Surviving the Fire Tornado

Tadashi Takahashi

19 years old at the time of A-bombing

 Fukuromachi Fukoku-Seimei building (350m away from H.center)

The Hiroshima telecommunication bureau  I worked for, was located in the Fukoku-Seimei building only 350m from the hypocenter.

The bureau used the basement through the fifth floor of the building.

My job included telecommunications related tasks, such as military communication and maintenance of the civilian-used telegraph.

The city had been on regular bomb alerts from 9pm through 3am, and on the day of August 5^th, my boss said, “everyday is like this, so let’s have a little rest after the alarm tomorrow morning.”

He went home, but I decide to stay and rest in the basement rather than return to the boarding house where I lived.

Because I was in the basement and taking a nap.

I didn’t notice the lightning of the A-bomb, I heard a big noise and felt the pressure like a blast.

Immediately, I thought the bomb had to be huge if I was feeling the blast so intensely even in the basement.

So I went up to the ground floor in the darkness.

It seemed to me that I went up right after the blast, but it actually took some time to put on my jacket and shoes.

By the time I made it to the ground floor, that shattered wooden houses around the building were already on fire.

It seemed weird that I had heard only one explosion and yet the damage of bomb was so large.

More than that, though, my attention was immediately captured by the sight of staff members coming down the stairs.

They were burned and bleeding.

I met Mr. Tadashi Ueno and his face and chest were covered with ward Hijiyama through the building’s back door.

I went up to 4^th floor.

On my way, I saw some people lying in the hall and stairs.

The chief office and general affairs room’s iron doors were bent and immobilized, so I entered women’s rest room, the only door that would open.

Ms Tetsuko Uemoto was there, clad only in underwear and crying.

I had her put on her clothes, which were on the floor, and sent her downstairs.

Then I heard a woman’s voice cry for help from under the broken mortar.

She had probably heard me talking to Ms. Uemoto.

I could see what looked like a right hand sticking up slightly out of the rubble, struggling to move.

The pieces of mortar were large, maybe 20 cm across and very long.

I could not move the pieces by myself.

So I told the woman, “I will come back, so please hold on.” And went to the general affairs room

I had forgotten to ask the burried woman her name.

I don’t know why, I had thought I had kept a cool head, but maybe I had been in a panic.

I had forgotten about the fire, thinking that it wouldn’t come into this building made of reinforced concrete.

It makes me so sad whenever I think about leaving that woman under the rubble and how the fire must have overtaken her. 

For months afterward, I wished the woman would come to me in my dreams

All staff who had been in the general affairs room were blown into the the chief’s office by the blast.

The boss’s body was upside down and was buried from the waste to the head in broken wall, plaster, and papers.

Next to the boss, Mr. Oshita also was half buried, his right side covered in debris.

He was loosing blood from his temple.

I put a bandage on his head, but he was unconscious.

I dug out the boss, but he was already dead.

Mr. Masaoka was sitting on a breaking chair in a daze.

His head and legs were injured, so I gave him a broom as a crutch as  asked him to go downstairs.

The fourth floor housed the radio equipment and the accounting room, but no one was in the accounting room

In the hall, Isao Nishimoto had fallen prone, and his back was pierced by many pieces of glass.

He couldn’t move due to the pain, and I didn’t know what to do for him.

A student worker, Ms Shinkawa, was lying in the kitchen but I think she was unconscious.

Then Mr. Otani and Mr. Shinagawa came to me, and I helped them to take work papaers from the radio shack.

We wrenched the door open and took the work papers.

When we finishted that, the fire had become strong, and it seemed impossible to evacuate the building, so we decided to stay inside.

Mr. Otani, Mr. Nakao, Mr, Shinagawa and 10 other people with only minor injuries took shelter near the back door on the ground floor.

I think I wasn’t the only person who thought that the fire would not come to the inside of the building.

When everybody began to calm down, we heard a loud noise, something that sounded like another blast and the sound of airplanes.

Some people thought it was the beginning of a second air raid and went back inside of the building.

Soon after, we were struck by the first fire tornado.

Although it came with heavy smoke and strong wind, it went by quickly, so the damage was small

I was worried that staying inside of the building was more dangerous than being outside because of the danger of suffocation.

We left the building and went to the fire cistern located out the back gate of the building.

Soon big black drops of rain began to fall, and someone shouted “this is oil!” the second fire tornado struck.

The second tornado was stronger than the first one.

It was like a pillar of fire, and it came with very hot wind, pieces of wood, stones, and many other things.

The fire pillar struck the bulding and went through windows on the second and third floors.

Soon the radio shack was covered in fire.

The flame coming in through the windows seemed like it was alive.

It went up to the fourth and fifth floor.

We saw people inside the fire shouting and trying to excape.

However, we couldn’t do anything, and we lost them immediately.

At the fire cistern, everybody was trying in put their heads down into the pump to escape the fire.

I thought this situation was really dangerous and would lead to everyone dying, so I punched, shouted , and made them sit down around the pump.

We pumped and there water over each of the people, making sure to douse each one in turn.

Mr. Nakao and I were the last ones left pumping water, and the water started to flow slowly.

Then people waiting for water started to scream, “It’s so Hot!!”

It was more than hot, it was furnace.

We were throwing water on people and had them soaked from the shoulders down, but their heads were burning hot.

Even though people were screaming, they were waiting for their turn.

It is amazing that we could breathe such a condition, and I began to sing a song loudly to cheer them.

I forgot most of the songs I sang.

The only one I remember was the theme song to my communication academy.

When the fire tornado was gone, Takashi Shirai, and Nobuko Kojima disappeared.

Before the fire tornado came, Yoshikazu Wakasa had begged us, “Give me water.” 

But we refused:

“You are injured seriously, so if you drink water, you won’t survive. We can’t give you water.”

But he said, “It’s OK if I die, so please give me water.”

We couldn’t find Mr. Wakasa as well.

Other people were sitting close by and nobody spoke.

Only Mr. Masaoka said to me, “Thank you so much for helping us, it means a lot to me.”

His words still remain strongly in my heart.

Soon, the third fire tornado came,

The power of the fire had decreased but no one had the strength to pump water.

We poured the last of the water in the bucket on us.

We couldn’t open eyes due to the heavy fire smoke.

I put a wet handkerchief on my nose and mouth, but there was no air to breath in, and I could only breath out.

I don’t have the words to express the feeling,

but it felt like my chest was exploding even

I wanted to either pierce a hole in it to relieve the pressure or just rip it away.

I couldn’t even move to touch the bucket.

I lay down with other people and I thought a terrible thing, “It’s so painful. I wish I would just die instantly.”

The black rain became heavy, and the power of the fire had decreased, so we could survive.

However, if the tornado stayed any longer, we wouldn’t have survived.

When we could move around again, I looked for the others.

Mr. Shirai was in the sewage tank.

Ms Kojima had put her face in a toilet.

Mr. Wakasa had died.

I imagined that everyone was in so much pain, and that the inside of th building had gotten even more smoke than we had.

If they had stayed outside with us, they might have survived.

It still fills me with regret.

A mother and her daughter, who were bombed in the city and escaped to our building, had stayed with us during the firestorm.

The mother said, “Thank you very much for your help.”

They went back to the city.

Her words of gratitude intensified my sense of regret for those who had died inside the building.

Only on the next day could I begin to feel grateful for having survived.

However, not long after I began to realisz the full scariness of the Atomic Bomb.

Three days after the bomb, we had built a temporary office, and staff began to come to work.

We after the bomb, we had built a temporary office, and staff began to come to work.

We started working as telegraph staff.

However, staff who had not been visibly injured soon began to lose their hair, developed fevers and skin spots, and started bleeding.

In that first week, many of our staff died.

From the end of August through the middle of September, it became even worse.

More staff died, most of whom  had no immediate injuries from the bomb and had been working fine.

It was a particular shock to me when Mr..Nakano died on September 7^th(1945), only four days after going in  for medical treatment.

He also had been fine.

All of my remaining joy died with him.

By the end of  September , 40 people had died.

It was all due to radiation sickness.

The same thing had happened to people who had come to the city looking for their family and friends.

Today, even though it has been 71 years since the atomic blast, 

people are still suffering from the effects of radiation even in HIROSHIMA.

We cannot forget the horror, cruelty, and atrociousness of the Atomic Bomb.

I must tell my story.

It is my work as an A-bomb survivor.

We must continue telling these stories to future generations, 

until all A-bombs and Hydrogen-bombs are gone from the world.

Hiroshima 広島　ヒロシマ　ひろしま

Nuclear and the Humankind cannot Co-exist / Nuclear Victims Forum  / 竜安寺石庭　Ryoan Temple Stones Garden