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SG: And what was it like following, what was the feeling and the atmosphere following the dropping of the atomic bomb?

AU: Well, because we were on the other side of the hill and the school had a huge air raid shelter dug in the hill, right in the hill, and the people that were downtown, most of them, practically everybody was, you know, were affected by the bomb, and they were all coming up the hill, and we were told to take them and, you know, have them stay with us in the shelter. And you could see all their, the skin was peeling on everybody. People that had looked up when it fell, all of the front, you can see the skin just hanging down, and people who were looking down, then the back of the, you know, the skin on the back was all peeled and was hanging down, and they were all burnt, and they were all moaning and groaning, and it was terrible. And they wanted water, and I wanted to give them water, but I was told not to because I think when you're burnt very badly and if you give them water, they were going to die. And so they said, "Don't give them water even if they ask you for water." And then the next few days, then the family were looking for the rest of the family. And because there were no place to cremate them, they were cremating their own family. They would gather all the, you know, whatever was left of the house or whatever and then put them, and they would burn these bodies, and that awful, awful smell went all over town.

SG: What were you doing --

AU: And it was in the summer, in August. We were, well, we were in the school shelter. And then, because the school had, had all this, you know... they had, usually the school dormitory buys rice and things like that in quantity for the whole year for all the students, whatever, we had all this extra, so we cooked all this rice and stuff and then fed to all these people that were coming. And until the time when they said that the war was over, and then the train had started moving, and we could go home. And then, of course, they couldn't start school anyway, so they, the school told us that we would go home to our own homes, and then they would notify us when they were ready to open school. And so that is what happened. And then of course, when school opened in several months later, then we went back to school again, and then the American teachers came back again.

SG: Did you, getting back to the atomic bomb, did you feel it or hear it or --

AU: Yes. When I was in the dorm, just as I got in, and there's a hallway right in the middle of the dorm and then there's, you know, rooms on both sides. And so I was right in the hallway, and then there was a window before me, and I could see the light, just like a lightning coming, and then you could see just like a lightning that was coming right through the window, and then you hear this big sonic boom sound. And I guess I must have been out for just a second or so because when I came to it, I heard somebody yelling. He says, "Are you all right?" you know, and I guess it was somebody in the dormitory that was yelling at me. And then I said, "I can't hear." My ear was like it was plugged, and I kept on saying, "I can't hear you," but I heard her asking me if, and so then she said, "Well, go right into the air raid shelter." And so that's the extent, yes.

SG: And there's some, no damage to the dorm?

AU: No. There wasn't any damage to the dorm.

SG: It just knocked you down?

AU: Yes.

SG: How far away was the dorm from where the bomb hit?

AU: It must have been maybe about four miles or so.

SG: And after the bomb hit and you came out of the shelter, were you allowed to go downtown to see?

AU: No. I didn't go down. We were told, well, don't because things were so hectic anyway, and everybody, you know, everybody was trying to find their families' body and so forth. They says that we weren't to go and you know, and we would just to stay there and then help the people that were coming up from --

SG: So the first time you saw it was when you took the train back to see your parents in Fukuoka?

AU: Yes.

SG: What did it look like when you saw it for the first time?

AU: Well, everything was kind of, all the houses were just flattened, you know, and no streetcars. Whenever you walk to the train station and, but it was not very much there.

SG: Did you have any, do you remember what your thoughts and feelings were when you saw the devastation?

AU: I just wanted to get out of there.

SG: And to go back to Fukuoka?

AU: Yes.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.