Suffering With Joy

“The Last Train from Hiroshima”

February 26, 2010

My thoughtful husband brought this book home from the library, knowing my great interest in Japan and World War II.  At the age of 14 or 15 I read John Hersey’s Hiroshima: The Story of six human beings who survived the explosion of the atom bomb over Hiroshima. Putting it in today’s slang, the book freaked me out.  As a child of the Cold War, which I believe began immediately after Hiroshima and Nagasaki though historians will disagree, the fear of a repeat of August, 1945 has been bound to my psyche for life.

A monumental and heart rending work,The Last Train from Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back (John MacRae Books) tells in graphic detail the results of the most horrific attack man has ever made upon man.  Charles Pellegrino’s scientific explanations of the atom bomb’s effects melds with his compassionate portrayal of the survivors whom he quotes in their own words.  He reports the instant devastation of people vaporizing before they even knew what was happening to them, buildings disappearing, and many bizarre effects.  Some survivors had the patterns of their kimonos permanently dyed into their skin; others had eyesight corrected.  A teacher who was inside and facing the direction of the flash carried the imprint of a student’s writing on her face for the rest of her life, yet the student who wrote it vanished completely with the others outside on the playground.  Shadows of people, plants, and objects were burned forever into telephone poles, trees, streets, and walls even as those that made them disappeared without a trace.

In the confusion and chaos of the flattened city, survivors and the dying were overcome with a terrible thirst.  As the black rain containing radioactive isotopes fell they opened their mouths to take it in and hastened their deaths.  Ferocious tornados of fire chased people into the river only to become waterspouts and then emerge as fire on the other side.

Pellegrino spares nothing describing the hellish scene and reporting the words of the survivors who were forbidden by their government to speak publicly about their experiences for many years.  To this day scientists cannot explain some of the phenomena after the blast, but this book gives far more scientific information and understanding than any previous work, especially to the average person.

Prominently featured are unforgettable characters who survived both Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. They were the ones who staggered over the radioactive wasteland to the train station to catch the only transportation out of Hiroshima to what they thought was safety only to be caught in the second blast three days later over Nagasaki.  Some of them were dead in six weeks from radiation poisoning while others lived many years. Most died from cancer caused by radiation effects.

Tsutomo Yamaguchi, RIP - link to Facebook page

The last survivor, Tsutsomo Yamaguchi, died January 4, 2010 at age 93, the only “official” recognized-by-the-government survivor of both atom bombs.  He suffered leukemia, cataracts, and finally stomach cancer from the radiation effects.  Yamaguchi traveled to New York in 2006, bringing comfort to families who lost loved ones at ground zero on 9-11 as only he could.  Like Dr. Takashi Nagai who survived Nagasaki, he unfailingly brought a message of love and forgiveness to the world.  It is sad that when he addressed the United Nations with this message, asking for a ban on nuclear weapons, some people rolled their eyes.

I must say that even though the recounting of deeply disturbing aspects of this story left me with feelings of horror, Pellegrino also brought out the heroism of ordinary people, too.  This book answered some questions I’ve had for a long time about what led to Japanese aggression and how the United States arrived at the decision to drop atom bombs to end the war in the Pacific.  The role communist Russia and Stalin played was not insignificant, as I have suspected for some time.

We are now over three generations past the events of August 6^th and 9^th of 1945, but this story must not die.  In this age with Sharia governments threatening nuclear war, the lessons from Japan demand attention. What Pellegrino records is very painful to read, but essential to understanding what happened then and what could happen today with far worse effects.  I believe the book should be required reading in history classes.

Tags: atom bomb, suffering