SURVIVE AN ATOMIC BOMB
When I found my sister, only her bones were left.
I had been told that she died in the bombing, so I went to identify her. But when I got to the bomb shelter where she had been hiding with a friend, I only saw two charred bodies. They were unrecognizable. Then I noticed that one had a gold tooth. I knew my sister didn’t have a crown on any of her teeth, so that’s how I knew which one was her. I gathered her bones and left her friend there for her own family to claim. My sister was 23. She had been a teacher.
Most people think they would like their loved one to live even an hour longer, but with this kind of bomb, I knew it was better to die right away. I was grateful that she had died immediately. That was the best I could hope for.
A B-29 bomber transported the atomic bomb they called “Little Boy” on the morning of 6 August 1945. My mother, my father, and my sister were in Hiroshima when the bomb hit. I was 18 and a freshman at Hiroshima University, but to support the war effort I had been sent 70 kilometers away to Mihara to supervise a team of high school-age factory workers. We supplied fuel to fighter planes.