A-bomb in Nagasaki: a memoir

My grandfather Tatsuo Yamaguchi was in Nagasaki when the atomic bomb was dropped on the city on 9 August 1945. He was a German teacher at the Seventh Senior High School in Kagoshima (Shichiko)　and sent to Nagasaki to supervise his students working at factories. The A-bomb killed tens of thousands of people instantaneously. My grandfather suffered greatly but survived. After the war, he moved to Kyoto and teach German at Ritsumeikan University, and died of cancer in 1973.

The following is the translation of his essay published in the Collection of Essays in Memory of the Students Killed in Nagasaki (1946) edited by the Seventh Senior High School in Kagoshima (Shichiko).

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A memoir
Collection of Essays in Memory of the Students Killed in Nagasaki (1946)

Tatsuo Yamaguchi
Seventh Senior High School in Kagoshima

The news on the Bikini Atomic Experiments is in every page of the paper. I take the paper and lie down on the floor. The room is poorly furnished, for this is our temporary accommodation after our house was burned down in the war. As we are lodging in a house, we are hiding ourselves with the sliding doors all shut. The closed room is hot. This news on the atomic bomb makes me think about Nagasaki. It reminds me of the “silkworm shelf” of the Saigo Dormitory we were staying in Nagasaki. Students used to call the dorm that way. Maybe it was not so dissimilar to our room here. The “silkworm shelf” was full of students. They were lying naked on the floor amid the disorder of luggage and books. Some were waiting for the night-shift. Some were just lying exhausted. I lie down here for a nap, gradually dozing away. In my mind, the images of naked students in the dorm and the image of myself lying here become separate in one moment, and get merged in another.

Nagasaki was beautiful. It was beautiful with the Dutch heritage in Dejima Island, with the cathedrals in Oura and Urakami, and with the houses designed in the European style. When I was a child, my grandfather used to tell me the story about his young days in Nagasaki. He was sent to there to learn Dutch as part of the mission of the Uesugi-clan, Yonezawa, in Tohoku. So later when I was sent to Nagasaki from my school, it was my great pleasure.I said to Professor Nakamura, who went to Nagasaki with me, “Please let me have a chance to look around Nagasaki to see what I have to see before they are burnt down.” I meant it as a joke. Our Saigo Dormitory was surrounded by mountains and we felt relatively safe from bombings.

I had indeed warned students against bombings and incendiary attacks, but actually I thought the first bomb would not be dropped on our dormitory and that we would have enough time to flee. The students seemed to have the same idea. They were sitting in the middle of the room nonchalantly despite alarms against air attacks, as if to say they would not evacuate unless something really serious happens.Anyway, I was so happy to spend some time together with those young and innocent people in our Saigo dormitory that provided us with some relaxing atmosphere.I would tell students from other schools that I was feeling much more relaxed, not irritated at all, since I came to Nagasaki from Kagoshima. I enjoyed the atmosphere of Nagasaki and my students.

From the end of July to the beginning of August 1945, there were several air attacks on Nagasaki. We were telling each other that soon there would be incendiary attacks and were getting prepared.However, what came next was the unexpected atomic bomb. Before eleven o’clock on the ninth of August 1945, I was walking across the square from the first machinery plant to the second. A speaker somewhere announced, “Two enemy airplanes are flying west across Shimabara Peninsula.” A few minutes later, with a spark and thundering explosion, that beautiful town and tens of thousands of people disappeared. My glasses were blown away and I could not see clearly. I could hardly walk. A student, whose name regrettably I have not found out till this day, helped me to walk back to our dormitory, which was already all on fire.

That awful sight was a nightmare, more nightmarish than any dream. It was the image of hell. People with their faces burnt and swollen. Children crying covered with blood. Screaming voices from all directions. Fire and smoke everywhere. I wish I could forget that hell for ever. In early September, I went back to Nagasaki to survey the victims among our students. When the train was approaching Urakami from Michio, I saw the devastated town and started feeling acute pain in my heart . I could hardly breathe. I had to take some cardiac stimulant. Some were killed in the hellish fire covering the dormitory. Some fell down in front of the dorm. Some died while driving a car. Some came back to Kagoshima on the same train as I did, but could not make it further. Some died later because of the “atomic disease” or serious burning. The list gets longer and longer in my memory. They were all friendly, agreeable people. All nice and open-minded.

One year has passed since the day of grief. Families, classmates and teachers are still hurting with sorrow. Now I pray for the spirits of those familiar people. Incidentally, I think about my eldest son, who passed away at the age of five. I sigh to my wife, saying, “Death of a child and the Atomic bomb. These two, I never ever want to experience in my life again.”

(Translated by Michiyo Yamaguchi(myama@kpu.ac.jp), Kyoto Prefectural University. The Japanese original is here and my blog entry on the memoir is here.)