The Hiroshima survivors

JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARBULLETIN.COM Izumi Hirano was 16, a high school student in Hiroshima, when the atomic bomb struck his city.

Izumi Hirano

‘The atomic bomb flattened everything.
There was no chance at all.’

Izumi Hirano was less than two miles from ground zero when the atomic bomb struck Hiroshima. The entire right side of his face was embedded and bloodied with broken glass.

Hirano was born in Hilo on the Big Island but moved to Japan with his family when he was 4.

Hiroshima survivors Saturday marks the 60th anniversary of the fateful day that the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later another bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, forcing Japan's surrender and the end of World War II. During the Spring 2005 semester, 18 advanced students in professor Beverly Ann Deepe Keever's Journalism 445: Specialized Reporting class at the University of Hawaii at Manoa did in-depth research into nuclear events and their effects, including interviews with five atomic bomb survivors living in Hawaii. Keever's own interest in the issue is detailed in her recent book, "News Zero," about the New York Times' lack of coverage of nuclear incidents. Of the approximately 1,000 atomic bomb survivors in the United States, about 93 are registered with the Hawaii chapter of the American Society of Hiroshima/Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors. "I remember a girl wanted help to get on the truck, so I pulled her up by her hands, but she had such bad burns, all her skin fell off. I could only help her up on the truck using her underarms." Izumi Hirano President, Hawaii chapter, American Society of Hiroshima/Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors

"After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, I remember all the schoolchildren helping in the factories to make airplane pistons or other supplies for the military because the men were away, fighting. I had to help out at the fire station during air raids, day or night."

Hirano was 16 when Hiroshima was bombed. His high school was only 1.3 miles south from the center of the blast, and his parents' house was two miles north from the center.

"It was 7 a.m. There was an air-raid warning, so the students had to wait in the dormitory before we could make it to class at 8. Then I heard a big rain or storm -- I don't know how to describe it. Then I saw fire. It wasn't a regular fire -- it was whirling around."

Building beams were falling all around him.

"I tried to get out of the room, but I fell down in front of the teacher's desk. I was worried about the beams falling on me and about dying under one of them. 'Could my parents find my body?' I thought to myself.

"I finally escaped down a stairway and thought, 'I survived.' But then I felt some warm liquid running down the right side of my face. I felt no pain, but I knew I had been hurt."

The right side of his face had been struck by broken window glass, some embedded so deep in his skin that bits of glass continued to emerge from his face two years after the blast.

Once outside, Hirano saw the city burning. People -- many of them burned and naked -- were fleeing for the countryside.

"The boys had caps on, but not the girls, so the girls' hair was burned and falling out. Everyone held their hands out in front of them, like they were sleepwalking. It looked like they had bits of silk hanging down from their arms, but it was actually their skin coming off.

"Some people would sit down in the street to rest, then they all of a sudden just died. They were all so quiet."

About a third of Hirano's classmates were outside, helping care for the injured.

"I saw someone's eyeball fall out. He was just told to put a bandage on his eye and to go back and help the others. You cannot ask for help then, because everyone is in the same situation."

The Japanese army wanted Hirano to get in their truck to get medical help because his face was so bloodied, even though he felt no pain.

"I remember a girl wanted help to get on the truck, so I pulled her up by her hands, but she had such bad burns, all her skin fell off. I could only help her up on the truck using her underarms."

HIRANO TRIED to find his family in the days after the bombing. As he traversed the city looking for them, he saw nothing but burned bodies.

"If they were still alive, they looked hollow, like a Halloween pumpkin, and with enlarged heads."

Finally, Hirano met up with someone who had heard of his family. He was reunited with his mother and younger brother, but his father had been killed at home when debris sliced through his lung.

Because Hirano had been injured, his brother, mother, aunt and uncle helped in his father's cremation.

"Do you know the smell of cremation?" Hirano asked. "You cannot stand it at the beginning, it's so strong, but then you get used to it."

Hirano said there was such widespread devastation of Hiroshima, not all the bodies could be cremated, so mass graves were dug.

"The atomic bomb flattened everything," Hirano said. "There was no chance at all."

AFTER the bombing, Hirano heard from others who told him that a single plane at a very high altitude dropped the Hiroshima bomb.

"People saw three parachutes: one for the atomic bomb, the second for the trigger and the third for the water to speed the reaction. People watching the blast became blind due to the flash because there was no warning about how big the explosion would be. The United States itself didn't even know how effective the bomb would be."

Hirano said victims lined the river banks, waiting for help, and many jumped in the river because they had been burned so badly. On both sides of the riverbank near his school, Hirano saw nothing but dead people.

Maggots would stay on the victims' wounds to eat pus, he said. Without enough medication available, oil was used to keep the wounds moist. There was even a bandage shortage, so bandages had to be washed and reused.

HIRANO RETURNED to Hawaii alone in 1949, when an uncle paid his way over.

"I went back to high school and worked on a chicken farm," Hirano said with a smile. "I'm a 1952 McKinley High School grad."

Although Hirano suffered no ill effects from radiation exposure, and his children have no symptoms of radiation sickness, the Salt Lake resident is championing the cause of those who survived and who were affected by the atomic bombs.

"The atomic bomb survivors had no insurance to cover their injuries or illnesses," Hirano said. "They asked the American government for help, but no bills were passed through Congress; then they asked the Japanese government for help. Finally, the Japanese government sent doctors to help them."

The American Society of Hiroshima/Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors was started in 1977, and Hirano is vice president of the national association and president of the Hawaii chapter.

"Every other year, doctors from Hiroshima come to examine the survivors, to see if they have any problems. This year will be the 15th exam by the doctors."

Hirano has a warning for those who have forgotten about the devastation nations can cause as a result of continuing to build their lethal arsenals: "The nuclear bomb they're talking about nowadays is bigger than the one at Hiroshima. If (anyone drops) it on Pearl Harbor, there won't be a chance."

JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARBULLETIN.COM

Dorothy Motoyama

‘There were people asking for help,
but no one could do anything.’

Dorothy Motoyama was only 7 years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. She didn't talk to anyone about her traumatic experience -- not even her parents -- until about 35 years later.

"It's almost like you completely erase that, never felt the pain, never even thought about talking about it until somebody brings it up, and that was very unconscious," Motoyama said. "I'm shocked that I can talk about this. I'm getting very emotional."

Of the resident population of 250,000 in Hiroshima at the time, it is estimated that 45,000 perished on the first day after the detonation; another 19,000 died within four months, according to a briefing paper released in May 2004 from the Uranium Information Centre.

The casualty numbers do not include unrecorded deaths of military personnel and foreign workers, as well as deaths or illnesses some 30 years later due to radiation-induced cancers or leukemia. There were also many birth defects in infants or instances of stillbirths several months after the bombing.

Total estimates range from 130,000 to 150,000 dead from the Hiroshima blast, and from 60,000 to 70,000 dead three days later in the Nagasaki blast.

Because of her youth at the time of the bombing, Motoyama has select memories of the Hiroshima bombing.

"I remember that it hit around 8:15 in the morning, 'cause school started at 8:30 and I was one of the last to go to the outdoor washing place to wash my hands and feet. As I was washing my hands, I recall something hitting my back -- it was probably the heat from the blast. It was like white rays.

"I turned around and looked, and beyond the mountain there was a white cloud, a pink cloud, coming toward us, going back, coming toward us ... like a tsunami wave, and then the whole earth shook. It was unbelievable. All the children were screaming, trying to get to some shelter.

"And I didn't even get to finish washing my feet."

Motoyama lived about five miles from the bomb site, far enough to protect her from the brunt of the impact, but she remembers helping to feed the victims, and the "whiteness" of the Hiroshima train station.

"The train station was totally burned down. It was smelly and there were lots of stains, and the train was all corroded. There were lines of people waiting for food; we gave them all the musubi we had, and they bowed their heads in appreciation but there were no thank-yous and no calls for food. They were all so shocked.

"It was super-quiet, and there was nothing except pure white outside the exit door -- no sound at all."

In the days following the blast, she remembers victims being placed in her school classrooms in the small town of Hara, in Hatsukaichi province. Most of the people exposed to the radiation from the bomb became sick and died within a week.

"I remember their moaning and groaning. We collected sake (rice wine) to pour over their injuries. Sheets were used to cover their burns. Loose straw matting was put on the floor for the victims to lie on. I remember the tinkling sound of the fluid draining from their burns through the raised matting onto the wooden floor."

Motoyama also recalls the bodies of dead victims being burned on racks, and holes being dug to bury them. And lots of flies.

"There were so many flies, we were given a penny a fly for each one we killed."

The day after the bombing, Motoyama's father traveled to Hiroshima City to check on his brother. She said that he saw people who had died while running away from the explosion, still in an upright position. She also said that he saw masses of people jumping into the river because the site was so hot.

"Even my father's shoes were getting stuck to the ground, it was so hot."

As Motoyama's father was searching for his brother, he found his brother's wife. Then a totally black, charred man ran up to them, and it turned out to be his brother. The wife tried to talk to her husband, but all he could say was, "Do you think I'm going to die?" then he suddenly collapsed and died.

"You have to understand, when people came back to Hiroshima, there was nothing left -- they had to start over again from scratch," Motoyama said. "My father said there were people asking for help, but no one could do anything. He saw people whose hair stood straight out due to the electricity in the air from the blast, then their hair fell out."

Asked if she or any of her family suffered from any radiation-related illnesses, Motoyama, an independent nursing educator, said she did not think so, "but most of my family died of cancer."

Motoyama herself has had a complete mastectomy but does not know of any radiation-related illnesses in her children.

MOTOYAMA WAS born in Hawaii but left at age 3 to go to Japan with her parents, who needed to take care of her father's parents. She did not return to Hawaii until reaching the seventh grade, and spoke no English when she arrived.

Motoyama recently returned to Japan to see the Hiroshima memorials.

"I can stay there for hours. When my older son was in high school, I forced him and my daughter to go see the museum. They didn't want to go but I forced them to go. They were shocked after half a day, but they wanted to go back for another half a day.

"Then when my son came back, he told his teacher he wanted to share with the class what he saw about the atomic bomb.

"I thought to myself, 'I served my purpose.'"