Atomic Bombing Survivor Masahito Hirose, English Presentation

Topics Covered: Wartime Japan laws mobilizing students to work in factories; Planning for bombing; Air raids; Tests; Day of the bombing; Radiation sickness; Destruction; Loss of family.
00:00:04.780 –> 00:00:08.680
I was born in 1930

00:00:08.680 –> 00:00:19.320
and when I entered primary school our country Japan invaded China.

00:00:19.320 –> 00:00:27.680
So I grew up during the war, in Japan.

00:00:27.680 –> 00:00:31.620
and- uh-

00:00:31.620 –> 00:00:40.880
And when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki city I was 15 years old and a junior high school student.

00:00:43.120 –> 00:00:49.280
But I could not study in the school because

00:00:49.360 –> 00:00:55.580
in 1944 the Japanese military government decided on a new law.

00:00:55.680 –> 00:00:58.100
It was this:

00:00:58.160 –> 00:01:11.760
Boys and girls older than 15 no, 14 years old, should stop studying and work in the factory.

00:01:12.400 –> 00:01:23.920
As I was 14 years old, I began working at Mitsubishi shipyard with my classmates.

00:01:25.440 –> 00:01:35.800
When I went to the factory I was surprised to find that most of the adult men had been sent to the battlefield.

00:01:36.640 –> 00:01:43.100
So we young students were sent to the factory to replace them.

00:01:45.200 –> 00:01:49.980
Our teachers cheered us up saying this:

00:01:50.080 –> 00:01:57.040
“Japan will win the war at last!”

00:01:57.920 –> 00:02:05.200
So we believed what we were told by them and worked hard day and night,

00:02:05.200 –> 00:02:08.320
But it was a lie.

00:02:09.600 –> 00:02:15.520
True facts were not told through the wartime.

00:02:15.520 –> 00:02:20.880
The biggest sacrifice was truth, I think.

00:02:21.360 –> 00:02:31.440
From November 1944, American airplanes began flying over Nagasaki city,

00:02:32.000 –> 00:02:39.840
But no bomb was dropped.

00:02:40.960 –> 00:02:43.440
Nagasaki was uh —

00:02:46.080 –> 00:02:54.160
the route to Japan for them to attack Japanese cities.

00:02:55.200 –> 00:03:01.840
But everyday American airplanes passed over Nagasaki City.

00:03:02.080 –> 00:03:11.360
We lived our lives very nervously because the bombs might be dropped at any time.

00:03:13.920 –> 00:03:21.280
According to documents, they held a meeting in the USA,

00:03:25.440 –> 00:03:32.160
Maybe, in April of 1945 I feel,

00:03:32.320 –> 00:03:39.120
They talked about the atomic bomb that would soon be completed

00:03:39.120 –> 00:03:41.680
and decided on some conditions (for its use).

00:03:41.680 –> 00:03:46.000
I will tell you about the three most important items.

00:03:47.200 –> 00:04:06.880
When the atomic bomb is completed, the bomb should be dropped on a city that has not been destroyed yet by the air raids of the American Air Forces.

00:04:07.680 –> 00:04:23.120
At this point the atomic bomb had not been completed but a testing project was done in the desert of Nevada on July 16th, maybe.

00:04:24.960 –> 00:04:35.440
The second, when the atomic bomb is completed, it should be dropped on a big city that many people live in.

00:04:35.840 –> 00:04:37.280
The third

00:04:37.760 –> 00:04:48.480
when the atomic bomb is completed it should be dropped on the city where the effects of the explosion can be examined.

00:04:48.960 –> 00:05:04.560
When I found out about these conditions it made me think that the dropping of the atomic bombs had been experiments.

00:05:06.560 –> 00:05:19.200
And four cities were chosen from among the seventeen cities that had not been destroyed by air raids by the end of April 1945.

00:05:20.160 –> 00:05:26.480
Only 17 cities had not been totally destroyed at that time.

00:05:26.560 –> 00:05:37.280
All of Japan was changed into a dead field but our Imperial Government

00:05:37.440 –> 00:05:48.000
did not win the war, should be stopped.

00:05:48.000 –> 00:05:52.800
The war continued.

00:05:53.600 –> 00:06:06.400
Those four chosen cities were, as you may know, Niigata, Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Kokura.

00:06:06.400 –> 00:06:08.720
Kokura is in Kyushu.

00:06:09.440 –> 00:06:14.400
Nagasaki was not included in that stage.

00:06:15.200 –> 00:06:19.920
Nagasaki was added on July 27th.

00:06:19.920 –> 00:06:25.840
And only two weeks later, the second atomic bomb was dropped on our city.

00:06:25.840 –> 00:06:35.200
I think our city, Nagasaki, was a very tragic city.

00:06:38.240 –> 00:06:43.520
But, even on the morning of August 9th,

00:06:43.520 –> 00:06:50.800
Nagasaki was not supposed to be the city that the second atomic bomb was dropped on.

00:06:51.200 –> 00:06:58.480
In the early morning of August 9th, 1945,

00:06:58.480 –> 00:07:07.040
The air around the fireball grew hot and expanded.

00:07:07.040 –> 00:07:12.000
Then it changed into a strong blast.

00:07:12.000 –> 00:07:21.680
That is first, the high heat ray attacked then, next, the strong blast came.

00:07:24.480 –> 00:07:32.640
Look at this picture.

00:07:32.800 –> 00:07:40.560
He is the chairman of our survivors group, Mr. Taniguchi.

00:07:40.560 –> 00:07:51.360
He was about 1.8 km away from the hypocenter, riding a bicycle and he —

00:07:51.440 –> 00:07:58.160
he was attacked from the back.

00:08:07.360 –> 00:08:11.760
This is a picture of a boy on the road near the hypocenter.

00:08:11.760 –> 00:08:23.440
Most people who were outside and within a radius of 2 km of the hypocenter were killed within a second.

00:08:23.440 –> 00:08:29.200
Within a second, only one second.

00:08:30.560 –> 00:08:37.200
Some ten thousand bodies were seen on the road.

00:08:42.720 –> 00:08:57.680
This is the old Urakami Catholic Church and it was about 550 m away from the hypocenter.

00:08:57.680 –> 00:09:09.680
It was perfectly (completely) broken from the strong blast and this is the ruins of the church.

00:09:15.360 –> 00:09:23.120
In addition to the high heat ray and strong blast another terrible thing

00:09:23.120 –> 00:09:33.280
Remained in the ground within a radius of about 2km from the explosion.

00:09:36.480 –> 00:09:43.200
What do you think it was?

00:09:43.200 –> 00:09:45.200
It was radiation.

00:09:49.760 –> 00:10:00.080
My aunt and her son lived with my family, they were members of my family.

00:10:00.080 –> 00:10:14.640
That morning, I left my house with him and on the way I parted ways, bye-bye.

00:10:14.640 –> 00:10:18.320
I will see you this evening.

00:10:18.320 –> 00:10:32.400
But it was the last time I saw him, he never came out in the end.

00:10:32.400 –> 00:10:42.160
But I don’t believe that he died, so I have been waiting for him for 65 years.

00:10:42.240 –> 00:10:52.400
And sometimes he appeared in my dreams, then uh he —

00:10:54.080 –> 00:11:06.960
His face looks 19 years old, though 65 years have passed over.

00:11:13.280 –> 00:11:22.320
He worked in a small factory that was only 500 m from the hypocenter.

00:11:24.000 –> 00:11:39.280
He did not come back that night, his mother, my aunt, went out to look for him.

00:11:39.280 –> 00:11:44.240
But she came back home soon that night.

00:11:44.240 –> 00:11:54.400
She said, “There was only a sea of fire in northern area of the city. Nobody can go into the northern district.”

00:11:55.360 –> 00:11:59.600
The next day, she went out to look for her son.

00:11:59.680 –> 00:12:03.680
She came home late in the evening and said,

00:12:03.680 –> 00:12:13.840
“We cannot tell one thing from another. I couldn’t tell where his workshop was.

00:12:15.040 –> 00:12:18.560
He may have died.”

00:12:18.560 –> 00:12:28.000
She went out again the next day and the day after that and after that as well.

00:12:29.600 –> 00:12:33.280
We never did find his body.

00:12:33.920 –> 00:12:46.160
On the 5th day my aunt had a high temperature. She could not stand up and bled from her nose and also her gums.

00:12:46.160 –> 00:12:49.600
And the hair on her head began to fall off.

00:12:50.560 –> 00:12:57.680
And she died the next day calling her son’s name, “Oh Nobuo, Nobuo, where are you?”

00:12:57.680 –> 00:13:07.520
She passed away on the 14th of August.

00:13:10.080 –> 00:13:18.160
We couldn’t understand the reason why she died because she didn’t have any burns or wounds.

00:13:19.200 –> 00:13:24.960
We citizens were not told about the influence of radiation.

00:13:25.600 –> 00:13:36.640
Here and there in my neighborhood many people without any burns or wounds died with the same symptoms of that of my aunt.

00:13:37.280 –> 00:13:45.360
And rumors spread–around us.

00:13:45.360 –> 00:13:47.680
Poison gas —

00:13:47.680 –> 00:13:52.240
was mixed with this new type of bomb, dropped on Nagasaki.

00:13:53.920 –> 00:13:58.320
We all believed that rumor.

00:14:00.000 –> 00:14:06.480
We were not told about the effects of radiation for a long time.

00:14:08.960 –> 00:14:19.200
My house was located in the neighboring valley, over the hill, about 3 km away from the hypocenter.

00:14:19.200 –> 00:14:28.640
Many roof tiles of my house were blown off by the strong blast and all of the glass windows were broken out.

00:14:29.120 –> 00:14:40.560
Happily, my parents, our brother, our son, our family members were safe

00:14:41.600 –> 00:14:47.920
Because they were in the first floor of the house.

00:14:51.200 –> 00:14:56.480
But we lost my aunt and my cousin.

00:14:59.360 –> 00:15:04.160
It is 65 years since the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

00:15:04.160 –> 00:15:20.320
The world has had a crisis for nuclear wars several times but at present, Nagasaki remains the last city victimized by an atomic bomb.

00:15:21.680 –> 00:15:26.800
The first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and the second one on Nagasaki.

00:15:27.680 –> 00:15:32.640
But a third one has not been dropped on any city in the world.

00:15:33.760 –> 00:15:44.800
Nagasaki remains the last city victimized by the atomic bomb.

00:15:45.760 –> 00:15:54.560
Last year, 2009, the tide of the movement to abolish nuclear weapons changed.

00:15:55.040 –> 00:16:01.760
On April 5th, of last year, President Barack Obama made a speech at Prague in the Czech Republic.

00:16:02.560 –> 00:16:08.880
He said just, “America will aim for the world without any nuclear weapons.”

00:16:10.400 –> 00:16:21.040
Supporting his address, 17 Nobel Peace Laureates published the Hiroshima Nagasaki Declaration.

00:16:22.560 –> 00:16:24.320
Last year.

00:16:25.600 –> 00:16:30.160
They said a very important thing in the declaration.

00:16:31.360 –> 00:16:35.360
I want to introduce a part of that.

00:16:37.280 –> 00:16:51.200
The fact that we have managed to avoid a third nuclear nightmare is not merely a fortunate accident of history.

00:16:52.000 –> 00:16:55.040
They pointed out two important facts.

00:16:56.000 –> 00:17:06.480
The only people who have experienced the atomic bombing are those who survived  Hiroshima and Nagasaki 65 years ago.

00:17:07.040 –> 00:17:14.560
They appealed that such terrible arms should not be used again anywhere in the world.

00:17:15.840 –> 00:17:26.800
Now second, more over, there were millions all over the world who have supported the survivors in their quest for peace.

00:17:29.920 –> 00:17:37.120
This is the Hiroshima Nagasaki Declaration.

00:17:37.760 –> 00:17:43.040
I retired from my teacher life in 1998.

00:17:43.040 –> 00:17:56.000
Now my important work is to tell about my atomic bombing experience to people who visit Nagasaki to learn about the bombing.

00:17:56.000 –> 00:18:07.520
Last year, I had maybe 70 chances to tell them my experience.

00:18:08.960 –> 00:18:19.680
I always tell them, I do hope that Nagasaki is the last city to be destroyed by an atomic bomb.

00:18:19.680 –> 00:18:34.960
Luckily, these 65 years, no atomic bomb as been dropped anywhere in the world. So far, Nagasaki has continued to be the last victimized city.

00:18:37.440 –> 00:18:49.200
I hope that you will become one of the members of the millions who have supported the survivors in our quest for peace.

00:18:49.600 –> 00:19:03.840
If you decide to do so, then visiting Nagasaki and hearing about my experiences will have had meaning.

00:19:03.840 –> 00:19:10.400
Let’s work together for the abolishment of nuclear weapons.

00:19:11.040 –> 00:19:12.400
Thank you very much.