Hiroshima (book)

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Hiroshima
HiroshimaBook.jpg
1st edition
Author(s) John Hersey
Country Japan
Language English
Genre(s) Non-fiction
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Publication date 1946
Pages 160 pp
ISBN 0-679-72103-7
OCLC Number 680840
Dewey Decimal 940.54/25 19
LC Classification D767.25.H6 H4 1989
Preceded by A Bell for Adano (1944)
Followed by The Wall (1950)

Contents

Introduction [edit]

"Hiroshima" written by Pulitzer Prize winner John Hersey, was an article originally published in The New Yorker[1] on August 31, 1946. Although the article was originally to be published over four issues, ""Hiroshima"" made up the entire contents of the magazine on August 31, 1946.[2][3] "Hiroshima" narrates the stories of six people of Hiroshima, Japan immediately prior and for months after the dropping of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945, which would be the closing days of World War II. The dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan killed an estimated 135,000 people.[4] Less than two months after the publication of ""Hiroshima"" in The New Yorker, the article was printed as a book by Alfred A. Knopf and has sold over three million copies to date.[1][5] "Hiroshima" has continuously been read since its publication, according to later New Yorkeressayist Roger Angell, because “[i]ts story became a part of our ceaseless thinking about world wars and nuclear holocaust”.[1] Before writing "Hiroshima", Hersey was an infield war correspondent and writing for Life magazine and The New Yorker following troops during the invasion of both Italy and Sicily during World War II.[6] In 1944, he began working in the Pacific and followed Lt. John F. Kennedy through the Soloman Islands.[6] Hersey was one of the first Western journalists to view the disaster that was Hiroshima after the bombing. Hersey was therefore commissioned by William Shawn of The New Yorker to write a series of articles about the effects of a nuclear explosion by utilizing witness accounts as this subject had been virtually untouched by journalists.[6] Hersey had originally interviewed many more witnesses, but he focuses his article on only six of the witnesses.

The Story [edit]

The article begins on the morning of August 6, 1945. Hersey introduces each character and details their mornings before the dropping of the bomb. The characters include Miss Toshiko Sasaki, Dr. Masakazu Fujii, Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, Dr. Terufumi Sasaki and Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto. Through the book, the lives of these six people overlap as they share similar experiences. Each chapter covers a time period from the morning of the bombing to 40 years after the bombing for each witness.

Name Details
Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto (3,500 yards from center)- pastor at Hiroshima Methodist Church, small man in stature, “quick to talk, laugh and cry” , weak yet fiery, cautious and thoughtful, educated in theology at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, speaks excellent English, obsessed with being spied on, Chairman of Neighborhood Association.[5] Kiyoshi Tanimoto.jpg
Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura (1,350 yards from explosion center)- tailor’s widow raising her three children (10 year old boy Toshio, eight year old girl Yaeko, and five year old girl Myeko), husband recently died in Singapore in the war effort. Hatsuyo Nakamura.jpg
Dr. Masakazu Fujii (1,550 yards from explosion center)- hedonistic, owns private hospital that contains 30 rooms for patients with modern equipment, family living in Osaka and Kyushu, convivial and calm. Masakazu Fujii.jpg
Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge (Makoto Takakura) (1,400 yards from explosion center)- 38 years old, German priest of the Society of Jesus, weakened by wartime diet, feels unaccepted by the Japanese people, “ thin face, with a prominent Adam’s apple, a hollow chest, dangling hands, big feet” [5] Wilhelm Kleinsorge.jpg
Dr. Terufumi Sasaki (1,650 yards from the center of the explosion)- 25 years old, young surgeon at the Red Cross Hospital, lived with his mother in Mukaihara, idealist, upset with poor health services and practiced medicine in communities with poor health care without a permit, not related to Miss Toshiko Sasaki. Terufumi Sasaki.jpg
Miss Toshinki Sasaki (Sister Dominique Sasaki) (1,600 yards from the center of the explosion)- 20 years old, engaged to soldier, “clerk in the personal department of the East Asia Tin Works”[5] Toshiko Sasaki.jpg

"A Noiseless Flash" [edit]

This chapter introduces the characters and details the witnesses’ accounts of the morning before and their perception of the explosion of the atomic bomb. The explosion occurred at exactly 8:15am, local time. Miss Toshiko is at her desk and talking to a fellow employee at the Tin factory when the room filled with “ a blinding light”.[5] Miss Toshiko went unconscious. She was covered with a bookshelf while the building collapsed around her. While sitting on his porch, Dr. Masakuza Fujii witnessed a “brilliant yellow” flash and toppled into the river.[5] He injured his shoulder severely. After returning to her home from a safe area, Mrs. Nakamura saw a flash “whiter than any white she had” seen before.[5] She was thrown into the next room while her children where buried in debris. While reading his morning paper, Father Wilhem Kleinsorge witnesses a “terrible flash…[like] a large meteor colliding with the earth”.[5] He found himself in the vegetable garden of the missionary with only small cuts. Standing alone in a corridor, Dr. Tereufumi Sasaki saw a “gigantic photographic flash”.[5] The explosion ripped the hospital apart but Dr. Sasaki remained untouched expect his glass were removed from his face. Dr. Sasaki was now the only doctor to be unhurt in the hospital and the hospital was quickly filled with patients. Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto saw a “tremendous flash of light cut across the sky”.[5] Tanimoto threw himself against a wall of his home and felt pressure, splinters, and debris falls on him.

"The Fire" [edit]

Chapter 2 documents the time immediately after the explosion where the fires are spreading and the witnesses are trying to save others and find safety for themselves. Immediately after the explosion, Reverend Tanimoto ran in search of his family and parishioners. He puts aside the search for his family when he comes across people in need of help and then resumes the search for his family. Mrs. Nakamura travels with her children and neighbor to Asano Park at the Jesuit mission house. Mrs. Nakamura and her children are continuously vomiting. Father Kleinsorge is found wondering the mission grounds with numerous pieces of glass in his back. Father Kleinsorge ran into his room and grabbed a first aid kit and his suitcase containing money and paperwork of the mission. Father Kleinsorge and others go out and bring food back for everyone at Asano Park. Dr. Fujii’s hospital was in the nearby river while he was trapped between its beams, unable to move. Dr. Fujii looks at the cities and calls it “an endless parade of misery”.[5] Dr. Sasaki “worked without method” in deciding which patient would receive care next.[5] Patients filled every inch of the hospital. People were throwing up everywhere. He became like a robot, repeating treatment on patient after patient. Miss Sasaki still lays unconscious under the bookshelf and crumbled building. Her leg is only severely broken. She is propped up alongside two badly wounded people and left. Father Kleinsorge sets off for Asano Park. Mr. Tanimoto has crossed town to find his family and parishioners. He apologizes to the wounded as he passes by for not being injured. Only out of luck does he run into his wife and child in Ushida. They split up so that she may go find her family and he may take care of the church.

"Details Are Being Investigated" [edit]

Chapter three chronicles the days after the explosion, the continuing troubles faced by the survivors and the possible explanations for the massive devistation that the witnesses come across. On August 12, the Nakamuras continued to be sick and discovered the rest of their family had perished. Mr. Tanimoto continues to ferry people from one side of the river to the other in hopes to bring them to safety from the fires. Father Kleinsorge, weakened by his injuries and previous illness, remains in the Park. He is finally welcomed by the Japanese and no longer feels like a foreigner. Dr. Fujii sleeps on the floor of his destroyed family’s home. His left clavicle is broken and is covered in many deep cuts. Ten thousand wounded have shown up at the Red Cross Hospital. Dr. Sasakiis still trying to attend to as many people as possible. All that can be done is to put saline on the worst burns. Dead patients were lying everywhere. Miss Sasaki is still left with no help outside the factory. Finally friends come to locate her body and she is transferred to a hospital. -At the end of the chapter, on August 15, the war is over.

"Panic Grass and Feverfew" [edit]

It has been twelve days since the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Four square miles of the city had been completely destroyed. Since the bombing, Hiroshima has been flooded which continued the chaos and destruction. Many people are now developing radiation sickness and a hatred for the Americans has been festering but decreased once Hiroshima was designated safe radiation levels. Father Kleinsorge’s wounds were examined and found to have reopened and become inflamed. Even into September, Father Kleinsorge is getting worse. He was taken to the hospital for a high fever, anemia and low leukocyte levels. Mrs. Nakamura still felt nauseated and her hair began to fall out. Once given the okay that the radiation levels in Hiroshima where acceptable and her appearance was presentable, she returned to her home to retrieve her sewing machine but it was rusted and ruined. Mr. Tanimoto also fell ill without any notice. His fever reached 104 degrees Fahrenheit and was given Vitamin B1 injections to combat the radiation disease. Miss Sasaki remains hospitalized and in pain. The infection has prevented doctors from being able to set her fractured leg. She was discharged from the hospital at the end of April but was severely crippled. Dr. Fujii is still living in a friend’s summer home and his injuries have progressed well. He has been noting that many survivors are continuing to experience strange problems. He bought a new clinic in a Hiroshima suburb and once healed began a successful practice. Dr. Sasaki has been studying the progression of patients and developed three stages of the disease. After six months, the Red Cross Hospital began to function normally. He remained the only surgeon on staff but finally had time to get married in March.

One year after the bombing:“Miss Sasaki was a cripple; Mrs. Nakamura was destitute; Father Kleinsorge was back in the hospital; Dr. Sasaki was not capable of the work he had once done; Dr. Fujii had lost the thirty-room hospital it took him many years to acquire, and no prospects of rebuilding it; Mr. Tanimoto’s church had been ruined and he no longer had his exceptional vitality.”.[5]

"The Aftermath" [edit]

This chapter was added forty years after the initial publication in The New Yorker.[7] It appeared on July 15, 1985 in an issue of The New Yorker.[6] Hersey returned back to Hiroshima to update the readers of what has become of these six survivors of the atomic bombing. This chapter has been incorporated into the newer editions of the texts and reading as chapter 5.[3] The survivors of the Hiroshima bombing are now being referred to as hibakusha (explosion-affected people). The Japanese refused to take any responsibility for the acts the Americans were force to perform. Many employers refused to hire a hibakusha because they could not work as hard. They were termed to have a lasting A-bomb sickness, which consisted of chronic weakness, dizziness and digestive issues among others. In 1954, the Lucky Dragon No. 5 bombing created a political movement for the hibakusha and created the A-bomb Victims Medical Care Law. This law allowed for medical attention for the hibakusha and a monthly allowance for them.

For a time, Mrs. Nakamura made only enough to get by and feed her family. She fell ill and could no longer work. In order to receive treatment, she was forced to sell her sewing machine. She worked odd jobs like delivering bread where she could take three or four days off to recover before working again. She continued to earn just enough to survive. She worked at the mothball factory for 13 years but did not immediately sign up for her health allowance through the A-bomb Victims Medical Care Law. She was invited to be a member of the Bereaved Family Association and traveled the world.

Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, who suffered no side effects form the bombing, was haunted by the images of the Red Cross Hospital after the bombing. In 1951, Dr. Sasaki quit working at the Red Cross Hospital. He started his own practice in his hometown and normally performed simple surgeries. He decided to build a geriatric hospital. He continued to regret not keeping better track of all the cremated bodies at the hospital.

Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge continued to suffer from A-bomb sickness. In 1958, he was named the priest at a much larger church in another part of town. He became a Japanese citizen and changed his named to Father Makoto Takakura. He fell into a coma and died on November 19, 1977. There were always fresh flowers on his grave. Tashiko Sasaki was abandoned by her fiancé after being left crippled. Over a 14-month period she underwent orthopedic surgery to improve the condition of her leg. She was quickly noticed for her potential and made a director of the Garden of St. Joseph. She retired in 1978 and was rewarded with a trip to the Holy See. She did volunteer work and spent two years a Mother Superior at Misasa.

In 1948, Dr. Fujii built a new medical practice in Hiroshima. He has been lucky and faces no long lasting effects of the A-bomb sickness. Dr. Fujii died on January 12, 1973.

Kiyoshi Tanimoto continued to preach the gospel to the people rebuilding in Hiroshima. He was brought to the United States by the Methodist Board of Missions to raise money for his church. On March 5, 1949, his memorandum, Hiroshima Ideas, was published. In 1950, he returned to America for his second speaking tour. On this trip, he makes a speech in front of members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. With all his touring, he had been given the nickname the A-bomb minister. In 1955, he returned to America with more Hiroshima Maidens. During this trip, he appears on “This is Your Life” with Ralph Edwards. He is surprised with Captain Robert Lewis, the pilot of the Enola Gay.

John Hersey

Initial Impact [edit]

“Hiroshima” was an immediate hit after its publication and was sold out at newsstands.[3] At the same time, “Hiroshima” was banned from Japan by the US Government that was now in control of the country.[8] It was discussed around the table and excerpts were seen in other papers where it was either applauded or met with distain. Times magazine said this about “Hiroshima”:

|“Every American who has permitted himself to make jokes about atom bombs, or who has come to regard them as just one sensational phenomenon that can now be accepted as part of civilization, like the airplane and the gasoline engine, or who has allowed himself to speculate as to what we might do with them if we were forced into another war, ought to read Mr. Hersey. When this magazine article appears in book form the critics will say that it is in its fashion a classic. But it is rather more than that”.[9]

|It was also met with approval by The New Republic which said “Hersey's piece is certainly one of the great classics of the war”.[10] While the majority of the excerpts praised the article, Mary McCarthy said that “to have done the atomic bomb justice, Mr. Hersey would have had to interview the dead”.[11] It was quickly a book in the Book-of-the-Month Club and distributed for free because of its impact on the humanity of the human race.[12] “Hiroshima” was also read word for word on the radio by the American Broadcasting Corp., amplifying its effects.[2][13]

|After the publication of Hiroshima on August 31, 1946, only a little more than a year after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the American public was shown a different interpretation of the Japanese that had been in the media previous to this.[9] The Americans could let go of some of the guilt knowing that the Japanese did not blame them for this terrible act of war.[9] After reading “Hiroshima” a Manhattan Project Scientist wrote that he wept as he remembered how he celebrated the dropping of the atomic bomb.[9] Scientists along with the American public felt shame and guilt at the suffering of the people of Hiroshima.[9] As voiced by witnesses in “Hiroshima”, the people of Hiroshima did not blame the Americans for the infliction but instead their own government.[5][14] Many Japanese believe that the dropping of the atomic bomb saved Japan and it was widely thought that the Japanese Government would have destroyed the entire country before losing the war.[9]

Lasting Impact [edit]

As can be expected, the publication of this article placed Hiroshima and the atomic bomb at the heart of the nuclear war debate. In Hiroshima in History and Memory by Hogan, the beliefs that “Hiroshima” created a realization of the magnitude of the event and an entrance into the analysis of the event.[15] It put forward three issues that before had not been faced: the force of modern science, the bomb and the future of nuclear weapons.[15]

The events of the dropping of the atomic bomb live in the psyche of everyone and were brought to gruesome light by Hersey.[15] “Hiroshima’ has and will continue to be “part of our ceaseless thinking about world wars and nuclear holocaust”.[16] The effects of the radiation sickness have continued to be a concern for the world and the safety of nuclear power.[17] These concerns have resurfaced since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor incident.[17] The images brought to the public after the publishing of “Hiroshima” were revived in the world’s eyes [17][18]

The grotesque images depicted in “Hiroshima” led the way for a new wave of science fiction literature. A wave of “future-war” stories such as Flash Gordon are “narrated from the point of view of an everyman" who witnesses the invasion of his country first hand.[2] As the narrators struggle to survive, we get to witness the horror of the attack through their eyes, and come to loathe the enemy aliens that have so cruelly and unjustly invaded their country”.[2]

Further reading [edit]

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ a b c Roger Angell, From the Archives, “HERSEY AND HISTORY,” The New Yorker, July 31, 1995, p. 66.
  2. ^ a b c d Sharp, “From Yellow Peril to Japanese Wasteland: John Hersey's "Hiroshima", Twentieth Century Literature 46 (2000): 434-452, accessed March 15, 2012.
  3. ^ a b c Jon Michaub, “EIGHTY-FIVE FROM THE ARCHIVE: JOHN HERSEY” The New Yorker, June 8, 2010, np.
  4. ^ “WW2 People’s War” http:// http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/timeline/factfiles/nonflash/a6652262.shtml
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n John Hersey, Hiroshima (New York: Random House, 1989).
  6. ^ a b c d Jon Michaub, “EIGHTY-FIVE FROM THE ARCHIVE: JOHN HERSEY” The New Yorker, June 8, 2010, np.
  7. ^ Roger Angell, From the Archives, “HERSEY AND HISTORY,” The New Yorker, July 31, 1995, p. 66.
  8. ^ Ian Buruma, “Expect to Be Lied to in Japan”, The New York Review of Books, November 8, 2012. np.
  9. ^ a b c d e f Gerard J. DeGroot, The bomb: a life. Massachusets: Harvard Press, 2005.
  10. ^ Leonard Ray Teel, The Public Press, 1900-1954: the history of American Journalism (Conneticut: Greenwood Publishing, 2006), 228.
  11. ^ Richard Minear, Hiroshima (New Jersey: Princeton Press, 1990), 7
  12. ^ Leonard Ray Teel, The Public Press, 1900-1954: the history of American Journalism (Conneticut: Greenwood Publishing, 2006), 228.
  13. ^ Micheal J. Hogan, Hiroshima in History and Memory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 149-152.
  14. ^ Richard Minear, Hiroshima (New Jersey: Princeton Press, 1990), 7.
  15. ^ a b c Harvey J.Langholtz, Psychology of Peace Keeping (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 1988), 86.
  16. ^ Roger Angell, From the Archives, “HERSEY AND HISTORY,” The New Yorker, July 31, 1995, p. 66.
  17. ^ a b c Eben Harrell, “Thoughts on Fukushima and Hiroshima,” The New Yorker, March 22, 2011.
  18. ^ Matthew Jones, After Hiroshima: The United States, Race and Nuclear Weapons in Asia, 1945-1965 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 23-25.

External links [edit]

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