Nagasaki, August 9, 1945

Michaito Ichimaru

Nagasaki, August 9, 1945

Q No.1:           What happened to the writer at the time of air attack?

                                    Michaito Ichimaru is a professor of medicine at the Nagasaki University School of Medicine.  As a witness to the bombardment in Nagasaki, he gives us an unusual and striking view of nuclear warfare. He writes about the Nagasaki bombing from the angle of a participant and has selected his details with utmost care to communicate the horrors he had witnessed.

                                    It was the month of August in 1945 when the writer was a first year student in Nagasaki Medical School.  It was August 9, when he set out for his School at the usual time of eight in the morning.  Luckily, he had to come back because his train had been derailed in an accident.  He returned to his hostel room. 

                                    At 11 am he heard the sound of a B-29 passing overhead.  After a while, the air flashed with a brilliant yellow light and there was a huge blast of wind. He got terrified and ran to save his life.  He hid himself in a toilet with a fellow student.  Every thing around them was shattered. He was hit in his shoulder by a piece of glass and was bleeding.  When his senses restored, he saw the horrible destruction around him. All the walls had changed in to a heap of bricks.  The sky had turned black and the black rain started to fall.

                                    This was the writers experience at the time of nuclear attack.

Q No. 2:                      What was the condition of people coming back from Urakami?

                                    When the writer came to his senses, he tried to go to his medical School in Urakami.  It was very close to the center of attack.  Here the rate of radiation was very high.  He tried to go ahead but could not because the fire had broken out everywhere. He saw the people who were coming back from Urakami.  Their condition was very bad.  Their clothes were tattered, the skin hung with their bodies and their limbs were missing.  They were terrified to death and looked with vacant eyes.  They were still baffled and shocked.   There were dead bodies lying around with white edges of bones showing through.  Almost all living or dead were badly charred.

                                    The effect on the people was so tremendous that none of them survived.  All the victims died in the coming few weeks.  The humanity was helpless before the immense power of weapons.  The war was won but the humanity lost.  The politics came on front and civilization was dragged back.  The butchered bodies of men cried for justice but there was no one to listen to this crying entity.  The scene was horribly pathetic and severe.  It looked like a slap on the face of so called “champions” of humanity and human rights.

Q No. 3:          What was the scene in Urakami?

            The writer managed to enter Urakami the next day.  In Urakami the condition was heart-rending.  Still too many students, doctors and patients were crying there for help.  They were in a very bad condition and wanted water badly.  Every one was severely wounded.  The buildings had reduced to ashes, only their skeletons remained standing.  Writer heard many voices in pain.  He was unable to bear it.  Even now when he remembers them he shudders with horror, anguish and grief.  Every thing around had been perished.  The trees had lost all their leaves.  The ladies were crying in their last moments.  They all suffered from many diseases because their bodies had been melted from inside on account of tremendous effects of the radiations.  The writer tried to help them but he could not save them from death.  All his friends died in few weeks.

            Urakami was totally destroyed with its buildings, vegetation, animals and men.  There was nothing left except the debris, smoke and ashes. Mutilated human dead bodies were mocking at the ambition of barbaric human passions.  It was the worst destruction caused by man on his fellow beings, and that only for some pieces of land.  The man won but the humanity lost, leaving a trial of chaos and darkness behind it.  Urakami became the graveyard of man and humanity alike.

Q No. 4:          What did the healthy people do for the survivors?

             After the attack Nagasaki was left in ruins.  Too many people were subjected to heavy material and physical loss. Everyone was badly injured. So the healthy people had to come forward to help the survivors.  The writer himself took part in these activities.  He brought many of his friends to the survivor camps.  The condition of these survivors was pitiable.  They cried in pain.  They were desperately trying to live but were helpless before the tremendous power of nuclear weapons.  So many people died, even a larger number got disabled. The healthy people helped to rehabilitate these survivors with full devotion.  One of the writer's jobs was to contact the families of missing people. The schools, where they established the camps for survivors, presented a hellish picture.  There were deaths, groans, shrieks and a terrible stench.  Writer remembered it as inferno.

            A large number of People died.  It became difficult to dispose of their dead bodies.  So they burnt these bodies in piles of wood.  Writer could clearly see the bowels moving in the fire.  Healthy people had to do a lot to meet the needs of this situation.

Q No 5:           What is the Conclusion drawn by the writer?

            Dr. Michaito Ichimaru recalls a nightmare to shake us from our slumber.  He narrates the destruction caused by an inhuman nuclear attack on civilian population by the allied forces during the final phase of Second World War.  It is not the whole account of this event but is only a glimpse of it.  He is the eyewitness of this infernal day and narrates it truthfully so that we can see the future of the present world in this perspective.

            The thesis of the writer is to condemn the human beings on their mad race of weaponization.  He urges us to realize the situation and its expected outcome. The world should leave this enmity and hostility for the welfare of the human race.

            At the end of the essay he says that the souls of his friends will never rest in peace if mankind does not renounce the nuclear weapons and their use for the destruction of innocent people.