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Man survived both atomic bombings

That's interesting that he is the only one recognized as having survived both blasts.

Years ago, when I was in junior high, I remember reading a book called Nine Who Survived: Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I guess there was no way to verify that they actually experienced both.
 

ChefChiTown

The secret ingredient? MY BALLS
The ironic thing? This guy will probably die from choking on some food or something really unmanly.
 

Philbert

Banned
The ironic thing? This guy will probably die from choking on some food or something really unmanly.

He's 93...nothing ironic in his dying at this point for any reason.

Well...unless some 9 year old throws a lit firecracker, startles the geezer, and he dies of a heart attack. There might be some irony there...:D
 
It's incredible, that this man has been in both atomic bombings and is still alive. In Hiroshima alone 92% of the buildings were completely destroyed or heavily damaged (which means uninhabitable). 48.000 buildings in Hiroshima were completely eradicated (not in ruins, gone), 14.800 in Nagasaki. To have seen this and survive is unimaginable.

Thanks for the link. I can definitely use that for my studies and will try to contact that man for an eyewitness account.

By the way, the mushroom could you can see on that picture in the article is the one that rose above Hiroshima. If you look closely, you can see part of the coast. Just to give you an idea how big this explosion was. When the bomb exploded, the uranium cylinder was still 25 centimeters away from the uranium core of the bomb (it was a never before tested uranium235 gun assembly design bomb). The bomb exhausted only 2% of its potential. Imagine what would have happened, if the bomb had developed its full potential.

That's interesting that he is the only one recognized as having survived both blasts.

Years ago, when I was in junior high, I remember reading a book called Nine Who Survived: Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I guess there was no way to verify that they actually experienced both.

I'm a little bit surprised that, out of all eyewitness accounts and (auto)biographical novels, you read this book in school. There are far better and far more neutral and objective ones.
 

om3ga

It's good to be the king...
Actually according to one newspaper he's dying from cancer – probably caused by the atomic bombs that almost killed him....
 
I'm a little bit surprised that, out of all eyewitness accounts and (auto)biographical novels, you read this book in school. There are far better and far more neutral and objective ones.

I must say that I'm a little bit confused by your post. Are you saying that particular book was all lies? I don't recall any other books back then (it was around 1973 when I read it).
 
Are you saying that particular book was all lies?
No, not at all. Let me give you a (very) short explanation. That books belongs to a genre called "genbaku-bungaku" or "atomic (bomb) literature". In that genre there are again different classifications. There are at least two different systems by different scientists/scholars (history, literature, political science, sociology, psychology, physics,...) who can be seriously considered, but they all are of the opinion, that the genre is to be divided/subdivided.
In every one of these classification systems however, this book belongs to the first section. In this section are works who directly deal with the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (eye-witness accounts, newspaper/magazine reports or articles (not "news"), autobiographical works, etc.) and are not (science) fiction (although some scientists include works of fiction here, if they are for example autobiographies disguised as fiction). There are works from people who just want to process what has happened (mostly because they were there), works from journalists or scientists who were there in the first months after, and so on.
And like with every genre, there are works who fulfill different purposes and who fulfill these different purposes sometimes better sometimes worse. And there are books that would have been, in my opinion, better and more credible for school purposes.

I don't recall any other books back then (it was around 1973 when I read it).
Trumbull was a really good "war and conflicts reporter", who was able to show a certain level of empathie for the people (for example the Japanese, even after he got shot at at Iwo Jima) and wasn't only about the gory details and the glorification of war and the American military.
But a more neutral (and especially more "first hand") account like that of John Hersey (titled "Hiroshima", the first account of the bombings published in the US) would probably have been more suited for a school, as in school you should learn to develop your own thoughts on a subject like that.
 
But a more neutral (and especially more "first hand") account like that of John Hersey (titled "Hiroshima", the first account of the bombings published in the US) would probably have been more suited for a school, as in school you should learn to develop your own thoughts on a subject like that.

Actually my reading that book had nothing to do with the school curriculum. I found it at the local public library and read it because I wanted to read it. I just mentioned my being in school as a point of reference in time.
 
Amazing.. what a chap.

Yeah my gramps was there not long after Hiroshima, with the merchant navy and said that it was absolutely flattened. He has a picture of one of the walls that remained standing that had 'peace' grafittied on it.
 
"His double dose of atomic bombs, however, does not mean Mr Yamaguchi's compensation will increase, a Nagasaki city official said." :1orglaugh
 
Actually my reading that book had nothing to do with the school curriculum. I found it at the local public library and read it because I wanted to read it. I just mentioned my being in school as a point of reference in time.

Ah, well, I misunderstood you then. Still, if you're interestand in that topic, I'd recommend some alternative reading from other contemporary wittnesses like eye-witnesses, scholars, journalists or scientists. For example
Michihiko Hachiya, Hiroshima diary - The journal of a Japanese physician
John Hersey, Hiroshima
Tatsuichiro Akizuki/Gordon Honeycombe, Nagasaki 1945 - The first full-length eyewitness account of the atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki
Wilfred G. Burchett, Shadows of Hiroshima
Masuji Ibuse, Black rain - Two short novels
Katharine Johson, John F. Rasche, Hiroshima - Chronicles of a survivor
Sadako Kurihara, Richard H. Minear, When we say 'Hiroshima' - Selected poems
William Leahy, I Was There
Averill A. Liebow, Encounter with disaster - A medical diary of Hiroshima
Masamoto Nasu, Children of the paper crane - The story of Sadako Sasaki and her struggle with the A-bomb disease
Toyofumi Ogura, Letters from the end of the world - A firsthand account of the bombing of Hiroshima
Pacific War Research Society, The day man lost
Rinjiro Sodei, Where We The Enemy? American Survivors of Hiroshima
James N. Yamazaki, Louis B. Fleming, Children of the Atomic Bomb - An American Physician's Memoir of Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and the Marshall Islands

...to name just a few.

And there are some very good ones in Japanese and German, which haven't even been translated into English yet.
 
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