"OH, THAT'S A PARACHUTE!"
Futaba Kitayama
Housewife, then 33 years old
Hit 1.7 km from hypocenter.
It was the morning of August 6, 1945. The horrifying night had at long last gone; I had made several trips to the air-raid shelter, prodded by urgent warning sirens that sounded ominously, making me feel as if my heart was shaken by the hands of the devil.
The day was burning hot already in the morning. I was living in the Daiya-cho section of the city and it was my turn that day in my Neighborhood Association to donate labor for the work of making air-raid defence fire lanes. My husband, an employee of the Chugoku Shimbun (newspaper), had not come back yet after rushing to the company upon hearing the warning siren the night before. I was not hungry, but nevertheless I forced myself to have a quick breakfast. After preparing a meal for my husband who would come back while I was away, I put it on the table and set out.
Our group assembled at 7:30. Almost all of them were women, including some ladies who were more than sixty years old. The air-raid warning had been in effect all morning, but it was such a daily affair that I had no particular fear while walking along with Mrs. Yamaguchi, our next door neighbor. We heard the all-clear siren on the way. Our work was to clear up the Tsurumi-cho area where buildings had been torn down to make fire lanes.
The work started at eight. We crossed the Tsurumi Bridge in a line. I'll never forget the stream of water that I saw looking down from the bridge. Compared with the awesome picture of human society that was gasping in a bloody struggle of life and death, what a beautiful and serene scene of Nature it was! I vividly remember the clear stream of water, moving eternally and innocently.
Walking about 30 meters after crossing the bridge, I suddenly heard very clearly the engine of a plane. It was certainly odd that while we had the all-clear signal, an enemy plane was flying above us. But it had happened so many times that we were accustomed to it. I could hardly guess how high the plane was flying. Its silver wings were shining brilliantly in the dazzling sunshine. The plane looked very small-small enough to be held in my hands.
"That's beautiful! Just like a picture", I sighed to Mrs. Yamaguchi. She teased me. "Oh, you must be a poet. How else can you have that sort of idea at this time?" Nevertheless, it was indeed beautiful. In the perfectly clear sky of cobalt-blue, the beautiful plane, like a silver ornament, was steadily flying from east to west, making a slight buzz. I was fascinated and looked up at it for some time.
Then someone shouted, "Oh, that's a parachute! A parachute is coming down!" I responded by turning in the direction she pointed. Just at that moment, the sky I was facing flashed. I do not know how to describe that light. I wondered if a fire had been set in my eyes. It was something like an ominous purple-like color of sparks caused by a streetcar at night-only some billion times stronger.
I don't remember which came first—the flash of light or the sound of an explosion that roared down to my belly. Anyhow, the next moment I was knocked down flat on the ground. Immediately, things started falling down around my head and shoulders. I couldn't see anything; it seemed pitch dark. I thought the destined final moment now had come.
Then suddenly I saw clearly in my vision my three children who had been evacuated to the countryside. Abruptly I tried to raise my body, instinctively feeling that I should not just lie there. I could not move freely because debris—timber and roof-tiles-never ceased to fall, piling up on my body. "I cannot die here! I have to take care of my children. Maybe my husband is dead. I have to escape as best as I can." In a transport of confusion, I managed to crawl out of the debris.
Soon I noticed that the air smelled terrible. Thinking that the bomb that hit us might be yellow phosphorus incendiary bombs, I instinctively rubbed my nose and mouth hard with my tenugui (a Japanese handkerchief) that was tucked at my belt. I felt something strange with my face. Then I was shocked by the feeling that the skin of my face had come off on the tenugui. Ah, then, the hands and arms, too. Starting from the elbow to the fingertips, all the skin of my right hand came off and hung down grotesquely. The skin of my left hand, all five fingers, also came off.
"Damn it! I was burned!" I groaned. Though I could not see it, I thought my face also might be like this. I must have damaged my face and hands when I tried frantically to brush aside the debris.
Feeling utterly helpless, I just sat there. Some moments later, I noticed that no one was around. What happened to my fellow neighbors? Where is Mrs. Yamaguchi? I got up with a sudden horror that pushed me forward, and started frantically to run away. But where? Where can I find a street? The ground was covered with the debris of timber and tiles, thus giving me no landmarks to spot.
What happened to the sky that had been such a clear blue one only a moment ago? It was now dark, like dusk. Everything was vague and hazy, as if mist covered up my eyes—I wondered if I had lost my senses. I looked around trying to figure out what happened. I saw on the bridge something like a human figure, running. "Oh, yes! That must be the Tsurumi Bridge. I must hurry to cross it; if not, there will be no way to escape." I ran like mad toward the bridge, jumping over the piles of debris.
What I saw under the bridge was shocking: Hundreds of people were squirming in the stream. I couldn't tell if they were men or women. They looked all alike. Their faces were swollen and gray, their hair was standing up. Holding their hands high, groaning, people were rushing to the river. I felt the same urge because the pain was all over the body which had been exposed to a heat ray strong enough to burn my pants to pieces. I was about to jump into the river only to remember that I could not swim.
I went back up to the bridge. There, school girls, like sleepwalkers, were wandering about in confusion. I encouraged them to cross the bridge, "Hurry up, hurry up!" Upon crossing it, I looked back and found that the Takeyacho-Hatchõbori area suddenly had burst into flame. I had thought that the bomb hit only the area where I was.
While running, I called the names of my three children one by one and said, "I won't die, my dear. I'll be all right." Actually, I was encouraging myself. I have tried, but I cannot recall where I was running. But I do recall vividly the many wretched scenes I witnessed on the way. They are almost imprinted in my eyes.
A mother, stained heavily with blood from her face to shoulder, was crying, "My boy, my dear!" and frantically tried to run into a house that was all aflame. She was restrained firmly by a man, but she still cried like mad, "Let me go. Let me go. My boy is burning to death!" She looked like a demon in a fury. It was a heart-rending scene indeed. I might have run on Matoba-dori (street) which led to the East (Army) Parade Ground because I have a vague memory of passing a street with a streetcar line.
When crossing the Kõjin Bridge, which I did not then recognize, I found all its parapets of solid ferro-concrete had gone. The bridge looked terribly unsafe. Under the bridge were floating, like dead dogs or cats, many corpses, barely covered by tattered clothes. In the shallow water near the bank, a woman was lying face upward, her breasts to away and blood spurting. A horrifying scene. How in the world could such a cruel thing happen? I wondered if the Hell that my grandmother had told me so much about in my childhood had fallen upon the earth.
I found myself squatting on the center of the Parade Ground. It must not have taken me more than two hours to get from Tsurumi-cho to the East Parade Ground, no matter how I wandered around. The darkness of the sky lessened somewhat. Still, the sun, as if covered with a heavy cloud, was dim and gloomy.
My burns started paining me. It was a kind of pain different from an ordinary burn which might be unbearable. Mine was a dull pain that was coming from somewhere far apart from my body. A yellow secretion oozed from my hands. I imagined that my face also must be in this dreadful shape. By my side, many junior high school students, both boys and girls who were members of the volunteer corps, were squirming in agony.
They were crying, insanely, "Mother! Mother!" They were so severely burned and blood-stained that one could scarcely dare to look at them. But once I looked at this cruel sight, a rage came up-Why? Why these children? I didn't know at whom I should direct this rage. I could do nothing for them but watch them die one by one, seeking their mothers in vain.
I started walking again, following the people toward the hillside. I had to encourage my body and soul, which felt like sinking through the earth. I guessed it was three in the afternoon. I must have been sitting down on the Parade Ground for so long, almost absent-minded. As far as I could see with my declining eyesight, the Hiroshima Station as well as Atago-cho area was all in flames. How, oh, how had I come that far?
Steadily, my face became stiffer. I put my hands carefully on my cheeks and felt my face. It seemed to have swollen to twice its size. Now I could see less and less. Alas, I would not be able to see at all soon. After all the effort, was I destined to die? I kept walking and, by following the hill footpath, reached Hesaka village. I saw on the street many victims being carried away by stretcher. Carts and trucks, heavily loaded with corpses and wounded who looked like beasts, came and passed me. On both sides of the street, many people were wandering about like sleepwalkers.
I resolved that I should find, while I could see, some place safe from running trucks, and there give myself calmly to whatever fate was in store. I was looking around here and there with my failing eyesight. Just then, I saw my sister who was crouching nearby.
"Nēsan! (sister) Help me!"
I rushed to her. She first looked at me strangely, then recognized me.
"Oh, you are Futaba-chan! What a terrible—"
She gasped and then embraced me.
"Nēsan. I can't see any longer! Please take me to my children."
She said in tears, "I will never let you die. I promise to take you to them."
She examined my burns and said, "What a pity! You are in miserable shape."
She was crying even more and laid me on the tender grass. I never felt more strongly the love of a family. If I had not met my sister I could not have survived. My sister had small wounds in the head and foot, but they were not serious.
While I was lying down with my sister, I felt relieved, as I could not see things at all and could not even stand up. Dusk must finally have come. I felt somewhat chilly. I was wearing only my burned and tattered pants.
My sister found a vegetable-cart somewhere and said she would carry me to the Yaga Grammar School aid-center four kilometers away. I was feeling weaker as my eyesight declined steadily. But I wanted whole-heartedly to live—"I can't die here! I can't die until I see my children!"
It was already night when we reached the Yaga school, I was later told. I cannot remember that; my memory is so vague. At the center, I later learned, there were countless wounded and piles of dead bodies. It must have been very hard for my sister to spend two nights in a row with me at the center. I was unconscious, she told me later, but I kept crying all the time, "Take me to my children, quick!"
Though doctors did not agree, my sister felt that if I should die, it should be with my children. She begged the doctor to consent and carried me by stretcher and train to our relatives in Kamisugi village, It was August 8. Upon seeing my condition, the doctor of the village said, "This is terrible," and pronounced my case hopeless. My children, who had evacuated from the city to our relatives eight kilometers away, rushed to me that night.
When I heard their voices, "Okāchan! (Mother)", I felt my spirit had returned from a Hell that was billions of miles away.
"I am all right, dear. My wounds are not serious."
I could only smell my beloved children, who were clinging to me, crying. From that night my eldest daughter, who was then 14 years old, never left my side. I just lay there, with my face and both hands all dressed in bandages.
On August 11, three days after I was brought there, my husband followed me. The children, hugging him, cried for happiness. I was then in a most critical condition, and felt grateful to him—"Oh, than heavens! At least they have a father, even if I die!"
Our happiness was only short-lived, however. My husband, who had hardly seemed hurt, suddenly passed away three days later, vomiting blood. He left behind myself, who was on the verge of death, and three beloved children. We had been married for 16 years and yet I could not even smooth his death pillow. I cannot but help feeling awfully sorry for him. He loved to work, as if he had come to the world to work, but he had to die leaving behind so much work undone... My boy came and sat at my bed crying, "Okāchan!" What a sorrow! The sorrow makes me tearful even today.
"Oh, poor children! Now I cannot die. I cannot leave them as orphans," I thought.
I prayed frantically to my husband's soul. I was pronounced hopeless again and again, but I finally survived, miraculously.
My eyesight came back rather soon and in some 20 days I was able to see the faces of my children vaguely. But the burns on my face and hands did not heal up accordingly. The summer went and autumn came, but the wounds were still pulpy, like a rotten tomato. In early October, I could merely rise on the bed, and only in December could I manage to walk. After January passed, I could finally remove my bandages, only to find that my face as well as my hands would never be the same.
The lobe of my left ear has shrunk to half its size; a palm-sized keloid scar runs from the left side of my chin across my mouth to throat. Across my right hand, there is a keloid, five centimeters long, from the wrist to the little finger. All five fingers of my left hand stick together at their base.
Disabled as I never expected, I was at a loss: how would I live with three small children? Life became all the more hard as the price of goods soared during the post-war inflation. In April 1947, when we were about to be reduced to be beggars, the Chugoku Shimbun, where my husband used to work, rescued us by giving me a job. I will never forget the joy of that moment. Five years have since passed. I am still working, with all the shame and humiliation of my ugly, disabled body, only for the sake of my poor children.