The United States and its allies used horrific violence in the war. The fire bombing ofDresden killed more than 100,000 people. The dropping of two atomic bombs on Japanin August 1945 killed 200,000 more. The following is the recollection of YamaokaMichiko, a survivor of the bombing, where she describes the awful morning of August 6,1945 when a Boeing B-29 bomber dropped an enriched uranium bomb on Hiroshima.Here she is 48 years later, visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in 1993.

Yamaoka Michiko, “Eight Hundred Meters from

the Hypocenter” (1992)

That year, on August 6 [1945], I was in the third year of girls’ high school, 15 years old. Iwas an operator at the telephone exchange. We had been mobilized from school forvarious work assignments for more than a year. My assigned place was civilian, but we,too, were expected to protect the nation. We were tied by strong bonds to the country,We’d heard the news about the Tokyo and Osaka bombings, but nothing had droppedon Hiroshima. Japan was winning. So we still believed. We only had to endure. I wasn’tparticularly afraid when B-29s flew overhead.

That morning I left the house at about 7:45. I heard that the B-29s had already gonehome. Mom told me, “Watch out, the B-29s might come again.” My house was 1.3kilometers from the hypocenter. My place of work was 500 meters from the hypocenter.I walked toward the hypocenter in an area where all the houses and buildings had beendeliberately demolished for fire breaks. There was no shade. I had on a white shirt andpants. As I walked there, I noticed middle-school students pulling down houses at apoint about 800 meters away from the hypocenter. I heard the faint sound of planes as Iapproached the river. The planes were tricky. Sometimes they only pretended to leave. Icould still hear the very faint sound of planes. Today, I have no hearing in my left earbecause of damage from the blast. I thought, how strange, so I put my right hand abovemy eyes and looked up to see if I could spot them. The sun was dazzling. That was themoment.

There was no sound. I felt something strong. It was terribly intense. I felt colors. Itwasn’t heat. You can’t really say it was yellow, and it wasn’t blue. At that moment Ithought I would be the only one who would die. I said to myself, “Goodbye, Mom.”

They say temperatures of 7,000 degrees centigrade hit me. You can’t really say itwashed over me. It’s hard to describe. I simply fainted. I remember my body floating inthe air. That was probably the blast, but I don’t know how far I was blown. When I cameto my senses, my surroundings were silent. There was no wind. I saw a slight threadlikelight, so I felt I must be alive. I was under stones. I couldn’t move my body. I heardvoices crying, “Help! Water!” It was then I realized I wasn’t the only one. I couldn’t reallysee around me. I tried to say something, but my voice wouldn’t come out.

“Fire! Run away! Help! Hurry up!” They weren’t voices but moans of agony and despair.“I have to get help and shout,” I thought. The person who rescued me was Mom,although she herself had been buried under our collapsed house. Mom knew the routeI’d been taking. She came, calling out to me. I heard her voice and cried for help. Oursurroundings were already starting to burn. Fires burst out from just the light itself. Itdidn’t really drop. It just flashed. It was beyond my mother’s ability. She pleaded, “Mydaughter’s buried here, she’s been helping you, working for the military.” She convincedsoldiers nearby to help her and they started to dig me out. The fire was now blazing.“Woman, hurry up, run away from here,” soldiers called. From underneath the stones Iheard the crackling of flames. I called to her, “It’s all right. Don’t worry about me. Runaway.” I really didn’t mind dying for the sake of the nation. Then they pulled me out bymy legs.

Nobody there looked like human beings. Until that moment I thought incendiary bombshad fallen. Everyone was stupefied. Humans had lost the ability to speak. Peoplecouldn’t scream, “It hurts!” even when they were on fire. People didn’t say, “It’s hot!”They just sat catching fire. My clothes were burnt and so was my skin. I was in rags. I

had braided my hair, but now it was like a lion’s mane. There were people, barelybreathing, trying to push their intestines back in. People with their legs wrenched off.Without heads. Or with faces burned and swollen out of shape. The scene I saw was aliving hell.

Mom didn’t say anything when she saw my face and I didn’t feel any pain. She justsqueezed my hand and told me to run. She was going to go rescue my aunt. Largenumbers of people were moving away from the flames. My eyes were still able to see,so I made my way towards the mountain, where there was no fire, toward Hijiyama. Onthis flight I saw a friend of mine from the phone exchange. She’d been inside her houseand wasn’t burned. I called her name, but she didn’t respond. My face was so swollenshe couldn’t tell who I was. Finally, she recognized my voice. She said, “Miss Yamaoka,you look like a monster!” That’s the first time I heard that word. I looked at my handsand saw my own skin hanging down and the red flesh exposed. I didn’t realize my facewas swollen up because I was unable to see it.

The only medicine was tempura oil. I put it on my body myself. I lay on the concrete forhours. My skin was now flat, not puffed up anymore. One or two layers had peeled off.Only now did it become painful. A scorching sky was overhead. The flies swarmed overme and covered my wounds, which were already festering. People were simply left lyingaround. When their faint breathing became silent, they’d say, “This one’s dead,” and putthe body in a pile of corpses. Some called for water, and if they got it, they diedimmediately.

Mom came looking for me again. That’s why I’m alive today. I couldn’t walk anymore. Icouldn’t see anymore. I was carried on a stretcher as far as Ujina, and then from thereto an island where evacuees were taken. On the boat there I heard voices saying, “Letthem drink water if they want. They’ll die either way.” I drank a lot of water.

I spent the next year bedridden. All my hair fell out. When we went to relatives’ houseslater they wouldn’t even let me in because they feared they’d catch the disease. Therewas neither treatment nor assistance for me. Those people who had money, peoplewho had both parents, people who had houses, they could go to the Red Cross Hospitalor the Hiroshima City Hospital. They could get operations. But we didn’t have anymoney. It was just my Mom and I. Keloids [scar tissue] covered my face, my neck. Icouldn’t even move my neck. One eye was hanging down. I was unable to control mydrooling because my lip had been burned off. I couldn’t get any treatments at a hospital,so my mother gave me massages. Because she did that for me, my keloids aren’t asbad as they would have been. My fingers were all stuck together. I couldn’t move them.The only thing I could do was sew shorts, since I only needed to sew a straight line. Ihad to do something to earn money.

The Japanese government just told us we weren’t the only victims of the war. There wasno support or treatment. It was probably harder for my Mom. Once she told me she triedto choke me to death. If a girl has a face you couldn’t be born with, I understand thateven a mother could want to kill her child. People threw stones at me and called meMonster. That was before I had my many operations. I only showed this side of my face,the right hand side, when I had to face someone.

A decade after the bomb, we went to America. I was one of the 25 selected to bebrought to America for treatment and plastic surgery. We were called the HiroshimaMaidens. The American government opposed us, arguing that it would beacknowledging a mistake if they admitted us to America, but we were supported bymany civilian groups. We went to Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and spent about ayear and a half undergoing treatment. I improved tremendously. I’ve now had 37operations, including efforts at skin grafts.

When I went to America I had a deep hatred toward America. I asked myself why theyended the war by a means which destroyed human beings. When I talked about how Isuffered, I was often told, “Well, you attacked Pearl Harbor!” I didn’t understand muchEnglish then, and it’s probably just as well. From the American point of view, theydropped that bomb in order to end the war faster. But it’s inexcusable to harm humanbeings in this way. I wonder what kind of education there is now in America aboutatomic bombs. They’re still making them, aren’t they?

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Using this source, please answer the following questions:

1. So… first impressions? Did anything strike you when you read it?2. According to Michiko, why did the U.S. government oppose bringing the

Hiroshima Maidens to the U.S. for medical assistance? Did anyone supportbringing them to the U.S.?

3. How do you think Michiko would want us to learn about atomic bombs? Why?