Hiroshima

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Hiroshima

Chapter 1 – A Noiseless Flash

The story starts out by a mini intro of the characters. Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the East Asia Tin Works, was sitting down talking to the girl of the next desk. Dr. Fuji was sitting down the Osaka Asahi on the porch of his private hospital. Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, a tailor’s widow, stood by the window of her kitchen, watching a neighbor tear down his house. Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a German priest, reclined in his underwear on a cot on the top floor of his order’s mission house. Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, a young member of the surgical staff of the city’s Red Cross Hospital, walked along in the halls carrying a blood specimen. Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, a pastor of the Hiroshima Methodist was carrying some of his possessions to a rich man’s house in fear of the massive B-29 raid, which everyone expected Hiroshima to suffer.

Reverend Mr. Tanimoto

Mr. Tanimoto was a small man, quick to talk, laugh, and cry. His hair parted in the middle and rather long; the prominence of the frontal bones just above his eyebrows and the smallness of hi mustache, mouth, and chin gave him a strange, old-young look, boyish and yet wise, weak and yet fiery. He woke up a 5:00 because he could not sleep. He was worrying about his wife and kids, and a massive raid on their town. Mr. Tanimoto had studied theology at Emory College, in Atlanta, Georgia. He started to carry his things and belongings from the church with his friend Mr. Matsuo to Mr. Matsui’s house, a man who let a large number of his friends and acquaintances, so that they might evacuate whatever they wished to a safe distance from the target area. Mr. Tanimoto and Mr. Matsuo made a quick stop to Mr. Matsuo’s house to carry a large Japanese cabinet. They arrived to Mr. Matsui’s house tired and exhausted. A tremendous flash of light cut across the sky. They were 2 miles from the center of the explosion. Mr. Matsuo dived in the bedrolls. Mr. Tanimoto took four or five steps into the house and threw himself between two big rocks in the garden. There was no roar. When Mr. Tanimoto looked up, he saw Mr. Matsui’s house was in to pieces. Mr. Tanimoto dashed out to the streets and noticed everything around him was in ruins too.

Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura

Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, a tailor’s widow, lived in the section called Nobori-cho. She set her three children- a 1...

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.... They put two together, end to end, and made a chapel. They commissioned a contractor to build a 3-story mission house. He found it very hard to sleep like Dr. Fujii said.

Mr. Tanimoto

Mr. Tanimoto also came down with a huge fever of 104. He sent for a doctor, but the doctor was too busy so instead, a nurse came and gave him Vitamin B injections. He spent a month in bed and then later he took the train to his father’s house in Shikoku, there he rested another month.

Mr. Tanimoto draped a tent over a house he rented in Ushida. He gave his services there. He became quite friendly with Father Kleinsorge and saw the Jesuits often. He envied the church’s wealth; they seemed to be able to do anything they wanted.

Dr. Sasaki

Dr. Sasaki and a few colleagues discover three stages to the radiation sickness. Stage 1- a reaction to the radiation. Stage 2- falling hair. Stage 3- high fevers and diarrhea. They also discovered other things and factors pertaining to the radiation sicknesses. Dr. Sasaki worked in the hospital non-stop for about 6-months until the hospital was fully back to normal. He felt really tired all the time. He too also returned to normal.

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