My Life: Interview with Sunao Tsuboi, Chairperson of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, Part 5
Jan. 23, 2013
West end of the Miyuki Bridge
by Sakiko Masuda, Staff Writer
Prepared to die, writes his name
Mr. Tsuboi, who was 1.2 km from the hypocenter at the time of the A-bombing, was badly burned. The back of the shirt he was wearing was on fire.
That shirt burned for 10 or 15 minutes while I still had it on. I thought I felt something stinging, but I’d lost sensation in my skin. I hurriedly stripped my shirt off and tossed it away, so I was naked from the waist up. I didn’t want the fire to spread throughout the city, so I put it out. I was badly injured, so I went to the infirmary at Hiroshima University of Literature and Science (now Hiroshima University), but it was in a shambles and there was no one there. Meanwhile fire broke out in the area around the university.
Mr. Tsuboi decided to flee to his aunt’s home, which was nearby. On the way he saw a student who was covered in blood and whose eyeballs were hanging down on her cheeks and a woman with a piece of wood stuck in her chest.
My aunt’s house was completely destroyed. She didn’t recognize me right away. As you can tell from my scars, the skin on my face was flaccid and peeling, my earlobes were torn and my lips were swollen. My aunt’s head was bleeding. I didn’t want to trouble her, so, although she tried to stop me from going, I tore myself away and headed off in no particular direction, feeling mentally and physically drained.
After a while Mr. Tsuboi’s energy was completely gone. Before long he heard someone say that a first aid station had been set up at the west end of the Miyuki Bridge (now part of Naka Ward).
It was just a short distance – about 300 meters – to the Miyuki Bridge. Telling myself to keep going, I started for the bridge, stopping every few minutes to rest. I finally made it after about an hour. There were a lot of victims there. I put my hands into a bucket of oil and smeared it on my burns. The blisters had broken, and my skin was raw. It hurt when I bumped into someone, and I didn’t have the energy to join a crowd of people. I thought it was all over for me.
I couldn’t get proper treatment, so I prepared to die. I picked up a pebble and wrote “Tsuboi died here” in the dirt. I had thrown away the shirt that had my name embroidered on it because it had caught on fire, so I wanted to leave evidence that I had died there. I was in a fog, and all sorts of thoughts crossed my mind: What will happen to Japan? Have my friends survived? What has become of my mother and my brothers?
(Originally published on January 22, 2013)
by Sakiko Masuda, Staff Writer
Prepared to die, writes his name
Mr. Tsuboi, who was 1.2 km from the hypocenter at the time of the A-bombing, was badly burned. The back of the shirt he was wearing was on fire.
That shirt burned for 10 or 15 minutes while I still had it on. I thought I felt something stinging, but I’d lost sensation in my skin. I hurriedly stripped my shirt off and tossed it away, so I was naked from the waist up. I didn’t want the fire to spread throughout the city, so I put it out. I was badly injured, so I went to the infirmary at Hiroshima University of Literature and Science (now Hiroshima University), but it was in a shambles and there was no one there. Meanwhile fire broke out in the area around the university.
Mr. Tsuboi decided to flee to his aunt’s home, which was nearby. On the way he saw a student who was covered in blood and whose eyeballs were hanging down on her cheeks and a woman with a piece of wood stuck in her chest.
My aunt’s house was completely destroyed. She didn’t recognize me right away. As you can tell from my scars, the skin on my face was flaccid and peeling, my earlobes were torn and my lips were swollen. My aunt’s head was bleeding. I didn’t want to trouble her, so, although she tried to stop me from going, I tore myself away and headed off in no particular direction, feeling mentally and physically drained.
After a while Mr. Tsuboi’s energy was completely gone. Before long he heard someone say that a first aid station had been set up at the west end of the Miyuki Bridge (now part of Naka Ward).
It was just a short distance – about 300 meters – to the Miyuki Bridge. Telling myself to keep going, I started for the bridge, stopping every few minutes to rest. I finally made it after about an hour. There were a lot of victims there. I put my hands into a bucket of oil and smeared it on my burns. The blisters had broken, and my skin was raw. It hurt when I bumped into someone, and I didn’t have the energy to join a crowd of people. I thought it was all over for me.
I couldn’t get proper treatment, so I prepared to die. I picked up a pebble and wrote “Tsuboi died here” in the dirt. I had thrown away the shirt that had my name embroidered on it because it had caught on fire, so I wanted to leave evidence that I had died there. I was in a fog, and all sorts of thoughts crossed my mind: What will happen to Japan? Have my friends survived? What has become of my mother and my brothers?
(Originally published on January 22, 2013)
