Supporting Evidence

Many people agree that the second bomb, or even both the bombs, should never have been dropped. After the bombings many survivors came forward and their eye witness accounts were recorded. 

    Dr. Michihiko Hachiya lived through that day and kept a diary of his experience. He served as Director of the Hiroshima Communications Hospital and lived near the hospital approximately a mile from the explosion's epicenter. His diary was published in English in 1955.  In his Diary he describes the start or the day: 

"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."

 He then does on in describing the startling flash of light the came from the bomb:

"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 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 comer of my house. It was leaning crazily and the roof sagged dangerously."  

   After seeing the flash he describes a numbing and weakening feeling coming over his body and at first he could not even feel his own wounds.  He then becomes worried about the well being of his wife.  

"I tried to escape, but rubble and fallen timbers barred the way….I managed to reach the roka [an outside hallway]….A profound weakness overcame me, so I stopped to regain my strength…. To my surprise….All over the right side of my body I was cut and bleeding. A large splinter was protruding from a mangled wound in my thigh….My check was torn….Embedded in my neck was a sizable fragment of glass. Where was my wife? Suddenly thoroughly alarmed, I began to yell for her…pale and frightened, her clothes torn and blood stained, emerged from the ruins of our house holding her elbow."

   Dr. Hachiya and his wife then begin to make their way to the hospital a few hundred yard away, he describes their painful journey and their encounters along the way:

We started out, but after 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….But there was no water to be found. Our progress towards the hospital was interminably slow, until finally, my legs, stiff from drying blood, refused to carry me farther…so I told my wife 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…she looked into my face for a moment, and then, without saying a word, turned away and began running towards the hospital….It was quite dark now, and with my wife gone, a feeling of dreadful loneliness overcame me. I tried to go on, it was all a nightmare…

"There were the shadowy forms of people, some of whom looked like walking ghosts. Others moved as though in pain…their arms held out from their bodies with forearms and hands dangling…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….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."


Many people were just going about their daily business and many people say the remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they first saw the flash:


      "I was reading lying on the floor with a friend of mine. Under the eaves I saw blue flash of light just like a spark made by a train or some short circuit. Next, a steamlike blast came." - Akira 
      
      "I was in my office. I had just entered the room and said "Good morning." to colleagues and I was about to approach my desk when outside it suddenly turned bright red. I felt very hot on my cheeks." - Hiroshi 


      "I was in the second year of junior high school and was mobilized work with my classmates at the Eba Plant, Mitsubishi shipbuilding. On the day when A-bomb was dropped, I happened to be taking the day off and I was staying at home." - Akira 


      "We were about to fall in on the ground the Hiroshima Municipal Junior High School on this spot. We were about to form lines facing the front, we saw a B-29 approaching and about fly over us. All of us were looking up the sky, pointing out the aircraft. Then the teachers came out from the school building and the class leaders gave the command to fall in." - Akihiro 


      "We've just finished the morning gathering of all the employees at around 8:05 a.m. And while we were putting the papers in order and cleaning up, we saw a yellow ray of light from the north of the city hall and we heard a big noise. The next moment, our office was totally destroyed. I was standing when the blast hit." - Mamoru 


      "When the bomb fell, I was 15 years old. I was a third grader at the girls' junior high school. I saw something shining in the clear blue sky. I wondered what it was, so I stared at it. As the light grew bigger, the shining thing got bigger as well. And at the moment when I spoke to my friend,there was a flash, far brighter than one used for a camera. It exploded right in front of my eyes. There was a tremendous noise when all the buildings around me collapsed." - Taeko 


Many others suffered from paralyzing fear and all the after effects of the bomb: 


      "For a few years after the A-bomb was dropped, I was terribly afraid of fire. I wasn't even able to get close to fire because all my senses remembered how fearful and horrible the fire was, how hot the blaze was, and how hard it was to breathe the hot air. It was really hard to breathe. Maybe because the fire burned all the oxygen, I don't know. I could not open my eyes enough because of the smoke, which was everywhere. Not only me but everyone felt the same." - Akiko 

"I myself am still alive on this earth suffering after-effect of the bomb. I have to see regularly an ear doctor, an eye doctor, a dermatologist and a surgeon. I feel uneasy about my health every day. Further, on both of my hands, I have keloids. My injury was most serious on my right hand and I used to have terrible keloids at right here. I had it removed by surgery in 1954, which enabled me to move my wrist a little bit like this. For my four fingers are fixed just like this, and my elbow is fixed at one hundred twenty degrees and doesn't move. The muscle and bones are attached each other. Also the fourth finger of my right hand doesn't have a normal nail. It has a black nail. A piece of glass which was blown by the blast stuck here and destroyed the cells of the base of the finger now. That is why a black nail continues to grow and from now on, too, it will continue to be black and never become normal." - Akihiro 

Every year, in Hiroshima alone, more than 2,000 people die from diseases said to be bombing-related.