Culture - History

Hiroshima

 

THIS IS WHAT I SAW
Page 2

 
Aug. 8, 1945
Walked to Rescue Headquarters, located in the Bank of Hiroshima that was a stone building which had not been destroyed. People assigned rescue detail were based there. What he could do was mostly taking care of corpses. He met a person who lived about 8km apart from there and let him stay while he was in Hiroshima. He got to eat Onigiri (rice balls), given out by Rescue Headquarters.
"A large number of dead bodies were floating in the river. Tide made them move them, seeming as if they would not accept their deaths. This is curious to say, women float lying on their stomachs, and men floating lying on their backs. Many army horses were floating with their intestines protruding from the anus, looking like large balloons."(Men with long sticks were collecting the dead bodies along the river.)
"It seemed like it was going to take forever to gather corpses floating on the river. Boats carried corpses back and forth all day long."
"There were many people that houses had fell on and they were in the fire. There was nothing I could do for them. All I could do was to carry people out of cracks between the houses. A park was full of dead bodies, more curbs of wells collapsed and burned down. It gave off a stench very badly."

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