<Begin Segment 7>

TI: So, Izumi, so tell me, so let's go back a little bit to when the blast happened. So if you could walk through that.

IH: Sunday, one day before, we were sitting down anyplace. Then end of the Sunday, they pointed out where our seats. And usually I was sitting down on the window side because the window side has some wind and it's cool. But I was in the opposite side, in the front side of the classroom. And sitting over there, and that morning, from the dormitory to the school, we have to pass the center of the atomic bomb drop. If fifteen minutes earlier, we are all dead on the street. But we went to the school and then copying all the equation from the math, I heard, it sounded like a big rain. Really big rain coming. So look out the window, I saw the fire is coming down from the top of the window, and then all the whirlpool coming in, just like they have the picture. It's slowly coming down. And first thing I thought, "That isn't a bomb." Because I didn't hear the B-29 airplane sound. And then second, I didn't hear any blasts. Only thing, I saw the fire. So that time, next building, in the college, the naval laboratory was there. So first thing that came to my mind, they made some kind of mistake, something exploded or fire came. So I stand up, tried to get out from the room, and just blank. Next minute I was lying down close to the teacher's desk. I couldn't see because of so much dust, but I can see the big beam from the building is coming down. So when that's coming down, just like a slow movie you're watching. And I thought, if that big beam hits my head, what's going to happen? If I die over here, what would my family think? I wonder if they can find me if I die over here. So many things go through. That's only the second, not more than ten second or something like that. But next thing, everything starts to -- and stopped falling down. Then I jump up and go out from the building. But I cannot see. Maybe I can see the front about five yard, ten yard, just you know kind of where you can go. But inside the college, so many buildings, cannot tell which way to go (...). So once I get close to the gate, so come out from gate, go around and go into the ground, open ground.

TI: Okay, so before we, let me just make sure I understand everything and then we'll have you continue the story. But, so before the bomb, from the dormitory, you had to walk to your classroom, and you walked right through the epicenter of where the bomb was. So if the bomb had just come a little bit earlier, you would all have been killed. And then you go to your classroom on the second floor, and your seat was -- I want to understand. Was it by the window or away from the window?

IH: Away from the window.

TI: Away from the window. Okay, so you were moved away from the window. And then when the blast happened, you saw this kind of rain of fire coming down, that you thought was really, perhaps, an experiment, a bad experiment by the navy building next door. And then a blast happened and then you kind of woke up and you were next to the teacher's desk with a beam falling down like in slow motion. Although it was happening within a second, everything slowed down. It missed you, so you were able to get up. The question I have is in the classroom, how many were able to get up and leave? You said there was about fifty in there, did you say like about twenty were able to leave, or I was wondering how many in that room were able to leave.

IH: Our room was fifty, and then next room was fifty, so hundred student. And then get out to the outside is about twenty or twenty-five.

TI: Okay, so that means seventy-five to eighty people were still...

IH: Were still in that building.

TI: ...either they had been killed or they were trapped or something, or injured?

IH: Trapped in between the desks. And that's the reason they are safe. And then, of course, stay in the window side, some of them got the burn on the right-hand side. Anyway, when we get out, looking at all the classmate, and then one of them came out, to me, "Hey, I cannot see in this eye what happened." Actually, his eyeball was out, and then just covered with blood. And (I said) nothing, just kind of hurt above the eye, put a band-aid, something to cover him up, and then we go and try to help the other, rescue the other people. And in the meantime, I was, I noticed something. The warm thing is coming down from my head, and right away I noticed that was blood. It's just like warm water is coming down. And those days, we have the Japanese towel, individual, they have Japanese towel. So take out that one and put 'em, mine is from the head to this side. And still I cannot cover because I kind of had that, this side. And then the friend gave me, classmate, so this way. Then I go into the classroom, try to get out the classmate. And try to lift up the one side, other side is crying, and sore, so... and then go into the other side and trying to help, this side going (to complain). But somehow, we all took the students out an hour later. So then everybody out, so I said, "Oh, better go out and find out what it is."

TI: When you were able to get as many students out as you could, how many students were there that you were able to help out?

IH: Oh, rest of them.

TI: Oh, so almost all hundred?

IH: All of them.

TI: All hundred were accounted for.

IH: Yes. One of them was unconscious, but he came back afterwards.

TI: Yeah, and in your building, you mentioned how you were injured, blood was coming down the side.

IH: That's the window glass that (shatter and) fly.

TI: And then your other, that one person you said his eyeball was out, was that... when you think about your classmates, were a lot of them burned on one side because of the window side that they were burned?

IH: One side, yes. And then one of them told me when he opened the eye, he could see the sky. And what happened to him, he was thrown out from the building, second floor, and was on the school grounds, he was lying down on the ground, but didn't hurt at all, nothing, normal.

TI: So the blast just threw him out?

IH: Just kind of threw out, and then somehow, gently...

TI: And this was the second floor?

IH: That's amazing. It all depends on where you were staying.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.