Ishibumi (いしぶみ)

Ishibumi.

On August 6th 1945 the sun rose at 5:24 a.m

it was already a hot summer's day

the war was at its peak and life was tough

with so little food to eat or goods to buy

but Hiroshima was still a time-worn castle town

and the days passed quietly.

A 7th grader was running late for school

but he lingered instead of getting ready to leave

his worried mother finally got him out of the house

but he immediately turned back

savoring a drink of tap water he raced out again

that was the last time his mother saw him alive

many Hiroshima residents had previously

emigrated to Hawaii and the US mainland

and there were rumors that this was why

our city hadn't been firebombed

they also said this was why so many

students from the heavily firebomb.

Tokyo and Osaka were evacuated here

had been evacuated from Tokyo into the

Hiroshima middle school

this is the letter his father wrote from Nagano after the war

we had been living in Tokyo after my

children lost their

mother at an early age I had lost my

older daughter to the firebombs in march

and as the air raids worsened not

wanting to lose my only son

we moved to Hiroshima our hometown in June

on August 6th the day the atomic bomb was dropped

my son wanted to stay home because he

had stepped on a nail

working his student labor shift and his

foot still hurt

but I scolded him and sent him out of

the house at 7:30.

To live with his uncle on the outskirts of Hiroshima

he wrote a letter to his father in Osaka

soon after he transferred to his new school in Hiroshima

he sent it special delivery on July 20th

not long before he died

I started my classes in Hiroshima middle school yesterday.

I already made friends and we like studying together

our teacher mr masuda is very kind

with the enemy planes attacking you I

doubt you can sleep well at night

I already ate peaches and tomatoes

and cucumbers and eggplants and beans and pumpkins.

I even ate potatoes from the nursery

they were delicious I don't have any textbooks

so today I copy Chinese characters in my notebook

I'm not the least bit lonely because I'm with my cousins

tsuyoshi and nobuko so there's no need to worry about me

because of the war there was a labor

shortage and ninth graders on up were sent to work

in the military factories leaving only

7th and 8th graders

in school but even they had to grow

potatoes in the fields

so there were few days they actually studied

that year there was no summer vacation

that morning the 321 7th graders of

Hiroshima middle school

left their homes as early as 5:30 if

they lived far away and 7:30 if they lived nearby

at the same time the enola gay

an American b-29 bomber

carrying an atomic bomb was flying towards Hiroshima.

Who evacuated from Tokyo left his home

at 7:00. This is a passage

from his mother's letter

that day he said he wanted to stay home from school

although usually he always wanted to go to school

I told him you must be strong you're a boy

while I washed the dishes in the kitchen

but he had slipped out of the house.

I had told him he must take the day off

and go to the hospital for a thorough

physical examination

because he had been warned he needed one

but after I left for work

he told my wife I must do my patriotic duty

and join the students working to clear fire breaks

even if it's only to keep watch on their

lunch boxes I'll go to the hospital on a day when

there's no work and headed out

meant preparing for firebombing by

dismantling buildings to keep fires from spreading

the authorities mobilized citizens to

create open spaces

throughout the city to contain fires

and provide escape routes

the 321 7th graders

and their four teachers were told to

gather in the center of Hiroshima

on the hongkawa riverbank

the road in front of the international

conference center in the peace memorial park today

they were told to meet at 8:10

to start work before it became too hot

students from the Hiroshima girls high

school the Hiroshima municipal shipbuilding

technical high school and local volunteers

had also been mobilized and were gathered

near the 7th graders

everyone was called to assembly

from the 7th graders on up the

Hiroshima middle school students

lined up in twos in order of ascending classes

on the eastern side of the shin ohashi

bridge renamed the west peace bridge today

the assembled students faced east with

their backs to the hongkawa river

in a position directly facing the b-29s

approaching Hiroshima

the anola gay and its two accompanying planes flew

over the northeastern mountains towards

their target

the motoyasu bridge in the city center

the assembled students had just finished

their roll calls

when they spied the glitter of the b-29 wing tips

in the clear blue sky and began shouting

enemy plane, is coming

there're some students noticing the plane coming nearer..

Like Yamamoto and..

All turned around and looked up at the sky

there had been no air raid siren and with only

three bombers everyone assumed they were

the usual reconnaissance planes

they had no idea that a single bomb

capable of taking 200 thousand lives

had just been created

the students were all staring up at the planes

so some of them like morinaka takatoshi

clearly saw the atomic bomb being dropped

right after the lead b-29 dropped a

black metallic drum

the other planes dropped three objects

tied to parachutes

the anola gay dropped the atomic bomb

three meters long with a diameter of 70 centimeters

at 17 seconds past 8:15 a.m the planes behind it

dropped wireless transceivers attached

to parachutes to record the explosion

43 seconds later the atomic bomb

exploded 570 meters above the atomic dome some

500 meters north east from the hongkawa

riverbank where the students were assembled.

Saw the force of the blast blow several

classmates into the hongkawa river

kosen hiroyuki remembers being surrounded by white

smoke after a sudden huge noise

and being buried with his classmates

under the wreckage of nearby buildings

and trees and bricks that flew at them

many students heard the teacher minomura

the river is your escape route jump into the river

they leapt from the embankment three or

four meters high into the hongkawa river

at full tide

right after the roll call I heard someone call

retreat just when the bomb dropped

I barely heard a voice cry jump into the

river and I jumped into the hongkawa river

as soon as the bomb exploded I saw people

burned black

later told his mother

in that instant I glanced behind me

and saw a brick wall collapse and many

friends who couldn't escape

disappeared in the cloud of dust

okada akihisa recalls

I was buried in dirt up to my hips

but I came to and dug the burning sand

and crawled out the heat of the atomic bomb

even burned sand

as soon as the bomb blasts

students began screaming mommy

daddy help me at the top of their lungs

among them sakurabi ichiro

calmed his classmates saying don't shout

it will tire you out

when his area caught fire he jumped into the river

there is no way to know exactly how many

of the 321 7th grade students survived the blast

but looking at the letters from their

surviving families

it is estimated that one-third of the

children died instantly.

The fires that raged after the bomb blast

drove the students into the river

the 2000 school girls and volunteers jammed

the covered alley of the riverboat docks

by the shin ohashi bridge

the river was the only means of escape

the stone stairways leading down to the

river were overwhelmed with severely burned people

and some like masaki tadashi perished on the steps