the door, it doesn't occur
to me that the light might have something to do with enemy planes. On
the way from the window, I hear a moderately loud explosion which seems
to come from a distance and, at the same time, the windows are broken
in with a loud crash. There has been an interval of perhaps ten
seconds since the flash of light. I am sprayed by fragments of glass.
The entire window frame has been forced into the room. I realize now
that a bomb has burst and I am under the impression that it exploded
directly over our house or in the immediate vicinity.
I am bleeding from cuts about the hands and head. I attempt to get out
of the door. It has been forced outwards by the air pressure and has
become jammed. I force an opening in the door by means of repeated
blows with my hands and feet and come to a broad hallway from which
open the various rooms. Everything is in a state of confusion. All
windows are broken and all the doors are forced inwards. The
bookshelves in the hallway have tumbled down. I do not note a second
explosion and the fliers seem to have gone on. Most of my colleagues
have been injured by fragments of glass. A few are bleeding but none
has been seriously injured. All of us have been fortunate since it is
now apparent that the wall of my room opposite the window has been
lacerated by long fragments of glass.
We proceed to the front of the house to see where the bomb has landed.
There is no evidence, however, of a bomb crater; but the southeast
section of the house is very severely damaged. Not a door nor a window
remains. The blast of air had penetrated the entire house from the
southeast, but the house still stands. It is constructed in a Japanese
style with a wooden framework, but has been greatly strengthened by the
labor of our Brother Gropper as is frequently done in Japanese homes.
Only along the front of the chapel which adjoins the house, three
supports have given way (it has been made in the manner of Japanese
temple, entirely out of wood.)
Down in the valley, perhaps one kilometer toward the city from us,
several peasant homes are on fire and the woods on the opposite side of
the valley are aflame. A few of us go over to help control the flames.
While we are attempting to put things in order, a storm comes up and it
begins to rain. Over the city, clouds of smoke are rising and I hear a
few slight explosions. I come to the conclusion that an incendiary
bomb with an especially strong explosive action has gone off down in
the valley. A few of us saw three planes at great altitude over the
city at the time of the explosion. I, myself, saw no aircraft
whatsoever.
Perhaps a half-hour after the explosion, a procession of people begins
to stream up the valley from the city. The crowd thickens
continuously. A few come up the road to our house. We give them first
aid and bring them into the chapel, which we have in the meantime
cleaned and cleared of wreckage, and put them to rest on the straw mats
which constitute the floor of Japanese houses. A few display horrible
wounds of the extremities and back. The small quantity of fat which we
possessed during this time of war was soon used up in the care of the
burns. Father Rektor who, before taking holy orders, had studied
medicine, ministers to the injured, but our bandages and drugs are soon
gone. We must be content with cleansing the wounds.
More and more of the injured come to us. The least injured drag the
more seriously wounded. There are wounded soldiers, and mothers
carrying burned children in their arms. From the houses of the farmers
in the valley comes word: "Our houses are full of wounded and dying.
Can you help, at least by taking the worst cases?" The wounded come
from the sections at the edge of the city. They saw the bright light,
their houses collapsed and buried the inmates in their rooms. Those
that were in the open suffered instantaneous burns, particularly on the
lightly clothed or unclothed parts of the body. Numerous fires sprang
up which soon consumed the entire district. We now conclude that the
epicenter of the explosion was at the edge of the city near the
Jokogawa Station, three kilometers away from us. We are concerned
about Father Kopp who that same morning, went to hold Mass at the
Sisters of the Poor, who have a home for children at the edge of the
city. He had not returned as yet.
Toward noon, our large chapel and library are filled with the seriously
injured. The procession of refugees from the city continues. Finally,
about one o'clock, Father Kopp returns, together with the Sisters.
Their house and the entire district where they live has burned to the
ground. Father Kopp is bleeding about the head and neck, and he has a
large burn on the right palm. He was standing in front of the nunnery
ready to go home. All of a sudden, he became aware of the light, felt
the wave of heat and a large blister formed on his hand. The windows
were torn out by the blast. He thought that the bomb had fallen in his
immediate vicinity. The nunnery, also a wooden structure made by our
Brother Gropper, still remained but soon it is noted that the house is
as good as lost because the fire, which had begun at many points in the
neighborhood, sweeps closer and closer, and water is not available.
There is still time to rescue certain things from the house and to bury
them in an open spot. Then the house is swept by flame, and they fight
their way back to us along the shore of the river and through the
burning streets.
Soon comes news that the entire city has been destroyed by the
explosion and that it is on fire. What became of Father Superior and
the three other Fathers who were at the center of the city at the
Central Mission and Parish House? We had up to this time not given
them a thought because we did not believe that the effects of the bomb
encompassed the entire city. Also, we did not want to go into town
except under pressure of dire necessity, because we thought that the
population was greatly perturbed and that it might take revenge on any
foreigners which they might consider spiteful onlookers of their
misfortune, or even spies.
Father Stolte and Father Erlinghagen go down to the road which is still
full of refugees and bring in the seriously injured who have sunken by
the wayside, to the temporary aid station at the village school. There
iodine is applied to the wounds but they are left uncleansed. Neither
ointments nor other therapeutic agents are available. Those that have
been brought in are laid on the floor and no one can give them any
further care. What could one do when all means are lacking? Under
those circumstances, it is almost useless to bring them in. Among the
passersby, there are many who are uninjured. In a purposeless,
insensate manner, distraught by the magnitude of the disaster most of
them rush by and none conceives the thought of organizing help on his
own initiative. They are concerned only with the welfare of their own
families. It became clear to us during these days that the Japanese
displayed little initiative, preparedness, and organizational skill in
preparation for catastrophes. They failed to carry out any rescue work
when something could have been saved by a cooperative effort, and
fatalistically let the catastrophe take its course. When we urged them
to take part in the rescue work, they did everything willingly, but on
their own initiative they did very little.
At about four o'clock in the afternoon, a theology student and two
kindergarten children, who lived at the Parish House and adjoining
buildings which had burned down, came in and said that Father Superior
LaSalle and Father Schiffer had been seriously injured and that they
had taken refuge in Asano Park on the river bank. It is obvious that
we must bring them in since they are too weak to come here on foot.
Hurriedly, we get together two stretchers and seven of us rush toward
the city. Father Rektor comes along with food and medicine. The
closer we get to the city, the greater is the evidence of destruction
and the more difficult it is to make our way. The houses at the edge
of the city are all severely damaged. Many have collapsed or burned
down. Further in, almost all of the dwellings have been damaged by
fire. Where the city stood, there is a gigantic burned-out scar. We
make our way along the street on the river bank among the burning and
smoking ruins. Twice we are forced into the river itself by the heat
and smoke at the level of the street.
Frightfully burned people beckon to us. Along the way, there are many
dead and dying. On the Misasi Bridge, which leads into the inner city
we are met by a long procession of soldiers who have suffered burns.
They drag themselves along with the help of staves or are carried by
their less severely injured comrades...an endless procession of the
unfortunate.
Abandoned on the bridge, there stand with sunken heads a number of
horses with large burns on their flanks. On the far side, the cement
structure of the local hospital is the only building that remains
standing. Its interior, however, has been burned out. It acts as a
landmark to guide us on our way.
Finally we reach the entrance of the park. A large proportion of the
populace has taken refuge there, but even the trees of the park are on
fire in several places. Paths and bridges are blocked by the trunks of
fallen trees and are almost impassable. We are told that a high wind,
which may well have resulted from the heat of the burning city, has
uprooted the large trees. It is now quite dark. Only the fires, which
are still raging in some places at a distance, give out a little light.
At the far corner of the park, on the river bank itself, we at last
come upon our colleagues. Father Schiffer is on the ground pale as a
ghost. He has a deep incised wound behind the ear and has lost so much
blood that we are concerned about his chances for survival. The Father
Superior has suffered a deep wound of the lower leg. Father Cieslik
and Father Kleinsorge have minor injuries but are completely exhausted.
While they are eating the food that we have brought along, they tell us
of their experiences. They were in their rooms at the Parish House--it
was a quarter after eight, exactly the time when we had heard the
explosion in Nagatsuke--when came the intense light and immediately
thereafter the sound of breaking windows, walls and furniture. They
were showered with glass splinters and fragments of wreckage. Father
Schiffer was buried beneath a portion of a wall and suffered a severe
head injury. The Father Superior received most of the splinters in his
back and lower extremity from which he bled copiously. Everything was
thrown about in the rooms themselves, but the wooden framework of the
house remained intact. The solidity of the structure which was the
work of Brother Gropper again shone forth.
They had the same impression that we had in Nagatsuke: that the bomb
had burst in their immediate vicinity. The Church, school, and all
buildings in the immediate vicinity collapsed at once. Beneath the
ruins of the school, the children cried for help. They were freed with
great effort. Several others were also rescued from the ruins of
nearby dwellings. Even the Father Superior and Father Schiffer despite
their wounds, rendered aid to others and lost a great deal of blood in
the process.
In the meantime, fires which had begun some distance away are raging
even closer, so that it becomes obvious that everything would soon burn
down. Several objects are rescued from the Parish House and were
buried in a clearing in front of the Church, but certain valuables and
necessities which had been kept ready in case of fire could not be
found on account of the confusion which had been wrought. It is high
time to flee, since the oncoming flames leave almost no way open.
Fukai, the secretary of the Mission, is completely out of his mind. He
does not want to leave the house and explains that he does not want to
survive the destruction of his fatherland. He is completely uninjured.
Father Kleinsorge drags him out of the house on his back and he is
forcefully carried away.
Beneath the wreckage of the houses along the way, many have been
trapped and they scream to be rescued from the oncoming flames. They
must be left to their fate. The way to the place in the city to which
one desires to flee is no longer open and one must make for Asano Park.
Fukai does not want to go further and remains behind. He has not been
heard from since. In the park, we take refuge on the bank of the
river. A very violent whirlwind now begins to uproot large trees, and
lifts them high into the air. As it reaches the water, a waterspout
forms which is approximately 100 meters high. The violence of the
storm luckily passes us by. Some distance away, however, where
numerous refugees have taken shelter, many are blown into the river.
Almost all who are in the vicinity have been injured and have lost
relatives who have been pinned under the wreckage or who have been lost
sight of during the flight. There is no help for the wounded and some
die. No one pays any attention to a dead man lying nearby.
The transportation of our own wounded is difficult. It is not possible
to dress their wounds properly in the darkness, and they bleed again
upon slight motion. As we carry them on the shaky litters in the dark
over fallen trees of the park, they suffer unbearable pain as the
result of the movement, and lose dangerously large quantities of blood.
Our rescuing angel in this difficult situation is a Japanese Protestant
pastor. He has brought up a boat and offers to take our wounded up
stream to a place where progress is easier. First, we lower the litter
containing Father Schiffer into the boat and two of us accompany him.
We plan to bring the boat back for the Father Superior. The boat
returns about one-half hour later and the pastor requests that several
of us help in the rescue of two children whom he had seen in the river.
We rescue them. They have severe burns. Soon they suffer chills and
die in the park.
The Father Superior is conveyed in the boat in the same manner as
Father Schiffer. The theology student and myself accompany him.
Father Cieslik considers himself strong enough to make his way on foot
to Nagatsuke with the rest of us, but Father Kleinsorge cannot walk so
far and we leave him behind and promise to come for him and the
housekeeper tomorrow. From the other side of the stream comes the
whinny of horses who are threatened by the fire. We land on a sand
spit which juts out from the shore. It is full of wounded who have
taken refuge there. They scream for aid for they are afraid of
drowning as the river may rise with the sea, and cover the sand spit.
They themselves are too weak to move. However, we must press on and
finally we reach the spot where the group containing Father Schiffer is
waiting.
Here a rescue party had brought a large case of fresh rice cakes but
there is no one to distribute them to the numerous wounded that lie all
about. We distribute them to those that are nearby and also help
ourselves. The wounded call for water and we come to the aid of a few.
Cries for help are heard from a distance, but we cannot approach the
ruins from which they come. A group of soldiers comes along the road
and their officer notices that we speak a strange language. He at once
draws his sword, screamingly demands who we are and threatens to cut us
down. Father Laures, Jr., seizes his arm and explains that we are
German. We finally quiet him down. He thought that we might well be
Americans who had parachuted down. Rumors of parachutists were being
bandied about the city. The Father Superior who was clothed only in a
shirt and trousers, complains of feeling freezing cold, despite the
warm summer night and the heat of the burning city. The one man among
us who possesses a coat gives it to him and, in addition, I give him my
own shirt. To me, it seems more comfortable to be without a shirt in
the heat.
In the meantime, it has become midnight. Since there are not enough of
us to man both litters with four strong bearers, we determine to remove
Father Schiffer first to the outskirts of the city. From there,
another group of bearers is to take over to Nagatsuke; the others are
to turn back in order to rescue the Father Superior. I am one of the
bearers. The theology student goes in front to warn us of the numerous
wires, beams and fragments of ruins which block the way and which are
impossible to see in the dark. Despite all precautions, our progress
is stumbling and our feet get tangled in the wire. Father Kruer falls
and carries the litter with him. Father Schiffer becomes half
unconscious from the fall and vomits. We pass an injured man who sits
all alone among the hot ruins and whom I had seen previously on the way
down.
On the Misasa Bridge, we meet Father Tappe and Father Luhmer, who have
come to meet us from Nagatsuke. They had dug a family out of the ruins
of their collapsed house some fifty meters off the road. The father of
the family was already dead. They had dragged out two girls and placed
them by the side of the road. Their mother was still trapped under
some beams. They had planned to complete the rescue and then to press
on to meet us. At the outskirts of the city, we put down the litter
and leave two men to wait until those who are to come from Nagatsuke
appear. The rest of us turn back to fetch the Father Superior.
Most of the ruins have now burned down. The darkness kindly hides the
many forms that lie on the ground. Only occasionally in our quick
progress do we hear calls for help. One of us remarks that the
remarkable burned smell reminds him of incinerated corpses. The
upright, squatting form which we had passed by previously is still
there.
Transportation on the litter, which has been constructed out of boards,
must be very painful to the Father Superior, whose entire back is full
of fragments of glass. In a narrow passage at the edge of town, a car
forces us to the edge of the road. The litter bearers on the left side
fall into a two meter deep ditch which they could not see in the
darkness. Father Superior hides his pain with a dry joke, but the
litter which is now no longer in one piece cannot be carried further.
We decide to wait until Kinjo can bring a hand cart from Nagatsuke. He
soon comes back with one that he has requisitioned from a collapsed
house. We place Father Superior on the cart and wheel him the rest of
the way, avoiding as much as possible the deeper pits in the road.
About half past four in the morning, we finally arrive at the
Novitiate. Our rescue expedition had taken almost twelve hours.
Normally, one could go back and forth to the city in two hours. Our
two wounded were now, for the first time, properly dressed. I get two
hours sleep on the floor; some one else has taken my own bed. Then I
read a Mass in gratiarum actionem, it is the 7th of August, the
anniversary of the foundation of our society. Then we bestir ourselves
to bring Father Kleinsorge and other acquaintances out of the city.
We take off again with the hand cart. The bright day now reveals the
frightful picture which last night's darkness had partly concealed.
Where the city stood everything, as far as the eye could reach, is a
waste of ashes and ruin. Only several skeletons of buildings
completely burned out in the interior remain. The banks of the river
are covered with dead and wounded, and the rising waters have here and
there covered some of the corpses. On the broad street in the
Hakushima district, naked burned cadavers are particularly numerous.
Among them are the wounded who are still alive. A few have crawled
under the burnt-out autos and trams. Frightfully injured forms beckon
to us and then collapse. An old woman and a girl whom she is pulling
along with her fall down at our feet. We place them on our cart and
wheel them to the hospital at whose entrance a dressing station has
been set up. Here the wounded lie on the hard floor, row on row. Only
the largest wounds are dressed. We convey another soldier and an old
woman to the place but we cannot move everybody who lies exposed in the
sun. It would be endless and it is questionable whether those whom we
can drag to the dressing station can come out alive, because even here
nothing really effective can be done. Later, we ascertain that the
wounded lay for days in the burnt-out hallways of the hospital and
there they died.
We must proceed to our goal in the park and are forced to leave the
wounded to their fate. We make our way to the place where our church
stood to dig up those few belongings that we had buried yesterday. We
find them intact. Everything else has been completely burned. In the
ruins, we find a few molten remnants of holy vessels. At the park, we
load the housekeeper and a mother with her two children on the cart.
Father Kleinsorge feels strong enough, with the aid of Brother
Nobuhara, to make his way home on foot. The way back takes us once
again past the dead and wounded in Hakushima. Again no rescue parties
are in evidence. At the Misasa Bridge, there still lies the family
which the Fathers Tappe and Luhmer had yesterday rescued from the
ruins. A piece of tin had been placed over them to shield them from
the sun. We cannot take them along for our cart is full. We give them
and those nearby water to drink and decide to rescue them later. At
three o'clock in the afternoon, we are back in Nagatsuka.
After we have had a few swallows and a little food, Fathers Stolte,
Luhmer, Erlinghagen and myself, take off once again to bring in the
family. Father Kleinsorge requests that we also rescue two children
who had lost their mother and who had lain near him in the park. On
the way, we were greeted by strangers who had noted that we were on a
mission of mercy and who praised our efforts. We now met groups of
individuals who were carrying the wounded about on litters. As we
arrived at the Misasa Bridge, the family that had been there was gone.
They might well have been borne away in the meantime. There was a
group of soldiers at work taking away those that had been sacrificed
yesterday.
More than thirty hours had gone by until the first official rescue
party had appeared on the scene. We find both children and take them
out of the park: a six-year old boy who was uninjured, and a
twelve-year old girl who had been burned about the head, hands and
legs, and who had lain for thirty hours without care in the park. The
left side of her face and the left eye were completely covered with
blood and pus, so that we thought that she had lost the eye. When the
wound was later washed, we noted that the eye was intact and that the
lids had just become stuck together. On the way home, we took another
group of three refugees with us. They first wanted to know, however,
of what nationality we were. They, too, feared that we might be
Americans who had parachuted in. When we arrived in Nagatsuka, it had
just become dark.
We took under our care fifty refugees who had lost everything. The
majority of them were wounded and not a few had dangerous burns.
Father Rektor treated the wounds as well as he could with the few
medicaments that we could, with effort, gather up. He had to confine
himself in general to cleansing the wounds of purulent material. Even
those with the smaller burns are very weak and all suffered from
diarrhea. In the farm houses in the vicinity, almost everywhere, there
are also wounded. Father Rektor made daily rounds and acted in the
capacity of a painstaking physician and was a great Samaritan. Our
work was, in the eyes of the people, a greater boost for Christianity
than all our work during the preceding long years.
Three of the severely burned in our house died within the next few
days. Suddenly the pulse and respirations ceased. It is certainly a
sign of our good care that so few died. In the official aid stations
and hospitals, a good third or half of those that had been brought in
died. They lay about there almost without care, and a very high
percentage succumbed. Everything was lacking: doctors, assistants,
dressings, drugs, etc. In an aid station at a school at a nearby
village, a group of soldiers for several days did nothing except to
bring in and cremate the dead behind the school.
During the next few days, funeral processions passed our house from
morning to night, bringing the deceased to a small valley nearby.
There, in six places, the dead were burned. People brought their own
wood and themselves did the cremation. Father Luhmer and Father Laures
found a dead man in a nearby house who had already become bloated and
who emitted a frightful odor. They brought him to this valley and
incinerated him themselves. Even late at night, the little valley was
lit up by the funeral pyres.
We made systematic efforts to trace our acquaintances and the families
of the refugees whom we had sheltered. Frequently, after the passage
of several weeks, some one was found in a distant village or hospital
but of many there was no news, and these were apparently dead. We were
lucky to discover the mother of the two children whom we had found in
the park and who had been given up for dead. After three weeks, she
saw her children once again. In the great joy of the reunion were
mingled the tears for those whom we shall not see again.
The magnitude of the disaster that befell Hiroshima on August 6th was
only slowly pieced together in my mind. I lived through the
catastrophe and saw it only in flashes, which only gradually were
merged to give me a total picture. What actually happened
simultaneously in the city as a whole is as follows: As a result of the
explosion of the bomb at 8:15, almost the entire city was destroyed at
a single blow. Only small outlying districts in the southern and
eastern parts of the town escaped complete destruction. The bomb
exploded over the center of the city. As a result of the blast, the
small Japanese houses in a diameter of five kilometers, which
compressed 99% of the city, collapsed or were blown up. Those who were
in the houses were buried in the ruins. Those who were in the open
sustained burns resulting from contact with the substance or rays
emitted by the bomb. Where the substance struck in quantity, fires
sprang up. These spread rapidly.
The heat which rose from the center created a whirlwind which was
effective in spreading fire throughout the whole city. Those who had
been caught beneath the ruins and who could not be freed rapidly, and
those who had been caught by the flames, became casualties. As much as
six kilometers from the center of the explosion, all houses were
damaged and many collapsed and caught fire. Even fifteen kilometers
away, windows were broken. It was rumored that the enemy fliers had
spread an explosive and incendiary material over the city and then had
created the explosion and ignition. A few maintained that they saw the
planes drop a parachute which had carried something that exploded at a
height of 1,000 meters. The newspapers called the bomb an "atomic
bomb" and noted that the force of the blast had resulted from the
explosion of uranium atoms, and that gamma rays had been sent out as a
result of this, but no one knew anything for certain concerning the
nature of the bomb.
How many people were a sacrifice to this bomb? Those who had lived
through the catastrophe placed the number of dead at at least 100,000.
Hiroshima had a population of 400,000. Official statistics place the
number who had died at 70,000 up to September 1st, not counting the
missing ... and 130,000 wounded, among them 43,500 severely wounded.
Estimates made by ourselves on the basis of groups known to us show
that the number of 100,000 dead is not too high. Near us there are two
barracks, in each of which forty Korean workers lived. On the day of
the explosion, they were laboring on the streets of Hiroshima. Four
returned alive to one barracks and sixteen to the other. 600 students
of the Protestant girls' school worked in a factory, from which only
thirty to forty returned. Most of the peasant families in the
neighborhood lost one or more of their members who had worked at
factories in the city. Our next door neighbor, Tamura, lost two
children and himself suffered a large wound since, as it happened, he
had been in the city on that day. The family of our reader suffered
two dead, father and son; thus a family of five members suffered at
least two losses, counting only the dead and severely wounded. There
died the Mayor, the President of the central Japan district, the
Commander of the city, a Korean prince who had been stationed in
Hiroshima in the capacity of an officer, and many other high ranking
officers. Of the professors of the University, thirty-two were killed
or severely injured. Especially hard hit were the soldiers. The
Pioneer Regiment was almost entirely wiped out. The barracks were near
the center of the explosion.
Thousands of wounded who died later could doubtless have been rescued
had they received proper treatment and care, but rescue work in a
catastrophe of this magnitude had not been envisioned; since the whole
city had been knocked out at a blow, everything which had been prepared
for emergency work was lost, and no preparation had been made for
rescue work in the outlying districts. Many of the wounded also died
because they had been weakened by under-nourishment and consequently
lacked in strength to recover. Those who had their normal strength and
who received good care slowly healed the burns which had been
occasioned by the bomb. There were also cases, however, whose
prognosis seemed good who died suddenly. There were also some who had
only small external wounds who died within a week or later, after an
inflammation of the pharynx and oral cavity had taken place. We
thought at first that this was the result of inhalation of the
substance of the bomb. Later, a commission established the thesis that
gamma rays had been given out at the time of the explosion, following
which the internal organs had been injured in a manner resembling that
consequent upon Roentgen irradiation. This produces a diminution in
the numbers of the white corpuscles.
Only several cases are known to me personally where individuals who did
not have external burns later died. Father Kleinsorge and Father
Cieslik, who were near the center of the explosion, but who did not
suffer burns became quite weak some fourteen days after the explosion.
Up to this time small incised wounds had healed normally, but
thereafter the wounds which were still unhealed became worse and are to
date (in September) still incompletely healed. The attending physician
diagnosed it as leucopania. There thus seems to be some truth in the
statement that the radiation had some effect on the blood. I am of the
opinion, however, that their generally undernourished and weakened
condition was partly responsible for these findings. It was noised
about that the ruins of the city emitted deadly rays and that workers
who went there to aid in the clearing died, and that the central
district would be uninhabitable for some time to come. I have my
doubts as to whether such talk is true and myself and others who worked
in the ruined area for some hours shortly after the explosion suffered
no such ill effects.
None of us in those days heard a single outburst against the Americans
on the part of the Japanese, nor was there any evidence of a vengeful
spirit. The Japanese suffered this terrible blow as part of the
fortunes of war ... something to be borne without complaint. During
this, war, I have noted relatively little hatred toward the allies on
the part of the people themselves, although the press has taken
occasion to stir up such feelings. After the victories at the
beginning of the war, the enemy was rather looked down upon, but when
allied offensive gathered momentum and especially after the advent of
the majestic B-29's, the technical skill of America became an object of
wonder and admiration.
The following anecdote indicates the spirit of the Japanese: A few days
after the atomic bombing, the secretary of the University came to us
asserting that the Japanese were ready to destroy San Francisco by
means of an equally effective bomb. It is dubious that he himself
believed what he told us. He merely wanted to impress upon us
foreigners that the Japanese were capable of similar discoveries. In
his nationalistic pride, he talked himself into believing this. The
Japanese also intimated that the principle of the new bomb was a
Japanese discovery. It was only lack of raw materials, they said,
which prevented its construction. In the meantime, the Germans were
said to have carried the discovery to a further stage and were about to
initiate such bombing. The Americans were reputed to have learned the
secret from the Germans, and they had then brought the bomb to a stage
of industrial completion.
We have discussed among ourselves the ethics of the use of the bomb.
Some consider it in the same category as poison gas and were against
its use on a civil population. Others were of the view that in total
war, as carried on in Japan, there was no difference between civilians
and soldiers, and that the bomb itself was an effective force tending
to end the bloodshed, warning Japan to surrender and thus to avoid
total destruction. It seems logical to me that he who supports total
war in principle cannot complain of war against civilians. The crux of
the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable,
even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and
spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good that
might result? When will our moralists give us a clear answer to this
question?