CREMATING MY CHILD
Hakuzo Iwamoto
A chauffeur, then 46 years old.
Hit 1.0 km from hypocenter. Died in 1964.
That morning of August 6, the day's work had not started, and all of us were waiting at the porch. The radio nearby announced the all-clear. Fearing no more air-raids, I was smoking casually. Sometime after 8:15 a.m., suddenly, a pillar of electric fire, two feet in diameter and ten feet high, came to stand at a place some three feet to the left of the trees in the garden. It was an awful, strange flash and I was shocked to see the thunderbolt-like fire. Next moment, I found myself sitting at the center of the room of 10-tatami mats. I never knew whether I leaped there myself or I was blown there.
Then after a strong but dull sound which I thought I heard, the ridgebeam broke in half. The floor gave way. And I fell to the ground. The roof-tiles started to fall down hitting mightily all over my body. One of them hit right on the top of my head, straight. It hit me so hard that I thought I was killed.
Mechanically, I held up my head, uttering no word in my horror, and just stayed there for some five minutes. When I opened my eyes, something like sweat came into them and caused a pain. I wiped it off with my hands just like I would do when I wash my face. With my eyes still closed, I tried to stand up and found I was able to. Full consciousness came back and I felt I was still alive. I opened my eyes once again but I could not see well because a dark or light brown colored mist was all over. Somebody shouted loud, "They did it!" I shouted back, "I was hit!" I felt a terrible pain in my head. Then the breeze started to blow away the mist little by little.
I felt that the breeze was a godsend and crawled outside. Somebody was asking for help under the pile of roof-tiles. A handful of city employees were standing around unhurt. I asked them to rescue the victim and then squatted there still holding my head. They took the roof-tiles away one by one and from almost two feet below the surface ones their colleagues appeared. He was hurt all over the body but still holding himself up. My head was still aching, so I took out my tenuioma from my neck and tied my head tightly. Then I found that what I had thought sweat was blood and my face was stained with it all over. Then I realized that what I had thought mist was a dust created by the mud of the wall that had fallen down in pieces. The dust was mixed with the blood on my face. The reddish mud soon started to dry, giving me a sticky feeling. I found my shirt was all bloodstained and tattered, so I took it off, making myself half naked.
I headed toward my home and, after walking some hundred meters on the roofs of many crushed houses, reached the Takanobashi streetcar stop. I saw many people asking for help inside a crushed house. I peeked in there to find many people who looked unhurt, but they were trapped. I could not help them because the beams over them were too large to be removed even by a half dozen people. I told them to wait until I could bring over a troop of air defense guards. I stopped at the Takanobashi rotary and looked around. About two kilometers to the east and to the west, and also one and half kilometers to the north and south, all the houses, except concrete buildings, were knocked down flat by just one blast. I sensed that the enemy must have used a new weapon-something to be called an air depth bomb. However, the scene was too horrible to be true and sane; I rubbed my eyes several times in disbelief.
The line of people who were coming along from the City Hall area looked just like a procession of ghosts—their faces burnt black, clothes tattered, hair all standing up and bodies covered by red mud of blood. I tried to get home by passing the City Hall square. On the way, the street on which the streetcar was to run was covered by all the fallen power poles and wires that looked like spider nets. By stepping and jumping over them I came through this jungle and finally reached the City Hall square. There, on the stone pavement nearby the garden, dozens of people, with their faces and clothes all burnt, were lying on their backs and crying out their death agonies. Blood was pouring out of their mouths. A scene one could not dare to face. Going to the west, I reached the entrance to Ohtemachi where my home was. But from a distance I saw my house totally destroyed. I couldn't even reach it because the street was blocked by the debris houses. Looking around, I found many fires had broken out in the
of crushed destroyed city. I realized that if I risked trying to get to my house, I would definitely be burnt to death. So I gave up and tried to take refuge in a large square that had been created by demolishing the Public Auditorium at the north of the City Hall. On the way a boy of about ten years old, with his face burnt and body all naked and blood-stained, followed me saying, "Help me, mister! Help me!" I could not help him at all. While wandering around he dropped out of my sight. Maybe he died somewhere. The fire spread out increasingly and the whole city seemed to be on fire.
The Ohtemachi Primary School which was on the other side of the City Hall, caught fire. Then the fire spread to a dozen trucks parked in front of the City Hall; the trucks' gasoline tanks blew up and then tires blew up causing terrible sounds. Around the square where I was, old timbers and boards that used to be the Public Hall building were piled up. They too caught fire, and I could not stay there because the heat was just unbearable. Then at the south, the City Hall started to burn from inside and big flames burst from the windows of all three floors. The fire became intense. A black rain started to fall, but it soon stopped. I thought I was about to be burnt to death. Then luckily I found a pond at the rear garden of the Public Auditorium site. Along with fifty or sixty people, I jumped into it. The pond was about fifty centimeters in depth. It was like a muddy rice paddy; its water was stagnant and its surface was covered by water grass.
Then, all of a sudden, a strong northerly wind blew and turned the flames into a fire cyclone. The cyclone went around burning leaves of trees at the edge of the pond, even pulled out small trees, throwing them into the sky and then back to the pond. The fire cyclone was one meter wide and six meters high, and it came right onto me howling. It came only two meters short of hitting me, and I closed my eyes in terror, feeling that this might be the last moment. I involuntarily recited the chant "Nam-myo-ho-ren-gekyo" many, many times. Some ladies nearby asked me, "Sir, can we be spared? Can we survive?" Then they too recited the chant. I felt my head was about to be pulled out into the air by the cyclone.
All the people in the pond were burnt and cut to some extent. So when the fire cyclone came down howling, they all screamed and shouted-it was a hell on earth. Luckily the cyclone died down after fifteen or twenty minutes. But the fire was still all around the square. The sky over the city was covered darkly with heavy smoke. Having no watch, I didn't know what time it was. I was inside the pond for about an hour. Then the fire finally dwindled. Coming out of the pond, I came to myself.
I was saved and so I wanted to rest for a while. There was a dried place under the arched bridge over the pond. After I rested there for some time, I felt hungry. I made a guess that it might be around two in the afternoon. The fire, after burning down all the area around the City Hall, died. Trying to find water to drink, I came to the street along the City Hall. The water hydrant in front of the building was broken and water was spouting out. I drank the water with my hand. A policeman in uniform was lying dead on his nearby the fire hydrant. His face was burnt black. There was a lunch-box wrapped up with a furoshiki.
The furoshiki was burnt into pieces and an aluminum lunch-box was seen. Gladly I opened it and found that it was full of rice-and-wheat with small dried fish and a pickled plum.
The surface of the food was scorched and hard. Nevertheless, I took it and finished it sitting on the step of the Public Auditorium. Having filled myself, I went back to the entrance of the section where my house was. But the white smoke covered the area and it was still burning and hot. While I was watching in vain, somebody who seemed very healthy came to me and said, "It's terrible, isn't it? I am working at the Ujina Shipyard. I have my mother and wife at the 7th Street of this Ohtemachi Section and, out of concern for them, came back here on foot. But this tells me that it's hopeless. I think this smoke is poisonous, so I am going back to Ujina again. Won't you join me? You have an injury on your head. If we go to the Kõryo Middle School at Ujina, you can have the first-aid that has been offered by the Army." My head was really aching so I followed him. We arrived at the school and I had some treatment by the Army and rested about an hour in the janitor's room. While there I pondered what to do next, but eventually came back to the entrance of Ohteamchi where I lived.
Fire was still here and there. I felt my rubber-soled tabi almost burning hot, but I bore the heat and went into Ohtemachi to the north. There was a person burnt to death sitting on the street with his hands joined in prayer; a burned-up girl who died while jumping out of the entrance; a man who was burnt to death while sitting on the barber's chair. He was so burned up that when I touched him the body fell into pieces. I could recognize all of them because they all were members of my neighborhood association. I came to the place where my house was supposed to be standing and found a honeybucket cart was burnt in front of the site and a horse was lying dead. His belly was burst and all the guts spouted out making a big hole there. I found my wife lying down on the street almost without breath. She barely managed to tell me-she was hit on her thigh by the falling house and could not walk; she had crawled into a water hole dug out near our house and stayed in the water until the house was completely burnt up. The water was rain water and about 50 centimeters in depth; it contained broken glasses and pots at the bottom. fire was so intense that she had to press her back to the bottom. So her back was all cut, her head was burnt and she couldn't walk. She barely managed to come out right before I got back. She was all naked.
I gave my pants to her, encouraged her that she would be all right and carried her on my back. I looked around. As far as I could see, it was nothing but a devastating scene of destruction. I found that I was the only one alive and walking here; it gave me some feeling of elation. But at the same time it was like being at a graveyard. I felt an utter loneliness. I looked into the water tank and found that a half dozen burned bodies were floating. I pulled myself up and set out carrying my wife who was almost dead. I headed toward the old Public Auditorium and had to rest three times to walk only 300 meters. She asked me every time for water. I found a broken cup on the street and gave her water with it from the hand fire pump. I finally got to the Auditorium and laid her down on the stone step. While we were resting the city official brought hard biscuits in a bucket. We were given a handful and ate them there.
Though badly hurt, my wife was saved. Now I was concerned about my son, Shiro. But I thought I would look for him next day. The dusk had already come. I looked for a place to sleep and found a shelter nearby the City Hall. Inside, there was water that came up from the ground, but the floor was covered by a half dozen boards. So I carried my wife over and laid her down for sleep. Six or seven more people came in to stay. The shelter was full of mosquitoes, so I went up on the top of the shelter and spent the night there. Along the shelter, four or five victims were desperately seeking water. They crawled around in vain and all were dead by the next morning. Before dawn, it looked like the oil companies in the Yokogawa area were burning. Every time a can of oil burst into flames, fire went high up in the sky. It was quite a scene.
Around nine o'clock next morning, soldiers came along with door boards to carry patients to the hospital. They were looking for the heavily wounded. I asked them to take care of my wife and she was brought over on the board to the nearby Red Cross hospital. The hospital, though spared from the fire, had all the walls broken and the mud spread all over the floor. It looked as though it had been hit by an earthquake. They put a straw mat and a blanket there and laid my wife down. There was no doctor around; they all might have been killed.
A young assistant in his twenties, with the help of a few nurses, was seeing patients. He took care of my wife putting ointment on her burns. I felt somewhat relieved. I told her that I was going to look for our son. I went back to our burnt home and searched around for him. I was almost sure that he was burnt to death-after all he was only a seven-year-old boy. But I still was looking for a body or skeleton which looked like my boy's.
Along the fence of the nearby Kompira shrine, two boys, both whom seemed to be six or seven years old, were lying dead. They were with their tricycles and were heavily burned. Though their faces were not recognizable at all, the figure of one resembled my son I held his head and examined it thoroughly. But it would be no use to bring back somebody else's bones, I thought, and left it there. I went back to the hospital and told my wife about the incident. Half an hour later, I again thought I should look for my son's bones. So I set out for another search.
When I was about to get to our home, a middle-school student in our neighborhood told me that my son Shirō had been spared. It was almost unbelievable. He told me that Shirō was at a burnt house near Shinbashi. I went there and found my son sitting naked looking out the other way. A lady was taking care of my son, and she told me, "Before the fire spread around some gentleman nearby brought your son over to the Motoyasu River. They stayed with us all night in the river. That's why he was saved. We have been taking care of him since. His burns are not so serious. He will soon be all right." I examined him and found that his left hand from the elbow to the finger and upper half of his head above his nose were burnt. I too felt that he would be all right soon. I thanked her and carried him on my back to the hospital. It was around six o'clock in the evening of August 7.
My wife's condition was serious. She could not even swallow rice soup. So I thought she was hopeless. In the meantime I was very hungry because I was given only one rice ball at the hospital that day. I went to my office and asked the deputy director for food. And I was given some seven pints of rice and miso. Back at the Red Cross hospital, I picked up a burnt iron pan nearby, built a fire range and cooked the rice every day. Next day I moved my wife and son to a shelter behind the hospital. My son was only given ointment for his burns. And he started a high fever in the morning of August 9. I asked a nurse to give an antifebrile for him. But she said no drug was available. So I could do nothing but watch him. With us in the shelter there were about twenty soldiers who were patients of the Red Cross hospital. At about four in the afternoon, Shirō threw up some stuff which was as dark as coffee several times and passed away in two minutes.
An hour later, I thought it would be a nuisance for our sheltermates to leave a dead body there. At the gate of the hospital, soldiers were cremating many dead bodies. I wrapped up the body of my son with a blood-stained kimono which somebody had thrown away and brought it to the gate. I asked a sublieutenant who was directing the operation to cremate my son. He took my son's name, age and address and gave an order to a soldier. The soldier, in turn, took out some crude oil and poured it on the belly of my son. Then, immediately, two soldiers grabbed my son's body at his hands and legs and, over a good three meter distance, threw it into the flame. I saw his head catching fire. I was sure he was really dead because he did not move at all. It was heartbreaking that my son had to go in this cruel way.
Next day, I picked up some ashes where he was cremated.
We went back to the hospital next day. I secured a space for my wife at a corner of a large room. The passageway of the hospital was all occupied with the people who were heavily burnt. At night they asked the nurses for water, crying "Give me water! (Mizu o kudasai.)" I could not sleep because of their cries. The victims filled even the ground around the hospital, and every day they died by the dozens.
On the morning of August 14, I went to our burnt home. We had a shelter under the 6-tatami room of the house, and had stored some goods. I was going to dig them out. But I found all of our goods were burnt up because the shelter had a small opening. I was disappointed and came back to the hospital. My wife was dead and cold.