The article begins on the morning of August 6, 1945, the day the atomic bomb was dropped, killing an estimated 135,000 people.[24] The book begins with the following sentence:
At exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in the plant office and was turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk.
— Hiroshima, John Hersey, 1946[25]
Hersey introduces the six characters: two doctors, a Protestant minister, a widowed seamstress, a young female factory worker and a German Catholic priest.[26] It describes their mornings before the bomb was dropped. Through the book, the lives of these six people overlap as they share similar experiences. Each chapter covers a time period from the morning of the bombing to one year later for each witness. An additional chapter covering the aftermath 40 years after the bombing was added in later editions.
Book Characters- Kiyoshi Tanimoto
- Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura
- Dr. Masakazu Fujii
- Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge (later Makoto Takakura)
- Dr. Terufumi Sasaki
- Toshiko Sasaki (Sister Dominique Sasaki)
The six characters are:
- Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto
Tanimoto is 3,500 yards (3,200 m) from the explosion. A pastor at Hiroshima Methodist Church, a small man in stature, "quick to talk, laugh and cry", weak yet fiery, cautious and thoughtful, he was educated in theology in the U.S. at Emory University, in Atlanta, Georgia, speaks excellent English, obsessed with being spied on, Chairman of Neighborhood Association.[4]
- Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura
Nakamura is 1,350 yards (1,230 m) from explosion center. She is a widow of a tailor who is raising her three children (10-year-old boy Toshio, eight-year-old girl Yaeko, and five-year-old girl Myeko). Her husband had been killed in Singapore in 1942.
- Dr. Masakazu Fujii
Fujii is 1,550 yards (1,420 m) from explosion center. He is described as hedonistic, owner of a private 30-room hospital that contains modern equipment, has family living in Osaka and Kyushu, and is convivial and calm.
- Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge (Makoto Takakura)
Kleinsorge is 1,400 yards (1,300 m) from explosion center. Kleinsorge at the time is a 38-year-old German Jesuit priest. Weakened by his wartime diet, he feels unaccepted by the Japanese people and has a "thin face, with a prominent Adam's apple, a hollow chest, dangling hands, big feet.".[4] His father superior within the mission station is Hugo Lassalle.[27]
- Dr. Terufumi Sasaki
Dr. Terufumi Sasaki is 1,650 yards (1,510 m) from the center of the explosion. He works as a 25-year-old surgeon at the Red Cross Hospital. He lives with his mother in Mukaihara, an idealist. Upset with poor health services, he practices medicine without a permit in communities lacking in quality health care. He is not related to Miss Toshiko Sasaki.
- Miss Toshiko Sasaki (Sister Dominique Sasaki)
Sasaki is 1,600 yards (1,500 m) from the center of the explosion. She is 20 years old and engaged to a soldier, as well as working as a "clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works"[4]
"A Noiseless Flash"
This chapter introduces the characters and details the witnesses' accounts of the morning before and their perception of the explosion of the atomic bomb. The explosion occurred at exactly 8:15 am, local time. Miss Toshiko is at her desk and talking to a fellow employee at the Tin factory when the room filled with " a blinding light".[4] and the flash was so powerful that it pushed over a bookshelf crushing Miss Toshiko's leg while she went unconscious. She was covered with a bookshelf while the building collapsed around her. While sitting on his porch, Dr. Masakuza Fujii witnessed a "brilliant yellow" flash and toppled into the river.[4] He injured his shoulder severely. After returning to her home from a safe area, Mrs. Nakamura saw a flash "whiter than any white she had" seen before.[4] She was thrown into the next room while her children were buried in debris. While reading his morning paper, Father Wilhem Kleinsorge witnesses a "terrible flash ... [like] a large meteor colliding with the earth".[4] He found himself in the vegetable garden of the missionary with only small cuts. Standing alone in a corridor, Dr. Terufumi Sasaki saw a "gigantic photographic flash".[4] The explosion ripped the hospital apart but Dr. Sasaki remained untouched except his glasses and shoes had been blown off his body. Dr. Sasaki was now the only doctor to be unhurt in the hospital and the hospital was quickly filled with patients. Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto saw a "tremendous flash of light cut across the sky".[4] Tanimoto threw himself against a wall of his home and felt pressure, splinters, and debris falls on him.
"The Fire"
Chapter 2 documents the time immediately after the explosion where the fires are spreading and the witnesses are trying to save others and find safety for themselves. Immediately after the explosion, Reverend Tanimoto ran in search of his family and parishioners. He puts aside the search for his family when he comes across people in need of help and then resumes the search for his family. Mrs. Nakamura travels with her children and neighbor to Asano Park at the Jesuit mission house. Mrs. Nakamura and her children are continuously vomiting. Father Kleinsorge is found wandering the mission grounds with numerous pieces of glass in his back. Father Kleinsorge ran into his room and grabbed a first aid kit and his suitcase containing money and paperwork of the mission. Father Kleinsorge and others go out and bring food back for everyone at Asano Park.
Dr. Fujii's hospital was in the nearby river while he was trapped between its beams, unable to move. Dr. Fujii looks at the city and calls it "an endless parade of misery".[4] Dr. Sasaki "worked without method" in deciding which patient would receive care next.[4] Patients filled every inch of the hospital. People were throwing up everywhere. He became like a robot, repeating treatment on patient after patient. Miss Sasaki still lies unconscious under the bookshelf and crumbled building. Her leg is only severely broken. She is propped up alongside two badly wounded people and left. Father Kleinsorge sets off for Asano Park. Mr. Tanimoto has crossed town to find his family and parishioners. He apologizes to the wounded as he passes by for not being injured. Only out of luck does he run into his wife and child on the banks of the Ōta River. They split up so that she may return to Ushida and he may take care of the church.
"Details are Being Investigated"
Chapter three chronicles the days after the dropping of the bomb, the continuing troubles faced by the survivors, and the possible explanations for the massive devastation that the witnesses come across.
On August 12, the Nakamuras continued to be sick and discovered the rest of their family had perished. Mr. Tanimoto continues to ferry people from one side of the river to the other in hopes of bringing them to safety from the fires. Father Kleinsorge, weakened by his injuries and previous illness, remains in the Park. He is finally welcomed by the Japanese and no longer feels like a foreigner. Dr. Fujii sleeps on the floor of his destroyed family's home. His left clavicle is broken and is covered in many deep cuts. Ten thousand wounded have shown up at the Red Cross Hospital. Dr. Sasaki is still trying to attend to as many people as possible. All that can be done is to put saline on the worst burns. Dead patients were lying everywhere. Miss Sasaki is still left with no help outside the factory. Finally friends come to locate her body and she is transferred to a hospital.
At the end of the chapter, on August 15, the war is over.
"Panic Grass and Feverfew"
It has been twelve days since the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Four square miles of the city had been completely destroyed. Since the bombing, Hiroshima has been flooded, which continued chaos and destruction. Many people are now developing radiation sickness and a hatred for the Americans has been festering but decreased once Hiroshima was designated to have safe radiation levels. Father Kleinsorge's wounds were examined and found to have reopened and become inflamed. Even into September, Father Kleinsorge is getting worse. He was taken to the hospital for a high fever, anemia and low leukocyte levels. Mrs. Nakamura still felt nauseated and her hair began to fall out. Once given the okay that the radiation levels in Hiroshima were acceptable and her appearance was presentable, she returned to her home to retrieve her sewing machine but it was rusted and ruined. Mr. Tanimoto also fell ill without any notice. His fever reached 104 degrees Fahrenheit and he was given Vitamin B1 injections to combat the radiation disease. Miss Sasaki remains hospitalized and in pain. The infection has prevented doctors from being able to set her fractured leg. She was discharged from the hospital at the end of April but was severely crippled. Dr. Fujii is still living in a friend's summer home and his injuries have progressed well. He has been noting that many survivors are continuing to experience strange problems. He bought a new clinic in a Hiroshima suburb and once healed began a successful practice. Dr. Sasaki has been studying the progression of patients and assigned three stages to the disease. After six months, the Red Cross Hospital began to function normally. He remained the only surgeon on staff but finally had time to get married in March.
One year after the bombing, Mr. Tanimoto's church had been ruined and he no longer had his exceptional vitality; Mrs. Nakamura was destitute; Dr. Fujii had lost the thirty-room hospital it took him many years to acquire, and no prospects of rebuilding it; Father Kleinsorge was back in the hospital; Dr. Sasaki was not capable of the work he had once done; Miss Sasaki was a cripple.[4]
"The Aftermath"
This chapter was added forty years after the initial publication in The New Yorker.[1]: p66 It appeared in the July 15, 1985 issue of The New Yorker.[5] Hersey returned to Hiroshima to learn what has become of the six survivors. His record of what he found became chapter 5 in subsequent editions of the book.[8] The survivors of the Hiroshima bombing are now referred to as hibakusha (explosion-affected people). The Japanese initially refused to take any responsibility for the American atomic bombing or the population affected. The victims were discriminated against, and many employers refused to hire a hibakusha because they could not work as hard. Their exposure, called "A-bomb sickness" in Japan, left them with chronic weakness, dizziness and digestive issues, among others. In 1954, the Lucky Dragon No. 5 contamination incident created a political movement for the hibakusha and created the A-bomb Victims Medical Care Law. This law allowed for medical attention for the hibakusha and a monthly allowance for them.
Kiyoshi Tanimoto continued to preach the gospel to the people rebuilding in Hiroshima. He was brought to the United States by the Methodist Board of Missions to raise money for his church. On March 5, 1949, his memorandum, Hiroshima Ideas, was published. In 1950, he returned to America for his second speaking tour. On this trip, he spoke to members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Because of his worldwide tours, he was nicknamed "The A-bomb minister". In 1955, he returned to America with more Hiroshima Maidens, women who were school-age girls when they were seriously disfigured as a result of the bomb's thermal flash, and who went to the U.S. for reconstructive surgery. During this trip, he appeared on This Is Your Life with Ralph Edwards. He was surprised to meet Captain Robert Lewis, the co-pilot of the Enola Gay. He died on September 28, 1986.
For a time, Mrs. Nakamura made only enough income to get by and feed her family. She fell ill and could no longer work. To receive treatment, she was forced to sell her sewing machine. She worked odd jobs like delivering bread where she could take three or four days off to recover before working again. She continued to earn just enough to survive. She worked at a mothball factory for 13 years but did not immediately sign up for her health allowance through the A-bomb Victims Medical Care Law. She was invited to be a member of the Bereaved Family Association and traveled the world.
In 1948, Dr. Fujii built a new medical practice in Hiroshima. He was fortunate enough to face no long-lasting effects of the A-bomb sickness. Dr. Fujii died on January 12, 1973.
Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge continued to suffer from radiation exposure. In 1948, he was named the priest at a much larger church in another part of town. He became a Japanese citizen and changed his name to Father Makoto Takakura. He fell into a coma and died on November 19, 1977. There were always fresh flowers on his grave.
Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, who suffered no side effects from the bombing, was haunted by the images of the Red Cross Hospital after the bombing. In 1951, Dr. Sasaki quit working at the Red Cross Hospital. He started his own practice in his hometown and normally performed simple surgeries. He decided to build a geriatric hospital. He continued to regret not keeping better track of all the cremated bodies at the hospital.
Toshiko Sasaki was abandoned by her fiancé after being left crippled. Over a 14-month period she underwent orthopedic surgery to improve the condition of her leg. After working in an orphanage for five years, she became a nun with the Society of the Helpers of Holy Souls. Taking her final vows in 1953, she adopted the name of Sister Dominique. She was quickly noticed for her potential and made a director of the Garden of St. Joseph, an old people's home. She retired in 1978 and was rewarded with a trip to the Holy See. She did volunteer work and spent two years as Mother Superior at Misasa, where she had undergone her novitiate.
