Miyoko Watanabe

By JOHN NORTH

Miyoko Watanabe, a survivor of the American atomic-bomb drop on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II, spoke poignantly of the horrors she and those close to her suffered — and issued a warning — during a July 9 presentation at UNC Asheville’s Laurel Forum in Karpen Hall.

She explained through an interpreter, “I tell you this because I want you to understand the bomb that fell on Hiroshima was small, compared to today’s nuclear arsenal.

“I come to tell you this, not because I want you to feel sorry for me as a victim,” but to warn against the use of such bombs today.

“If we had a war now, it could result in the anihilation of humanity ... Nuclear weapons and human beings cannot coexist.”

She began her talk and slide presentation by showing and telling of scenes from the aftermath of the Aug. 6, 1945 bombing, noting that today’s Peace Park is near the center of the bombing of Hiroshima. “Before, it was the bustling part of the city.”

In a slide of her family, she sadly noted that the picture was the first family portrait — “and we didn’t know it would be the last.”

Watanabe said she was “lucky enough” to be in the outer ring of the bombing area. She recalled carrying a parasol on the street when she suddenly was “bathed in an indescribable light — yellowish, orangeish.” She automatically crouched in the awkward position that Japanese citizens were taught by the government to take to avoid damage to their faces and vital organs.

She told of her mother emerging from their house with her face split open to the skull, bleeding profusely.

Watanabe sought help for her mother, but the area hospital was burning, so they ended up at an army hospital.

Around her, she saw people wandering around with “their skin falling off and the blast blew off the small rubber shoes that most residents wore.” As a result, the victims were walking barefoot over glass and nails without realizing it. Almost all were chanting, “Water, water ....”

“The charred flesh smelled like grilled fish,” Watanabe said, noting that as a result, she could not eat grilled fish for years.

She also told of a neighbor woman who was killed by a shard of glass through her throat, but, even in death, cradled her two-year-old baby, who survived.

“Nobody was in the air-raid shelters at the time of the bombing because they had gotten an all-clear,” Watanabe said. “After the bombing, people went into the shelters, not knowing what to do ... If the raid had been warned of, a lot fewer people would have died.”

In the overcrowded hospital, those who were burned on their backs lay on their stomachs and those burned on their stomachs on their backs, she recalled. “People were burned down to their flesh, their meat, their organs.

“We could see the sky over Hiroshima was a bright red, as if the sky itself was burning.”

Her father, who was severely burned, was taken by boat to a nearby island where such people were treated. “My father had been asking for water, but we didn’t give it to him because we had been told it would kill burn victims.” Later, she learned that she had been told a myth and regrets not granting her father’s wish.

Japan surrendered on Aug. 15 and “on the 16th, my father, who did not seem to be in his death throes, declared he was cold and suddenly died,” Watanabe noted.

“I wasn’t able to feel anything when my father died, much to my sorrow,” she said.

“My brother, who did survive, later became ill with what we later called Bomb Disease ... He started feeling weak — and finally we understood he had leukemia. Before his illness became severe, he was able to marry and have children — and those children survived.”

After they cremated her brother, Watanabe said she could never forget how he looked — “his skull was porous like pumice stones. His bones were brown, like fallen leaves. When she touched his bones, the bones and ribs disintegrated under her hands like sand.”

In reiterating that her presentation was intended to spark interest in and action against the threat of nuclear bombs, Watanabe stated, “I will go anywhere to tell the objective of that goal” of eliminating nuclear weapons.

“I know all of you who came tonight are good-hearted people. Please use your brains to free the world of nuclear weapons. With this, I close my story,” Watanabe said to a sustained ovation from the audience.