Special Report LAST UPDATE January 7, 2009
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December 14, 2008 Testimony of Takeuchi Kouzou – 63rd Global Voyage for a Nuclear Free World, Hibakusha Project Participant
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Name: Mr TAKEUCHI Kouzou
 Date of birth: April 22, 1931
Place of birth: Mikawa-cho, Hiroshima
 Age at the time the bomb was dropped: 14

Could you please describe your experience of the atomic bomb?

I was born in Mikawa-cho and lived in Takeya-cho, but at the time [of the bombing] I had been evacuated to a suburb of Hiroshima called Itsukaichi with my family, from where I commuted to school in Hiroshima. It was a Monday, so I had gone to school and experienced the atomic bomb there. At that time, there were no soldiers in the military ground in the eastern part of Hiroshima where they usually trained, so students like myself had to do heavy jobs for the country. We eighth graders planted sweet potatoes there to increase the food supply. On that day, my classmates were working in the field planting potatoes. I was told later that they heard the buzzing of airplanes, and looked up to the sky where they saw B29s flying over Hiroshima City. Suddenly, they saw a falling parachute that burst in the air and was severely burnt. The seventh graders in my school, however, were working tearing down wooden houses in the area directly where the bomb was dropped, and all of them died.

However, on that day, my friend and I were asked to help our teacher move, because the teacher was also evacuating to the city to where our family had been evacuated to. When the bomb was dropped, I was in a narrow alley between the houses, and saw a reflection of the flash of light on the wall. I was not directly exposed to the light. I instantly bent over when I saw the light, and had a minor head injury from being hit by a brick falling from a roof, but I did not suffer any serious injuries. I actually did not hear the blast sound, but when I got up I realized that my teacher's house was partly destroyed. Since my teacher lived close to school, we decided to go back there. On the way to school, we saw a long line of people walking and escaping from the center of Hiroshima City. As I said earlier, there were not many men left in town, so those whom we saw on the street were mainly women and children. Some of them were pressing their hands on their stomach trying to push the intestines that had popped out from their stomachs back inside. The arms of some people seemed as if they were double the length of normal arms, because the skin was peeled off from their shoulders and it hung down at their wrists or fingertips. Those people, without saying a single word, were walking towards the west.

When we arrived at the school, we found it was totally destroyed. With the school principal and a custodian, we went inside the building and saw the assistant principal covered with blood. We tried to carry him on a wooden board to a safer air raid shelter near the playground, and while helping him, we heard the voice of a student in grade 9 who was caught under something. Some students were in the building during that time is because those who were in poor health and unable to work in the field were permitted to stay at school to study. We all called to him and tried to find the exact location where his voice was coming from, but we could not do anything because we were unable to see exactly where he was. Then a fire broke out. Under the principal’s order, we had to leave the building to escape and I went back to my house by foot. A few days after the fire, the student was found dead.

At the time, my father was working in a military related job in Hiroshima City. Three days after the bomb was dropped he still had not returned home, so all of us went to look for him in Hiroshima City. Although we visited several first aid centers where wounded people were sent, and even searched for him in the piles of dead people, we could not find him. We thought he was dead. After about a week or ten days, he came home and told us what had happened to him. On that day, he had gone to visit his younger brother who lived in Ebisu Ward near ground zero. There, both of them were exposed to the radiation. My uncle was instantly killed at the scene, and my father was buried under the house and suffered a serious head injury. He also had a large splinter in his nose which was later removed.

How did that experience affect your (and/or your family’s) life immediately afterward?

As I said, I was slightly injured, but my father was exposed to the radiation near ground zero, so he began to show symptoms of the radiation sickness in September [1945]. His face turned purple, spots started to appear on his body, his hair started to fall out and his gums started to bleed. Although his life was in danger everyday, he was physically strong and survived. Although I experienced the atomic bomb, I did not suffer from any serious disorder--I just felt languid and also I had pleurisy, which was a common disease at that time.

How did that experience affect your (and/or your family’s) life in the decades that followed?

My mother later suffered from nephropathy, cataracts and other disorders, and died from the radiation sickness. As for me, I underwent surgery for liver angiosarcoma and half of my liver was removed. I also had a surgery for a cataract last November. Aside from the physical problems, I heard that my mother-in-law was really worried about my wife and I having a baby when we got married. At that time, it was believed that no one could live in Hiroshima city for at least 70 years. My wife wand I were also worried, but fortunately we had two healthy boys.

What conclusions have you drawn from the above experiences?

During the war, it was obvious that Japan was losing. But Japanese people believed that Japan was going to win because we were not informed that there were no food supplies, aircrafts or ships. The idea that Japan was never going to lose was strongly instilled in us. Thus, when Japan actually lost the war, we were very shocked. What I can draw from this experience is that although education is very important, it could be very dangerous at the same time because we can brainwash children even only 3 or 4 years old. If we educate children from a wrong historical perspective, like the way we were, it will create problems.

At the same time, I learned that we needed to learn history thoroughly and to learn by ourselves – and not always be told how to learn by someone else. I learned how to develop my own thinking myself. It is sometimes necessary to force students to learn things such as the alphabet, but the most important aim of education should be to teach children how to foster the ability to think. I keep telling people that the important thing is to love, to feel and learn by ourselves, and that what is important now is that which can make us happy. These are my favorite sentences which I always tell people.

Since I was a university student, I have been saying that I am a survivor of the atomic bomb and cannot die because I have to convey the horror of atomic bomb to the next generation. That is why I call myself a survivor.

While I am also of course opposed to the production of atomic bombs, just asking for this to stop will not work, because the power lies in the hands of the nuclear powers. In order to achieve nuclear abolition, we Hibakusha must continue to share our experiences and voices against nuclear weapons until for example the citizens of the US also rise in opposition to using their taxes for such a wasteful purpose. So we Hibakusha cannot die yet. Of course we will all grow old and pass on, but our spirit must not die out. I live with this spirit.

Do you have any other messages you would like to convey about nuclear weapons and/or war?

I strongly disagree with using nuclear weapons! However within society, wherever there are people there will be conflict. It is all well and good to be against war, but I do not believe we can completely eliminate wars from this world. I am not saying that war is good, but we should rethink the way they are fought. We should not allow the killing of many innocent people as happens with weapons of mass destruction like the atomic bombs. The way atomic bombs kill and affect people physically and also psychologically for generations should not be repeated.