Hiroshima Diary

This is a 1955 book by a physician who was in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped. A great deal of the book deals with particular medical explanations of what was happening to those injured by the bomb. Some of it is sort of gruesome. Overall, it's a quite interesting first-person account of what happened during the bomb dropping and for a while afterwards.

What I will cover is other remarks of his that are not necessarily medical in nature.

The book starts out with a description of the various persons named in the book, and then proceeds to his entry for August 6th, 1945, the day the bomb was dropped. He was resting in his level room when the bomb went off and suffered some injuries, leaving him in somewhat of a daze. He got to the hospital where he worked and the people there cared for him.

He described the survivors that he saw:

“Gradually things around me came into focus - There were the shadowy forms of people, some of whom looked like walking ghosts. Others moved as though in pain, like scarecrows, their arms held out from their bodies with forearms and hands dangling. These people puzzled me until I suddenly realized that they had been burned and were holding their arms out to prevent the painful friction of raw surfaces rubbing together.”

He notes that the official reporting of the explosion claimed that the damage was slight, but he was able to see how they were being lied to, for the damage from the bomb and from the secondary fires was major.

At first, with patients at the hospital suffering from diarrhea and vomiting, he thought that the bomb might have given off some kind of poison gas. He notes that, at night, there was no light, as all the electricity was off.

Then he worried about an American invasion:

“One thing was certain Hiroshima was destroyed; and with it the army that had been quartered in Hiroshima. Gone were headquarters, gone the command post of the Second General Army and the Military School for young people, the General Headquarters for the Western Command, the Corps of Engineers, and the Army Hospital. Gone was the hope of Japan! The war was lost! No more help would come from the gods! American forces would soon be landing; and when they landed, there would be streetfighting; and our hospital would become a place of attack and defense. Had I not heard earlier that soldiers were coming to set up headquarters in the Communications Bureau? Would we be turned out?”

On August 8th, he wrote that concrete buildings near the center of the city were still on fire, two days after the bomb was dropped. (The Hiroshima fire department was not prepared for the type of explosion.) The hospital also had a problem when some soldiers came in and demanded the give them bandages. Fortunately, later another soldier came in with a supply of bandages for the hospital.

He also writes that patients were showing up with symptoms that the doctors weren't familiar with.

August 11th:

The same soldier who had come in the previous day with bandages showed up again.

“While I lay enjoying my new comfort, Lieutenant Tanaka, the young officer who sent us the badly needed medical supplies day before yesterday, came up. After exchanging greetings, I expressed our gratitude for his unsolicited generosity and asked what had happened to his troops in the Second Corps who had been stationed in the barracks back of the hospital. "Over four hundred medical recruits were stationed there," he answered, "most of them men sent up for punishment. Nearly all were killed.'”

Then word came in that the same type of weapon had been used on Nagasaki.

In a situation as chaotic as was going on, it's not surprising that some strange rumors got started:

“Following the news that Nagasaki had been bombed, a man came in from Fuchu with the incredible story that Japan had the same mysterious weapon, but until now, had kept it a strict secret and had not used it because it was judged too horrible even to mention. This man went on to say that a special attack squad from the navy had now used the bomb on the mainland of America and that his news had come from no less a source than General Headquarters. The blow had been dealt by a squadron of sixengined, trans-Pacific bombers, two of which failed to return. Those bombers were assumed to have dived right into their targets to make certain of success. If San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles had been hit like Hiroshima, what chaos there must be in those cities!”

The writer says that, of 190 doctors in Hiroshima, 80 had been killed in the blast.

August 12th. The writer notes that the weapon was an atomic bomb. (How did these people find out so quickly that it was an atomic bomb?)

August 13th: He includes a description of the domed building that stands today as a memorial to the explosion:

“Below the bridge, on the east bank of the river, had stood the bronze-domed Museum of Science and Industry.* This building, symbolic of the poetic name of Hiroshima Mizu no Miyako (The City or Metropolis of Water) -had been the most beloved structure in Hiroshima. Its bronze dome was gone, its sturdy walls of brick and stone cracked and crumbled, and its interior devoured by fire. For some time, I studied these ruins and they became the symbol and epitome of a destroyed city and its people.”

August 14th: There was a conventional bombing run near Hiroshima. He also finds out that there will be an important radio broadcast the next day.

August 15th: He thought that the radio announcement would be about an invasion of Japan by the Americans. He also has some interesting things to say about the war:

“The army had been losing the war since April Many soldiers had no guns and morale was bad. Only children and old people were permitted to leave the cities, and among those who remained all under forty were assigned to the civil defense corps. In case of emergency we would all be drafted. Our comments and actions were watched by the military police and during recent months their domination had become more and more oppressive. In areas designated as fire lanes or escape channels the houses had been ruthlessly destroyed.”

The most important part of this is how “Our comments and actions were watched by the military police and during recent months their domination had become more and more oppressive.”

This explains why the people of Japan had not spoken out strongly against the war, or protested, or did anything else. The Japanese secret police were very much like the Gestapo, and, if you did something they didn't like, you died or, at best, ended up in prison. The militarists also had total control of the radio and newspapers, so there was no way people could hear truthful information.

So, anyhow, people assembled and heard the radio broadcast, and it was not about an invasion, but about the surrender of Japan.

August 16th: “During the night the "Double Zero" air force detachment from Hiro distributed hand bills which read: "Continue the war!" "Don't surrender!"”

There were various elements that tried to get people to continue the war. The hospital staff, the doctor writes, were divided among those who thought that the surrender and real, and another group that thought it wasn't.

“I agreed and found myself hating the military authorities with whom I had been in sympathy. They had betrayed the Emperor and the people of Japan. Even here in Hiroshima they had tried to conceal the fact that we had been devastated by an atom bomb. And when they knew we were losing the war, they ignored us when they should have kept us informed.”

This is an important quote, since it shows that the people were still holding the Emperor in the highest regard, but had turned against the militarists that ran the country. It also helps to understand why it was a good idea that the U.S. did not demand the Emperor be put on trial or killed; the people were devoted to him, and, by getting him to go along with the U.S., Japan could be occupied relatively peacefully.

This dislike of the military is shown more in an entry for August 17th:

“The name of the Emperor was invoked as a national allegiance and a means for deriving power long before an^ unsuspecting people could see the results. An officer class developed that was dedicated to reckless bravado and swagger. Even the cadets in the military schools were taught to believe that they were superior and in a class apart. Spuriously infected with a sense of power and an inflated pride, they trampled rough-shod over everyone beneath them. Young cadets, just out of school, never addressed a common soldier but by the inferior title of: "You," or "You there!"; and the dignity of a man as an individual was disregarded. If a common soldier tried to think for himself, his officer would, likely as not, go into a rage and not infrequently subject him to physical violence. If objection were made, officers as low as the cadet level would arrogantly reply;"My orders are the Emperor's orders! Always keep that in mind.”

This gives a clue to just how rough the military life was for soldiers. They were constantly yelled out and hit. They then tended to take out this viciousness on people they dealt with and especially prisoners.

He comes back to these thoughts about the military on August 22nd:

“You can understand our contempt, indeed, hatred of the army leaders. Their ruthlessness and stupidity knew no bounds. Our personal rights were violated and we never knew when we might say something to provoke their irascible and vindictive natures. Mr. Mizoguchi was once questioned at the Hiroshima station by a military policeman, and when it became apparent to this lowgrade martinet that no valid charge could be leveled, he slapped Mr. Mizoguchi with the excuse that he looked like a Korean.”

August 19th: There was concern about what would happen to the Emperor and, as usual, rumors:

“Word came around noon that terms for unconditional surrender would be signed early in September aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

"Will the Prime Minister and his cabinet be present?" I asked,

"Or will the Emperor be there alone?"

"What if the Emperor should be captured!" someone exclaimed.

"Don't say such a terrible thing!" retorted old Mrs. Saeki.

"The tenka-sama hasn't done anything wrong."

"It is rumored he will be taken to the Ryukyus for confinement," someone remarked.

Laying her cheek in her hand and placing a finger characteristically on her one remaining front tooth, old Mrs. Saeki murmured sadly: "They are going to take him away just like they did in the olden days."

September 1: He returns to his comments about the military:

"Perhaps my reasons weren't good," I replied, "but I suspected something when the military school for young men next door to the Bureau moved to the hills, and the army began removing its stockpile of stores from warehouses in the southern part of the city. Furthermore, every time an air-raid alarm sounded the soldiers were the first to depart and the few who remained in the barracks made no preparation for action. What conclusion could one draw but that the army had decided to abandon Hiroshima in case of attack? And another thing, while our principal cities suffered severe bombing, the newspapers always reported slight damage. This deception made me worry even more about our own city.”

September 15th: He writes that the Allied occupation forces have landed, and that people are putting fences around their houses and locks on their doors. Eventually soldiers visit the hospital and things go fairly well, even though there are troubles with translation.

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