THE HIROSHIMA HOLOCAUST

THE HIROSHIMA HOLOCAUST:

The bombing of Hiroshima marked a new era in man’s growing  skill in the art of self-destruction.  During the saturation bombing of Germany and Japan  in World War II , cities were destroyed , but the destruction  was segmental , requiring days or weeks , so that city dwellers had some chance to flee or find shelter. Moreover, those who were killed or injured  had the comfort of knowing  they were being killed  by more or less familiar and acceptable weapons . But at Hiroshima , on the bright clear morning of August 6, 1945, thousands  were killed , more thousands  were fatally injured , and the homes of a quarter million people  were destroyed , within seconds of the falling of a single bomb. Since that day , terrifying progress in the technology of nuclear warfare  and the appalling knowledge  that indulgence  in atomic weapons may permanently impair the biological  future of the human race have combined  to emphasize the fact  that Hiroshima presented mankind with a fateful choice.

Dr Michihiko Hachiya, M.D. then Director of the Hiroshima  Communications Hospital had written a diary of his experiences as a patient  and bed-ridden hospital director.  Here are some excerpts from his book’ Hiroshima Diary’ . I have quoted here the events that overtook the good doctor on August 6, 1945 the day the Atom Bomb fell on Hiroshima.

The hour was early ; the morning still, warm , and beautiful . Shimmering leaves , reflecting sunlight  from a cloudless sky , made a pleasant contrast  with shadows in my garden as I gazed absently  through wide-flung  doors  opening to the south.

Clad in drawers  and undershirt , I was sprawled  on the living  room floor exhausted  because I had just spent  a sleepless night  on duty as an air warden in my hospital.

Suddenly, a strong flash of light startled me ---and then another.  So well does  one recall little things that I remember vividly  how a stone lantern  in the garden became  brilliantly lit  and I debated  whether this light was caused by  a magnesium  flare or sparks  from a passing trolley.

Garden shadows disappeared . The view where a  moment  before all had been  so bright  and sunny  was now dark and hazy. Through swirling dust I could barely discern  a wooden column  that had supported  one corner of my house. It was leaning crazily  and the roof sagged dangerously.

Moving instinctively , I tried to escape , but rubble and fallen timbers barred the way. By picking  my way cautiously  I managed  to reach the roka  and stepped down into my garden. A profound weakness  overcame me , so I stopped  to regain my strength . To my surprise I discovered that I was completely naked . How odd!  Where were my drawers  and undershirt?

What had happened ?

All over the right side of my body  I was cut and bleeding . A large splinter was protruding  from amangled  wound  in my thigh , and something warm  trickled into my mouth.  My cheek was torn , I discovered  as I felt gingerly , with the lower lip laid wide open . Embedded in my neck  was a sizable  fragment of glass  which I matter-of-factly  dislodged  and with the detachment  of one stunned and shocked  I studied  it and my blood stained hand .

Where was my wife?

Suddenly thoroughly alarmed , I began to yell for her :’ Yaeko –san!! Yaeko-san! Where are you ?’

Blood began to spurt . Had my carotid artery been cut ? Would I bleed to death ? Frightened and irrational , I called out again :’ It’s a five-hundred-ton  bomb!Yaeko-san , where are you? A five –hundred-ton bomb has fallen !’

Yaeko –san pale  and frightened  , her clothes  torn and blood-stained , emerged from the ruins  of our house  holding her elbow . Seeing her , I was reassured . My own panic assuaged, I tried to reassure her.

‘We’ll be all-right ,’ I exclaimed .’ Only let’s get out of here as fast as we can.’

She nodded  , and I motioned for her to follow me.

The shortest path to the street  lay through  the house next door  so through  the house—we went –running, stumbling , falling , and then running again  until in headlong flight we tripped over something and fell sprawling into the street. Getting to my feet , I had discovered  that I had tripped over a man’s head.

‘Excuse me! Excuse me, please!’ I cried hysterically.

There was no answer . The man was dead . The head had belonged to a young officer whose body was  crushed  beneath a massive gate.

We stood in the street , uncertain  and afraid , until a house  across from us began to sway  and then with a rending motion  fell almost at our feet.  Our own house began to sway , and in a minute it, too, collapsed  in a cloud of dust. Other buildings  caved in  or toppled . Fires sprang up  and whipped by a vicious  wind began to spread.

It finally dawned on us that we could  not stay there  in the street, so we turned our steps  towards the hospital. Our home was gone ; we were wounded  and needed treatment ; and after all, it was my duty  to be with my staff . This latter was an irrational  thought--- what good could I be to anyone, hurt as I was.

We started out , but twenty or thirty steps  I had to stop. My breath became short , my heart pounded, and my legs gave way under me. An overpowering thirst  seized me  and I begged  Yaeko-san  to find me some water. But there was no water  to be found. After a little while my strength  somewhat returned  and we are able to go on.

I was still naked , and although I did not feel the least bit of shame , I was disturbed to realize that modesty had deserted me.  On rounding a corner  we came upon a soldier  standing idly in the street. He had a towel draped across his shoulder , and I asked  if he would give it to me to cover my nakedness.  The soldier surrendered the towel quite willingly but said nota  word.  A little  later I lost the tower , and Yaeko –san took off her apron and tied it around my loins.

Our progress towards  the hospital was interminably  slow, until finally, my legs, stiff from  drying blood, refused to carry me  farther . The strength , even the will , to go on  deserted me, so I told my wife , who was almost as badly hurt as I , to go on alone. This she objected to , but there was no choice . She had to go ahead  and try to find someone  to come back for me.

Yaeko-san looked into may face  for a moment , and then , without saying a word , turned away and began running towards  the hospital. Once , she looked back and waved  and ina  moment she was swallowed up in the gloom.  It was quite dark now, and with my wife gone , a feeling of dreadful loneliness overcame me.

I must have gone out of my head lying there in the roadbecause the next thing I recall was discovering that the clot on my thigh had been dislodged and blood was again spurting from the wound . I pressed my hand to the bleeding area and after a while the bleeding stopped and I felt better.

Could I go on?

I tried . It was all a nightmare---my wounds , the darkness , the road ahead . My movements were ever so slow ; only my mind was running at top speed.

In time I came to an open space where the houses had been removed to make a fire lane. Through the dim light I could make out ahead of me the hazy outlines of the Communications Bureau’s big concrete building and beyond it the hospital . My spirits rose because I knew that now someone would find me; and if I should die , at least my body would be found.

I paused to rest . Gradually things around me came into focus. There were the shadowy forms of people , some of whom looked like walking ghosts. Others moved as though in pain, like scare crows , their arms held out from their bodies with forearms and hands dangling. These people puzzled me until I suddenly realized that they had been burned  and were holding their arms out to prevent the painful friction of raw surfaces rubbing together. A naked woman carrying a naked baby came into view . I averted my gaze. Perhaps they had been in the bath. But then I saw a naked man , and it occurred to me that, like myself , some strange thing had deprived them of their clothes. An old woman lay near me with an expression of suffering on her face ; but she made no sound. Indeed, one thing was common to everyone I saw ---complete silence.

And who could were moving in the direction of the of the hospital. I joined in the dismal parade when my strength was somewhat recovered, and at last reached the gates of the Communications Bureau.

Familiar surroundings,  familiar faces. There was Mr Iguchi and Mr. Yoshihiro  and my old friend , Mr. Sera, the head of the business office. The hastened to give me a hand , their expressions of pleasure  changing to alarm when the say that I was hurt. I was too happy to see them  to share their concern.

No time was lost over greetings . They eased me onto a stretcher  and carried me into the Communications Building, ignoring my protests  that I could walk.  Later, I leraned that that the hospital was so overrun that the Communications Bureau  had to be used  as an emergency hospital.  The rooms and corridors  were crowded with people , many of whom I recognized  as neighbors. To me it seemed that the whole community was there.

My friends passed  me through  an open window  into a janitor’s room recently  converted into an emergency first-aid station. The room was a shambles ; fallen plaster , broken furniture , and debris  littered the floor; the walls were cracked ; and a heavy steel window  casement was twisted  and almost wrenched  from its seating. What a place to dress the wounds of the injured.

To my great surprise  who would appear  but my private nurse , Miss Kado , and Mr. Mizoguchi , and old Mrs. Saeki . Miss Kado set about examining my wounds  without speaking  a word. No one spoke .I asked for a shirt and pajamas . They got them for me , but still no one spoke. Why was everyone so quiet?

Miss Kado finished the examination  , and ina  moment  it felt  as if my chest was on fire. She had begun to paint my wounds with iodine  and no amount of entreaty would make her stop. With no alternative but to endure the iodine , I tried to divert myself by looking out the window.

The hospital lay directly  opposite  with part of the roof  and the third  floor sunroom  in plain view , and as I looked up , I witnessed a sight which made me forget  my smarting wounds. Smoke was pouring  out of the sunroom windows. The hospital was afire!

‘Fire!’  I shouted .’Fire! Fire! The hospital is on fire!’

My friends looked up . It was true . The hospital was on fire.

The alarm was given  and from all sides people took up the cry. The high-pitched  voice of Mr. Sera , the business officer, rose above the others, and it seemed as if his was the first voice I had heard that day. The uncanny stillness was broken . Our little world was now in pandemonium.

I remember that Dr. Sasada , chief of the Pediatric Service , came in and tried to reassure me , but I could scarcely hear him above the din. . I heard Dr. Hinoi’s voice  and then Dr. Koyama’s. Both  were shouting orders  to evacuate the hospital  and with such vigor  that it sounded  as though the sheer strength  of their voices could hasten  those who were slow to obey.

The sky became bright as flames  from the hospital  mounted.  Soon the Bureau  was threatened  and Mr. Sera gave the order  to evacuate. My stretcher was moved into a near garden  and placed beneath  an old cherry tree. Other patients  limped into the garden or were  carried  until  soon the entire area became so crowded  that only the very ill  had the room to lie down.  No one talked, and the ominous silence  was relieved  only by a subdued  rustle  among so  many people , restless, in pain, anxious, and afraid, waiting for something else to happen.

The sky filled  with black smoke  and glowing sparks . Flames  rose and the heat  set currents  of air in motion.  Updrafts became  soviolent  that sheets of zinc roofing  were hurled aloft  and released , humming  and twirling , in erratic flight.  Pieces of flaming  wood  soared  and fell  like fiery swallows. While I was trying  to beat out the flames , a hot ember  seared my ankle. It was all I could do to keep from being burned alive.

 The Bureau started to burn , and window after window after window became a square of flame  until the whole structure  was converted into a cracling , hissing inferno.

Scorching winds howled around us , whipping dust and ashes into our eyes and up our noses. Our moths became dry , our throats  raw  and sore from the biting  smoke pulled into our lungs.  Coughing was uncontrollable . We would have moved back , but a group  of wooden barracks  behind us caught fire and began to burn like tinder.

The heat finally became too intense to endure, and we were  left no choice  but to abandon the garden . Those who could flee survived; those who  could not perished. Had it not been  for my devoted  friends, I would have died, but again , they came to the rescue and carried  my stretcher  to the main gate on the other side of the Bureau.

Here , a small group of people were already clustered , and here I found my wife . Dr. Sasada and Miss Kado joined us.

Fires sprang up on every side  as violent winds  fanned flames from one building to another . Soon we were surrounded . The ground we held  in front of the Communications Bureau became an oasis  in a desert of fire. As the flames came closer the haetbecame more intense , and if someone  in our group  had not had the presence of mind  to drench us with water  from a fire hose , I doubt if anyone could have survived.

Hot as it was, I began to shiver . The drenching was too much . my heart pounded  things began to whirl  until all before me blurred .

‘Kurushii’ , I murmured  weakly. ’I am done’.

The sound of voices  reached my years  as though from a great distance  and finally became louder as if close at hand. I opened my eyes; Dr. Sasada  was feeling my pulse. What had happened ?  Miss Kado gave me an injection . My strength  gradually returned . I must have fainted.

Huge rain drops began to fall . Some thought  a thunderstorm  was beginning  and would extinguish the fires. But these drops  were capricious. A few fell  and then a  few more and that was all the rain we saw.

The first floor of the Bureau was now ablaze  and flames  were spreading  rapidly towards our little oasis by the gate . Right then,  I could hardly understand  the situation , much less do anything about it.

An iron window  frame, loosened by fire, crashed to the ground  behind us. A ball of fire whizzed by me,  setting my clothes ablaze . They drenched me with water again . From then on I am confused as to what happened.

I do remember  Dr. Hinoi because of the pain , the pain I felt  when he jerked me  to my feet.  I remember  being moved  or rather dragged, and my whole spirit rebelling against the torment  I was made to endure.

My next memory is of an open area. The fires must have receded . I was alive. My friends had somehow managed to rescue me again.

A head popped out of an air –raid dugout , and I heard the unmistakable  voice of old Mrs. Saeki:’ Cheer up , doctor! Everything will be all right. The north side is burnt out . We have nothing further to fear from fire.’

I might have been her son , the way the old lady calmed and reassured me . And indeed she was right . The entire northern side  of the city was completely burned.  The sky was still dark, but whether it was evening or midday I could not tell . It might even have been the next day. Time had no meaning. What I had experienced  might have been  crowded  into a  moment  or been endured  through the monotony  of eternity.

Smoke  was still rising from the second floor  of the hospital , but the fire had stopped . There was nothing left to burn , I thought; but later I learned that the first floor of the hospital had escaped  destruction  largely through the courageous efforts of Dr. Koyama  and Dr. Hinoi.

The streets were deserted  except for the dead. Some looked  as if they had been frozen to death  while in the full action  of the flight; others lay sprawled  as though some giant  had flung them to their death  from a  great height.

Hiroshima was no longer a city , but a burnt out prairie. To the east and to the west  everything was flattened . The distant mountains seemed  nearer than I could remember . I hills of Ushtia  and the woods of  Nigitsu loomed out  of the haze and smoke like the nose and eyes on a face. How small Hiroshima was with its houses gone.

The wind changed and the sky again darkened  with smoke .

Suddenly , I heard  someone shout :’Planes! Enemy planes!’

 Cold that be possible after what had already  happened ? What was left to bomb ? My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a  familiar name.

A nurse calling  Dr. Katsube.

‘It is Dr. Katsube ! It’s him!’  shouted old Mrs. Saeki , a happy ring to her voice.’ Dr. Katsube has come!’

It was Dr. Katsube , our head surgeon , but he seemed completely unaware  of us as he hurried past,  making a straight line for the hospital.  Enemy planes were forgotten , so great was our happiness  that Dr. Katsube had been spared to return to us.

Before I could protest , my friends  were carrying me into the hospital . The distance was only a hundred meters , but it was enough to cause my heart  to pound and make me sick and faint.

I recall the hard table  and the pain when my face  and lip were sutured, but I have no recollection  of the forty or more others wounds Dr Katsube closed before night.

They removed  me to an adjoining room , and I remember  feeling relaxed  and sleepy . The sun had gone down , leaving a dark  red sky. The red flames  of the burning city  had scorched  the heavens. I gazed at the sky  until sleep overtook me.

Dr. I. R Durrani

( Extracted from Hiroshima Diary : the Journal of a Japanese Physician ; August 6---September 30,1945)

By Michihiko Hachiya, M.D.

Translated and Edited by Warner Wells, M.D.

Posted in 1945; Dr Hachiya 's account; radiation; destruction; instant killing; holocaust, Hiroshima; August 6