Hiroshima

The third chapter covers a longer period of time, from late in the day of the bombing, August 6, to August 15. A young theological student had been sent to get help from others at the Novitiate outside the city. He arrived there late in the afternoon. A group of Jesuits made two litters with which to carry the wounded priests before setting out for Asano Park. Once there, they debated how best to carry two fathers out; the park was crowded and uneven, and they feared it would be too bumpy for the men. Father Kleinsorge remembered Rev. Tanimoto ferrying people across the river that afternoon. He called out for Tanimoto at the riverbank and soon made contact. The priests were loaded into the boat and taken upstream to look for a smoother path out. When they reached the Novitiate, the rector cleaned and dressed the men’s wounds and put them to bed.

During the night, Tanimoto ferried more people, at one point finding a group on a sandbar. They were too weak to climb aboard by themselves. He reached out to help one of the woman, grasping her hands, but her skin was so burned it came off. After taking a moment to collect himself, he got into the water and lifted the individuals one by one into the boat, making several trips to take them to the opposite side of the river. Then, needing a rest, he went back to the park to spend the night. The next day he resumed doing whatever he could to help others.

At the Red Cross Hospital, Dr. Sasaki could do no more after working 19 straight hours. At 3 a.m. the next morning, he and some other doctors made their way outside and lay down to rest. Not an hour later, some patients found the doctors and badgered them to get up and help. At some point later on, Dr. Sasaki thought of his mother; he stayed with her every night, and he was afraid she would think he was dead by not returning.

At Asano Park the next morning, Father Kleinsorge heard there was fresh water outside the park. He found a bottle and teapot and made several trips to retrieve water for the wounded. Once he got lost on the way back. He came across a group of badly wounded soldiers in the woods who asked for his water. Their faces were terribly burned, to the point that they were unable to drink normally. Kleinsorge fashioned a straw out of grass with which they could drink. While Kleinsorge rested after one of the trips, the fathers from the Novitiate returned with a hand cart to take him and the Nakamura family back with them. By the time they arrived, he was thoroughly exhausted and feeling ill, and he fell into bed.

The next day, August 8, two friends of Toshiko Sasaki found her on the grounds of the tin factory. For two days and nights she had been under the lean-to someone had made for her, along with the two other grievously wounded people brought there. In that time, she’d had nothing to eat or drink, and her injured leg had worsened, becoming swollen and discolored. She learned from her friends that her parents and baby brother had died. Soon after, some men carried her to a truck. She was transported to an area where army doctors were treating the wounded. There she fainted when two doctors debated whether to amputate her leg. When she came to, she was being moved again, this time to a military hospital on a nearby island, where she spent the night.

At the Red Cross Hospital, Dr. Sasaki worked for three days straight on only an hour of sleep. More doctors and nurses from around the city were sent to help out, but they were still overwhelmed by the number of patients. Worried that his mother would think him dead, Dr. Sasaki got permission to see her. On foot and by train, he made it to the suburb where she lived, only to learn that a nurse had stopped by sometime earlier and informed his mother that he was alive and well. Exhausted, he went to bed and slept for 17 hours.

Dr. Sasaki returned to the Red Cross Hospital after resting at his mother’s. He found that some order had been imposed. The bodies of the dead were finally being removed. Toshiko Sasaki was moved again, taken by ship to a hospital in a town near Hiroshima. Her leg continued to worsen, now badly oozing pus. At the new hospital, the doctor was unable to set the broken bones and tried to drain the fluid. Meanwhile, the Nakamura family moved to Mrs. Nakamura’s sister-in-law’s house, and Dr. Fujii convalesced with a friend outside the city.

Rumors circulated about just what had happened to cause so much death and destruction. Dr. Fujii had heard it was not actually a bomb but magnesium powder that had been dropped, exploding when it hit the electric wires of the city. A radio news broadcast on August 7 speculated that it had been a new kind of bomb, as yet unidentified. The doctors at the Red Cross Hospital knew something was different when they discovered that unused X-ray plates had been exposed. About a week later, reports came “that the city had been destroyed by the energy released when atoms were somehow split in two” (62). Few people understood what that meant.