Part 2 Summary
The Fire
Mr. Tanimoto helped an old woman and her young son get to a school that was meant to be used as a temporary hospital in the event of an attack. By the time they arrived, there were already fifty to sixty injured people waiting for help. He climbed to a higher elevation and looked down over Hiroshima and saw that much of the city appeared to be burning. He was amazed that so much damage could have been done when he had heard no explosion. Large, marble-sized raindrops began to fall as Mr. Tanimoto thought of his family down in the destruction. He began to run toward the city.
Mrs. Nakamura’s house had fallen down around her and her children as a result of the blast. She found one child half buried but safe, then heard the other two calling for help. Although the children had been sleeping ten feet apart, the blast had blown them together. Mrs. Nakamura was able to dig them out. All three children were able to escape being cut or seriously hurt.
Mrs. Nakamura took the children outside, where it was now dark from the smoke and dust. She decided to join her neighbor, Mrs. Hataya, and go to the local evacuation area, Asano Park. On her way, she saw Father Kleinsorge leaving the Jesuit mission house.
Father Kleinsorge and several other priests began helping others dig out of the wreckage of their homes. When Kleinsorge returned to his room he found some things disturbed and some things just as they had been before the blast. His suitcase, which contained money, was not damaged, so he put it in the air-raid shelter. Several other priests had tried to make it to Dr. Fujii’s hospital but were blocked by fire. They still assumed that the damage was local.
Dr. Fujii’s hospital had collapsed into the Kyo River. Dr. Fujii, with some difficulty, worked his way out from between two timbers and onto the riverbank. As he surveyed the area from the Kyo Bridge he noticed only a few fires, but there was a strong wind, and the fires began to spread.
Many of the doctors and nurses in Hiroshima had been killed or injured in the blast. Dr. Sasaki was the only member of the Red Cross Hospital who was left uninjured. As people began to pour into the hospital, Dr. Sasaki decided to focus on those who were seriously bleeding. Of the 245,000 residents of Hiroshima, 100,000 had “been killed or doomed at one blow. 100,000 more were hurt.” Because of the mass influx of wounded and dying,
Dr. Sasaki lost all sense of profession and stopped working as a skillful surgeon and a sympathetic man; he became an automaton, mechanically wiping, daubing, winding, wiping, daubing, winding.
Miss Sasaki passed in and out of consciousness for three hours, buried under the bookcase and books, with a sharp pain coming and going in her left leg. She could hear other voices nearby saying, “Please help! Get us out!”
Many of the houses around the Jesuit mission were now burning, and the wind was whipping harder and changing directions. Father Kleinsorge tried to help a woman find her husband in her burning house but was unable to do so because of the fire. Mr. Fukai, the secretary of the mission, was seen standing in the window on the second floor of the mission. Father Kleinsorge and a student dragged Mr. Fukai out of the house, even though Mr. Fukai asked them to “leave me here to die.”
Father Kleinsorge, carrying Mr. Fukai, headed for the...
(This entire section contains 1239 words.)
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safe area of the East Parade Ground along with several other priests. On the way, they could hear people crying from the collapsed houses, but because of the fires they could do nothing for them. Fire prevented them from making it to the parade ground, so they headed for Asano Park. On the way, Mr. Fukai got away and ran back in the direction of the fire.
Mr. Tanimoto ran back into the city along the Koi Highway to look for his wife and infant son. Hundreds of others, burned and injured, were heading in the opposite direction. He saw many burning houses. People cried for help from the houses, but no one helped them: they were all overwhelmed with injuries to themselves and their family members. Mr. Tanimoto’s route was repeatedly blocked by fire. After running seven miles and trying different routes, he finally crossed the Ota River because he didn’t see fire on the other side. After crossing, he found his wife and son unharmed. His wife decided to go on to Ushida, while Mr. Tanimoto decided to head back to help the people of his church. He found some of his church members at Asano Park, where he also found Father Kleinsorge.
Miss Sasaki, still buried under books and the bookcase, was able to talk to someone else who was trapped nearby. Someone came and tried to help dig her out but was unable to do so. Eventually, more men came and freed her. Her left leg was “badly broken and hung askew below the knee.” They took her into the courtyard, where it began to rain. Someone made a small lean-to out of a stray piece of corrugated iron. Miss Sasaki sat under it with two other badly injured victims.
Because of the heat from the fires, Dr. Fujii had been standing in the river near his destroyed hospital. There were many injured people on the river’s shores. Once the fires lessened, he decided to go to his parent’s house in Nagatsu. He encountered many dead on the streets and wondered what kind of attack could have killed so many.
Many people kept arriving at Asano Park, which had not been damaged by the blast or the fires yet. Now Mrs. Nakamura, her children, Father Kleinsorge and other Jesuit priests, and Mr. Tanimoto were there along with many injured and dying victims. Father Kleinsorge noticed how silent the people were, even as they suffered and died:
The hurt ones were quiet; no one wept, much less screamed in pain; no one complained; none of the many who died did so noisily; not even the children; very few people even spoke.
Mr. Tanimoto found a boat and began to ferry some of the wounded across the river and away from the fire. Later the woods around Asano Park began to burn. Mr. Tanimoto helped organize the people to fight the fire, and after several hours they were able to put it out. During this time, as the people tried to move away from the flames, some were accidentally pushed into the water by the crowd and drowned.
Abnormally large raindrops began to fall. A whirlwind developed and traveled through the park, hurling around all kinds of debris until it moved into the river and died.
When people began to feel hungry, Mr. Tanimoto and Father Kleinsorge left to search for food. They found several bags of rice along with some pumpkins and potatoes that had been cooked by the heat of the fires.
Mr. Tanimoto found a neighbor, Mrs. Kamai, holding her dead baby. She asked Mr. Tanimoto to help her find her husband. Mr. Tanimoto knew he would never be able to find him. Mrs. Kamai said, “He loved our baby so much. I want him to see her once more.”
