Somehow, throughout the war, Hiroshima stood untouched. Military leaders were mystified considering it was the major staging site for embarkation for Japanese activism in South-East Asia and China. War industries, military installations, submarine pens and 50,000 servicemen were located there.Satsuko Nakamura was readying her start as a decoder at the 2nd Army HQ on the 6 August,1945. While she slept, 1566 miles away on Tinian Island, the preparations for bombing Hiroshima were prepared.The committee responsible for choosing a site to demonstrate the bomb’s catastrophic capability chose Hiroshima with an estimated 340,000 inhabitants. The USS Indianapolis delivered components of the bomb and uranium to the island. Four days later, on the cruiser’s return from the island, she was torpedoed, along with her crew of 1,195. She sank in 12 minutes, resulting in the largest death toll in US naval history.On Sunday, August 5 at 3.30am, the 5-ton “Little Boy” was lowered into the bomb bay of the Enola Gay. On the casing was scrawled a message from its crew: “A present for the souls of the Indianapolis crew.”The rest of the story belongs to Satsuko. Mistaking the 3 B-29s as a reconnaissance mission, no air-raid siren rang. At the coders’ briefing, Major Yanai told the girls to “Do your best”. The girls replied “For the Emperor’s sake, we’ll do our best”.At that moment, Satsuko saw a blinding flash in the window. She was 13 years old. Her 29 classmates, were burnt alive, while she was buried under collapsed timber. The temperature on the ground reached 7000 degrees F. An enormous fireball, over 300 yards in diameter devastated 5.9 miles around the bomb’s hypocenter. A violent shock followed the flash, shooting bullets of glass, wood splinters and tile fragments in all directions, slashing and impaling anyone in their path.The sudden drop in air pressure ruptured eardrums, stomachs, bladders and spleens. The blast wave rebounded off the mountains surrounding the city, demolishing 90% of the buildings, spreading fire in all directions. Incinerated, lacerated, crushed, eviscerated, beheaded. 80,000 perished in an instant. Most were women and children. Satsuko felt like she was in a silent movie.Except for an occasional concrete structure, almost every house, store, school, hospital and shrine had vanished, replaced by ashes. The stench of decomposing flesh created an olfactory memory seared into her psyche. Hiroshima became a massive graveyard, a necropolis. Only 20 doctors out of the city’s 200 survived with fewer than 10% of the 1200 nurses remaining.The Japanese government wired the US government via neutral Switzerland, protesting the new bomb’s “Uncontrollable cruel effect,” concluding that it constituted a new crime against humanity. Days after the bomb detonated over Nagasaki, the Emperor, capitulated. It was the first time in the country’s 3000-year history, the Japanese people would hear their Emperor’s voice.It wasn’t only the 68% of structures that were decimated. It was the social cohesion, their communities that had crumbled. Yet the worse disruption was the family structure, so central to Japanese culture. It was hard to find a purpose in this godforsaken place.September 17, saw a typhoon make landfall flattening all the rebuilding. Many who had almost lost everything, now lost everything.Satsuko’s faith in G-d received the balm to tend her wounded soul. With the alienation and discrimination that went hand in hand with the survivors, Satsuko found it disturbing that no help came from the National Government, especially to the 6000 orphans. It wasn’t till 1950 that the survivors were categorised as hibakusha, meaning “explosion-effected individuals.” They were treated like lepers, pariahs. Not long after, an an outbreak of leukaemia affected the survivors.Following her second academic year, Satsuko’s outspoken resourcefulness was noticed. She came under the influence of professor Ichiro Moritaki and got drawn into Hiroshima’s fledgling Anti-Nuclear Movement and her mission in life burst forth. Interestingly the Occupation improved educational reform and introduced Women’s Rights but impeded their psychological recovery by suppressing public discussion of atomic bombs and the collective expression of bereavement. The authorities hampered and repressed their anguish by silence and isolation.When Japan’s nascent Antinuclear Movement erupted, Satsuko knew her vocation in life. In 2015, she sparked a rally cry for activists by proclaiming at the UN “Humanity and nuclear weapons cannot coexist,” thus shifting the global discussion from deterrence to humanitarianism. She was key in crafting the landmark Treaty On Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons . She continued to speak on the world stage and command the attention of world leaders in her lifelong quest to abolish nuclear weapons, even though the odds were against her. She received. A Nobel Prize for her unswerving dedication in keeping the memory of Hiroshima’s survivors in the forefront of the world’s focus.A riveting read, timely and much needed. Almost a reference book, it’s a deeply-affecting first-person account of the unimaginable horrors through her eyes. It underscores the importance of survivors’ memories to be recognised and remembered by future generations.
