A survivor's harrowing account of Nagasaki bombing
WARNING: Story contains some disturbing details
The following is an account of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki as told by Shizuko Nagae to her daughter, Masako Waba. It has been translated from Japanese.
On Aug. 9, it was one of those hot summer days. An air raid warning was called off, and I was fixing a lunch of substitute food — food eaten as a substitute for rice because there was a shortage [of] rice during the war.
My elder daughter, Masako, who was born in October 1943, was playing alone on the dirt floor of the main entrance. She heard me saying, "Stay inside and play. It's too hot to go outside." It was a nice quiet moment in the late morning.
Then at two minutes past eleven, suddenly there was a large sound. Kaboom! Before I knew it, my house in Imahakata-machi, 2.9 kilometres from the epicentre [of the blast], was covered with mud as thick as 30 centimetres. The window panes, shoji paper screens, lattice doors and clay walls had all disintegrated into pieces. I had no idea what had happened. The air outside was filled with orange-coloured smoke, and I couldn't even see the houses across the street. Some people cried, "The bomb was dropped on my house!"
As [far] as I could see, all the roof tiles had fallen to one side. The green of the mountain that surrounded the city was gone. They were brown mountains now.
'There was a long black line moving slowly downwards. It looked like a march of ants. They were burned, wounded people who tried to escape from the fires near the epicentre coming over the mountain.- Shizuko Nagae
After a while, I saw the astounding scenery on the brown mountainside. There was a long black line moving slowly downwards. It looked like a march of ants. They were burned, wounded people who tried to escape from the fires near the epicentre coming over the mountain. They were almost naked. Their hair stuck together with blood, like horns. Many people might have died on their way.
The wounded came seeking water
The lot next to my house was an evacuation place. As there was a well in my backyard, people who were severely burned or wounded came one after another for water. Carrying Masako on my back, I took care of countless people by washing their wounds. I don't know what happened to them afterwards.
People talked about the dead bodies as if they were an everyday sight … Everybody became numb to what was happening.- Shizuko Nagae
All of the dead bodies were cremated from morning to night every day. Because of their stench, I totally lost my appetite. Human remains packed in box-shaped garbage carts were continuously brought there.
The workers collecting dead bodies on the street just held these bodies by the limbs and threw them into the cart. Their hideously burned hands and feet stuck out of the cart as if they were dolls.
People talked about the dead bodies as if they were an everyday sight, saying, "There are lots today," or, "There aren't so many today." Everybody became numb to what was happening. What is human dignity? Should human beings be treated like that? I wonder.
No words could describe the scene
On Aug. 15, when World War II ended, I went to the gymnasium in Nagasaki University to help the medical team treating the people sheltered there for burns. No words could describe that scene of the people lying over the floor in the gym.
Taking antiseptic solution with me, I followed the doctor and treated each patient. But their wounds were so unbelievably severe that I ended up fainting there after screaming, "Please take this antiseptic solution!" Medical supplies were valuable back then.
When I opened my eyes again, I found myself lying down on the floor as well. They said they didn't need a nurse like me, and I was sent to join the cleaning team. My job was brushing off the maggots from festering wounds with a broom. They were crawling around all over the patients' bodies, and they had grown as big as a thumb. I had never seen such big maggots or so many.
After the air raid warning was called off, a friend of mine who lived near Nagasaki Station at the time saw through the window upstairs one B-29 drop three cocoon-like balloons from above and fly away. She thought those balls had gone off toward Urakami area, which is near the epicentre.
But then, there was a flash. Her younger brother beside her protected her from the heat, getting her to lie down so that she was able to survive. He, however, didn't make it as his back was burned all over.
I have heard that those balls were parachutes equipped with an instrument — a radio sensor — which was used to report how it turned out after the atomic bomb was dropped. Among the many victims, there was Koreans, Chinese and even many allied prisoners of war, as well as Japanese. Those are the ones who happened to be there at that moment, regardless of nationality and race.
I wonder if that recording device reported anything besides the effect of the A-bomb to the U.S. armed forces? Not about the lives of each one of us, not about our families and not about the preciousness of human life.
