×

Features

My Life: Interview with TV Director Yasuko Isono, Part 4

Relatives exposed to A-bomb

by Takahiro Yamase, Staff Writer

Taking care of relatives, laying schoolwork aside

I was walking to Takaka Elementary School in Etajima, wearing an air-raid hood, when the atomic bomb exploded. There was a huge flash, and tremendous boom, so I went to the ground, lying on a footpath between two rice fields. I saw an enormous cloud billowing up in the distance.

On August 6, 1945, Ms. Isono’s brother Akira and aunt Shizuyo were exposed to the A-bomb in Hiroshima. At the time, Akira was only a year old and was temporarily living with relatives in Funairi, Hiroshima, to pay regular visits to a doctor. Shizuyo was taking care of him.

People in Etajima said that a gas tank had exploded in Hiroshima. But boats from the city, carrying badly wounded victims, kept arriving at our island. My father heard that Hiroshima had become a hell on earth and he went there to search for my brother and my aunt.

My father spent about two days looking for them before he finally found them at a Shinto shrine. When they returned, I didn’t think they would survive. My aunt had a broken arm and leg. Her head was wrapped in bandages, with only her staring eyes visible. My brother became emaciated and suffered diarrhea, even after he ate only rice broth. We watched over them at home, but they showed no signs of recovering.

I heard that the war was over from a teacher at school. Although I grew up near the naval academy and I respected the Imperial Japanese Army, I didn’t really feel disappointed. I was too busy worrying about the hardship my family was facing to care about the nation.

In September, my brother and aunt were admitted to a hospital about four kilometers from my house. I stayed at the hospital to take care of them and couldn’t go to school. In those days, hospitals didn’t provide meals, so preparing meals and doing laundry kept me very busy. I was so scared when my aunt cried out in pain. I was run-down both physically and mentally.

After their convalescence, her brother and aunt left the hospital. Ms. Isono could finally return to school in January 1946.

While my mother was alive, she shared her hopes that I would go to First Prefectural Girls’ High School in Hiroshima, so I decided to apply for admission to the school. There were about ten girls who planned to take the entrance exams to girls’ high schools, so we took additional lessons after school. Our group stayed and studied together for about three hours every day.

Those were fun days. We joked and laughed and brought boxed lunches that we had made at home, then shared our food. And the war was now over.

In the spring of 1946, Ms. Isono entered First Prefectural Girls’ High School. The school building was formerly used as a clothing depot for the Imperial Japanese Army.

Hiroshima was in complete ruins. It was like being in another dimension when I walked around the city with my mother. My life as a high school student began in a barren city that had been reduced to dust. Everything except a few large structures had been blown down. It was a sad beginning to a new stage in my life.

(Originally published on December 3, 2010)

Archives