REBEL VOICES

PROJECTIONS: (1945) JAPAN, WORLD WAR II

 

U.S. STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY SUMMARY REPORT

On 6 August and 9 August 1945, the first two atomic bombs to be used for military purposes were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One hundred thousand people were killed. The first and crucial question about the atomic bomb thus was answered conclusively; atomic energy had been mastered for military purposes, and the overwhelming scale of its possibilities had been demonstrated.

 

(YAMAOKA MICHIKO)

I was fifteen years old. I was an operator at the telephone exchange. We were tied by strong bonds to the country. Japan was winning, so we still believed. We only had to endure.

 

That morning, when I left the house, Mom told me, Watch out, the B-29s might come again. My house was one point three kilometers from the hypocenter. I walked toward my place of work, which was five hundred meters from the hypocenter. I heard the faint sound of planes. I thought, how strange, so I put my hand above my eyes and looked up to see if I could spot them. The sun was dazzling. That was the moment.

 

PROJECTIONS: THE ATOMIC BOMB DROPS ON HIROSHIMA

 

There was no sound. I felt something strong. It was terribly intense. I felt colors. It wasn’t heat. You can’t really say it was yellow, and it wasn’t blue. At that moment I thought I would be the only one who would die.

 

U.S. STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY SUMMARY REPORT

The bombs exploded with a tremendous flash of blue-white light, like a giant magnesium flare. The flash was accompanied by intense glare and heat. A huge snow-white cloud shot rapidly into the sky.

 

The duration of the flash was only a fraction of a second, but it was sufficiently intense to cause third degree burns to human skin up to a distance of a mile. In the immediate area of ground zero, the heat charred corpses beyond recognition.

 

(YAMAOKA MICHIKO)

They say temperatures of seven thousand degrees centigrade hit me. I remember my body floating in the air. That was probably the blast, but I don’t know how far I was blown. When I came to my senses, my surroundings were silent. There was no wind. I saw a threadlike light, so I felt I must be alive. I was under stones. I couldn’t move. I heard voices crying, Help! Water! Hurry up! They were moans of despair. I wasn’t the only one. I tried to say something, but my voice wouldn’t come out.

 

The person who rescued me was Mom, although she had been buried under our collapsed house. She came, calling out to me. I heard her voice and cried for help.

 

U.S. STRATEGIC BOMBING SUMMARY REPORT

Over 4 square miles in the center of the city were flattened to the ground. Most of the people in this area were crushed or pinned down by the collapsing buildings or flying debris. Shortly thereafter, numerous fires started, which grew in size, merging into a conflagration fanned by a wind sucked into the city by the rising heat.

 

(YAMAOKA MICHIKO)

From underneath the stones I heard the crackling of flames. I called to my mother, Don’t worry about me. Run away. My mother convinced soldiers nearby to help her. They pulled me out by my legs.

 

Nobody there looked like human beings. Everyone was stupefied. Humans had lost the ability to speak. People couldn’t scream even when they were on fire.

 

My clothes were burnt and so was my skin. There were people, barely breathing, trying to push their intestines back in. People with their legs wrenched off. Without heads. The scene I saw was a living hell.

 

Mom squeezed my hand and told me to run. She was going to rescue my aunt. I made my way towards the mountain, where there was no fire. I saw a friend of mine who’d been inside her house and wasn’t burned. My face was so swollen she couldn’t tell who I was. Finally, she recognized my voice. She said, You look like a monster! I looked at my hands and saw my own skin hanging down and the red flesh exposed.

 

I lay on the concrete for hours. A scorching sky was overhead. People were simply left lying around. When their breathing became silent, someone would say, This one’s dead, and put the body in a pile of corpses.

 

U.S. STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY SUMMARY REPORT

Approximately 70,000 people were killed in Hiroshima, and 50,000 were injured.

 

The Survey has estimated that the damage and casualties caused by the one atomic bomb dropped from a single plane would have required 220 B-29s carrying 1,200 tons of incendiary bombs, 400 tons of high-explosive bombs, and 500 tons of anti-personnel fragmentation bombs.

 

(YAMAOKA MICHIKO)

I had a deep hatred toward America. When I talked about how I suffered, I was often told, Well, you attacked Pearl Harbor! From the American point of view, they dropped the bomb in order to end the war faster. But it’s inexcusable to harm human beings in this way. I wonder what kind of education there is now in America about atomic bombs. They’re still making them, aren’t they?

 

U.S. STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY SUMMARY REPORT

The public admission of defeat by Japanese leaders was secured prior to the invasion. Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, it is the Survey’s opinion that Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped.