One Family and the Atomic Bomb
The tragic fate of a three Hiroshima survivors.
On August 6, 1945, the United States became the only country ever to use nuclear weapons in a war with the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and, a few days later, Nagasaki.
The 78th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima is in a few days, and I am writing a seven-part series on it.
Was the Atomic Bomb Needed to End World War II?
The American government led the US public to believe that dropping the atomic bomb was necessary to end World War II and prevent future bloodshed. However, we now know that Japan may have been willing to surrender if certain terms were met.
The Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs sent a message to the Soviet Union on July 12, asking them to help broker a truce between the US and Japan.
Truman and the US government had intercepted the message and were aware of this. However, they insisted on unconditional surrender and were unwilling to negotiate.
The bombing, then, may not have been needed to end the war.
Read more about the events leading up to Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb.
A Child Recalls the Bombing of Hiroshima
In 1951, Japanese citizen Arata Osada, PhD, compiled the testimonies of children who had survived the bombing. In 1981, excerpts from the collection were translated into English by Yoichi Fukushima and released as a book called Children of Hiroshima.
One story was from Arata Osada, a high school student who was in fifth grade when the US dropped the bomb.
Noriko, her mother, her sister, and her brother had moved out of the city to their aunt’s house. The children’s grandparents were still living in Hiroshima.
On August 5, Noriko’s eight-year-old sister Yoriko went to Hiroshima to visit her grandparents.
Noriko recalls:
[T]here was a flash followed in a moment by a loud, thunderous noise. Then, before long, a cloud that looked like cotton candy rose into the clear, blue sky beyond the mountain.
No one knew what had happened, or what the cloud meant. They were to find out, however.
Noriko’s Sister and Other Hiroshima Survivors Return
That evening, Noriko and her mother went to the river to wash some clothes. They saw a little girl approaching, and at first, didn’t recognize her. Then Noriko realized the little girl was her sister.
She says, “The little girl I met was indeed my sister, but oh, how different she looked.”
The child had walked twenty miles to reach her family.
The little girl’s face was dark and covered with soot, and her mouth was bleeding.
Noriko’s mother hugged the child and cried, “Yoriko-chan! Yoriko-chan! What a long walk you must have had.”
The mother got Yoriko a drink of water and gently washed the dirt off her face and hands. They gave the injured child some baked potatoes to eat. Yoriko had difficulty eating.
As she slowly ate the potatoes, she told her mother and sister what had happened.
Yoriko had been at a barbershop when the bomb was dropped. She was trapped under the wreckage of the shop. The shopkeeper pulled her out, and she walked through the devastated city to her grandparent’s home, only to find it completely destroyed.
She looked for her grandparents and couldn’t find them, so she set off for the village outside Hiroshima, where the rest of her family lived.
Several days later, the grandparents arrived. Both appeared unhurt.
The family seemed to have been lucky.
Radiation Sickness Begins and Takes Its Toll
Unfortunately, one of the cruelest aspects of nuclear weapons is that many people who survive the initial blast later succumb to radiation sickness.
Although Yoriko’s injuries were minor, and her grandparents seemed to have escaped without a scratch, the atomic bomb subjected all three of them to lethal doses of radiation.
Noriko describes what happened next:
[B]oth my grandmother and my younger sister began to lose their hair. Their pillows were always covered with a lot of hair and if you even so much as touched their hair it would come out in clumps of about fifty strands…
My grandfather also suddenly began to have severe headaches and was finally confined to be [sic].
Everyone who escaped Hiroshima and took refuge in the village was suffering the same symptoms.
Noriko recalls:
Our village was literally stricken with fear. People who had escaped from Hiroshima without a scratch began to lose their hair, break out in colored spots and eventually die. There was nothing the doctors could do to help them.
The Death of Noriko’s Grandparents
Noriko’s grandfather got sicker and sicker and knew he was going to die. He loved sake, and, one day, drank a great deal. He fell, hit his head, and succumbed to his injuries.
Noriko’s grandmother and sister would not have such an easy death.
By the time the grandfather’s funeral was held, her grandmother was confined to bed. The family placed the grandfather in a “beautiful cedar coffin” and gave him an elaborate funeral.
Noriko describes what happened to her grandmother:
My grandmother’s condition gradually became worse and the black spots that appeared on her skin were followed by purple ones. She couldn’t eat anything at all so she didn’t have any ordinary bowel movements. Instead, she passed black mucus fluid as if her intestines were melting away.
She became nothing but skin and bone and lost all of her hair. What a horrible sight she was when she finally died on the fourth of September!
Noriko says, “By that time, everyone was sure that anyone who was exposed to the atom bomb in Hiroshima would die.”
By the time her grandmother died, corpses were piling up in the village. Instead of a beautiful coffin, “she was put on a whiteboard with a nightgown thrown over her. It was a simple cremation.”
A Child’s Simple Faith in Staying Alive
Noriko’s aunt carried Yoriko, who, by now, was very sick, to the grandmother’s funeral.
At the funeral, Yoriko heard her aunt saying that Yoriko, herself was soon going to die. Yoriko responded:
‘Auntie! Only the old people die. I’m not going to die. My mother promised me that I am going to get well.’
Everyone there was in tears to hear her talking of getting well when they all knew that she was destined to die.
Yoriko’s condition continued to worsen. Her symptoms were the same as the grandmother’s.
Yoriko suffering ended on September 9, when she died, over a month after the bombing. She was eight years old.
A Mother’s Grief
Yoriko’s mother prepared her body for burial. Noriko recalls:
[L]ike Grandmother, she was placed on a board and taken to the hill for cremation.
Just as the fire was to be lit, Mother suddenly ran toward Yoriko’s lifeless body, screaming in an anguished voice, ‘Burn me with her!’
The grief of a mother who has lost a child is the same in every country.
The mother was so devastated she would rather burn alive with her daughter than continue to live.
Would You Die in a Nuclear War Today?
By comparison to the bombs countries have today, the one dropped on Hiroshima was tiny. If an enemy nation detonated nuclear bombs over an American city, there would be tens of millions of casualties, many dying the same way as those in Noriko’s family.
If you are wondering if you would be killed in a nuclear war, whether through immolation, injuries, or radiation poisoning, there is a map here that can show you.
There is Still Little Treatment for Radiation Sickness
Even today, there is little doctors can do for those exposed to toxic amounts of radiation: According to the Mayo Clinic:
A person who has absorbed very large doses of radiation has little chance of recovery… People with a lethal radiation dose will receive medications to control pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. They may also benefit from psychological or pastoral care.
In an actual bombing, with tens of millions of casualties occurring all at once, many hospitals destroyed, and US infrastructure in ruins, it is extremely unlikely that pain medicine would be available to the vast majority of affected people, much less psychological counseling.
Medical Treatment in a Nuclear War
If a person is exposed to a lesser dose of radiation, there are some treatments available. While the damage done to a person’s body from radiation cannot be reversed, there are medications that can help remove radiation from the body.
Very few of these medications are available, however, and medical professionals could give them to only a tiny fraction of victims.
Blood transfusions can also help, but in a real-life scenario, casualties would flood hospitals, with millions needing such transfusions, whether from injuries sustained in the bombing or from radiation. There would never be the blood available, or the surgeons available, to treat all but a very few.
Also, in an actual nuclear war, there would be multiple detonations throughout the country, not just one. The number of people who would die in the United States, and worldwide, would be astronomical.
Source: Arata Osada, PhD, translated by Yoichi Fukushima Children of Hiroshima (London: Taylor & French Ltd., 1980) 198, 199, 200-201, 202