The War Orphans of Hiroshima: Part IV

by Sarah Terzo

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This post is a continuation of a series. Read Part I, Part II, and Part III.

On August 6, 1945, the United States became the first and only nation to use nuclear weapons against another nation with the bombing of Hiroshima.

Estimates on the exact number of people killed by the bombing of Hiroshima vary. One estimate was that 140,000 people died as a result of the bombing by the end of 1945.

Many children were made orphans by the atomic bomb. This is the story of one of them.

Tomoyuki's Story

Tomoyuki Satoh was four on August 6, 1945. His mother had died, and he lived with his father, his grandmother, and his siblings. That morning, he was walking to a field near his home to pick flowers for a friend. He hadn’t gone far when he experienced the bombing firsthand:

Then it suddenly got very bright. I was very surprised, so I thought I would go into the house, but suddenly it seemed like dozens of needles were stuck in my eyes…

I struggled toward the house and ran into the front door. When I opened my eyes, it was dim and gloomy. Then I saw my grandma running away as fast as she could with [my younger brother] on her back. I went with her. We went to the air-raid shelter.

Tomoyuki's father had left to volunteer that morning but came back to look for them. His oldest sister heard him calling as he stumbled through the wreckage. She left the air-raid shelter to find him.

He had been badly burned and blinded by the bomb. His sister had to take him by the hand and lead him to the shelter.

Tomoyuki said, "My father was burned everywhere above his waist. Both of my older sisters… were scared when they saw the burns."

Severely burned and injured people were everywhere, and there were very few doctors to care for them—Hiroshima’s doctors had also been caught in the bombing. In his memoir, one doctor in Hiroshima who survived, Dr. Michihiko Hachiya, said that out of 190 working in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing, 72 were dead or missing as of September 1, 1945.

Tomoyuki remembered a complete stranger who helped his grandmother care for his father. He remembers the stranger putting ointment on his father’s burns. In the terrible days after the bombing, the citizens of Hiroshima who weren’t badly injured helped those who were.

It was a special kind of tragedy, then, when many who hadn’t suffered severe injuries initially, and cared tirelessly for those who did, later got sick and died from radiation poisoning.

Tomoyuki said, “I said thank you to [the helpful stranger] in my heart." He never found out the stranger’s name.

The family’s house had been badly damaged by the bomb but was still standing. Tomoyuki said:

[W]e saw all the glass broken, our cupboards all knocked over, our Buddhist altar all upset, the outer screens of the rooms destroyed, the roof tiles broken, and the walls broken.

Most buildings, including houses, in Hiroshima were either destroyed in the initial blast or burned to the ground in the fires the bombing caused. Tomoyuki’s family, then, was lucky. They were able to stay in the damaged house. They cleaned up as best they could, and put his father to bed.

His father’s burns were severe, but he also suffered from radiation sickness. He survived for about 60 days, during which he suffered from all the symptoms of radiation poisoning.

Tomoyuki remembered that right before his father died, he asked for a sweet potato. Tomoyuki’s grandmother cooked it for him. When it was finished, his grandmother called out that it was ready.

Tomoyuki says, “[H]e didn't answer, and I touched him to see what the matter was. He felt cold and I knew he had died.”

How Did Those with Radiation Poisoning Die?

Radiation poisoning affects the blood, reducing platelets and white blood cells and damaging red blood cells. The victim dies from massive bleeding.

Dr. Hachiya, who treated patients with radiation sickness after the bombing, described some of the other symptoms as fatigue, loss of appetite, vomiting, and diarrhea, which became bloody as symptoms progressed. Victims also had blood in their urine and saliva. Bleeding, painful ulcers formed in their mouths and throats. Sometimes mouths, throats, and tonsils developed gangrene.

The victims developed petechiae, small red spots caused by hemorrhaging under the skin. These dots grew larger and more numerous as bleeding increased. They often lost their hair. 

How they actually died varied by where in the body the most severe bleeding began and which organs were affected. Dr. Hachiya described one man dying in "delirium" from a suspected brain hemorrhage. Another bled to death from his nose and rectum.

Some victims, including one 16-year-old girl named Emiko, had their lungs fill with blood and essentially drowned in it.

Dr. Hachiya shared the medical notes that documented Emiko’s decline and eventual death:

First seen on 28 August 1945 with complaints of general malaise, petechiae, and inability to sleep. At time of bombing patient was … [in] a concrete building five hundred meters from the hypocenter.

Immediate onset of dizziness and general weakness; vomited repeatedly. For next three days had nausea and malaise. Gradually recovered appetite but did not recover completely.

Patient returned to light work despite diarrhea and slight weakness. Severe [hair loss] appeared on 23 August 1945 and from then on malaise gradually increased. Abdominal pain and restlessness developed during night of 27 August…

Skin extremely pale, black-brown in color… Numerous petechiae over chest and extremities. Agonized appearance on face. Inner surfaces of eyelids suggest severe anemia… Breath sounds over chest weak with dull percussion… Pulse weak and rapid… Body temperature 104°…

Died 29 August 1945 complaining of severe shortness of breath.

The clinical term “shortness of breath” hides the horrible nature of her death, which Dr. Hachiya described as an “agony of suffocation.”

This is the way millions would die in the event of a nuclear war.

There is still no effective treatment for exposure to the massive doses of radiation released by an atomic explosion. Victims of small doses of radiation can sometimes be helped by certain medications and blood transfusions, but these treatments would be available to very few of the hundreds of thousands of casualties that would occur in the event of an atomic explosion in a modern city. 

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Children of Hiroshima is available in e-book format under a slightly different title on Amazon (Kindle) or Barnes & Noble (Nook) for $4.99. Both versions can be read in an app on your smartphone, tablet, or computer.

For more of Sarah Terzo’s writings, see Sarah Terzo’s Secular Seamless Garment.