The incredible story of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only double survivor of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki:
Have you ever imagined what it would be like to be in the midst of a nuclear explosion? What if it happened twice? This was the incredible story of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a Japanese engineer who witnessed and survived the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. He was the only person officially recognized by the Japanese government as a survivor of both bombs.
Yamaguchi was born in 1916 in Nagasaki, where he lived and worked for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a company that designed and built ships and tanks. In 1945, he was on a three-month business trip in Hiroshima, involved in designing a new oil tanker.
On August 6, as he was preparing to return home with two colleagues, Akira Iwanaga and Kuniyoshi Sato, he realized he had forgotten his hanko, a common identification stamp in Japan. He went back to his workplace to retrieve it and was on his way to the port when he saw an American B-29 plane flying over the city, dropping a small object attached to a parachute. Suddenly, the sky lit up with a blinding flash, described by Yamaguchi as resembling "the flash of a gigantic magnesium flare." He had enough time to throw himself into a ditch before a deafening blast echoed. The shockwave sucked him off the ground, spun him in the air like a tornado, and threw him into a nearby potato field. He was less than three kilometers from the explosion's epicenter.
The explosion ruptured his eardrums, temporarily blinded him, and left him with severe radiation burns on the left side of his upper body. Yamaguchi crawled to what remained of the Mitsubishi shipyard, where he found his colleagues, who had also survived the blast. After a restless night in an air raid shelter, the men woke up on August 7 and headed towards the train station, which they heard was still operating. The atomic explosion had raised enough dust and debris to almost blot out the morning sun. Yamaguchi was surrounded by falling ash, and he could see a mushroom-shaped cloud of fire rising in the sky over Hiroshima.
Despite his injuries, Yamaguchi managed to board a crowded train of survivors and return to Nagasaki on the same day. He arrived in his hometown on the morning of August 8 and reunited with his wife and son, who were unaware of his whereabouts. He also went to the hospital, but the doctors were overwhelmed with war-related injuries and couldn't treat him properly. He decided to go to the Mitsubishi office in Nagasaki the next day, August 9, hoping to get a medical leave.
Yamaguchi was telling his supervisor about the horror he had witnessed in Hiroshima when he was interrupted and told he was "crazy" for describing how a bomb had destroyed the city. At that moment, another bright flash illuminated the window. It was another atomic bomb, dropped by the American plane Bockscar. Yamaguchi was once again thrown to the ground by the shockwave, but this time he was about three kilometers from the epicenter and suffered only minor injuries. He quickly got up and ran out of the building, where he saw another mushroom cloud forming in the sky. He couldn't believe what was happening. He had survived two atomic bombs in three days.
Yamaguchi returned to his home, which miraculously had not been hit by the explosion, and found his wife and son unharmed. They took refuge in a nearby air raid shelter, where they stayed for several days, experiencing fever, vomiting, and hair loss—symptoms of radiation exposure. Yamaguchi also had hallucinations and terrible nightmares. He feared that he and his family would die soon.
However, Yamaguchi and his family managed to survive. They moved to his parents' house in a rural area, where they slowly recovered from their injuries and traumas. Yamaguchi returned to work for Mitsubishi in 1946 and continued his career as a naval engineer until retiring in 1979. He also became a writer, translator, and educator, publishing books and poems about his experience and giving lectures at schools and universities. He became involved in the peace and nuclear disarmament movement, advocating for the end of nuclear weapons and the abolition of war. He also met with various world leaders, including Pope Benedict XVI and former U.S. President Barack Obama, to whom he handed a letter calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons.
In 1957, Yamaguchi was recognized as a hibakusha, a person affected by the Nagasaki bombing, but it wasn't until 2009 that the Japanese government officially acknowledged his presence in Hiroshima three days earlier. He was the only one to receive this dual certification. He died of stomach cancer on January 4, 2010, at the age of 93, leaving behind his wife, three children, and four grandchildren.
Tsutomu Yamaguchi was an extraordinary man who lived an unbelievable story. He witnessed the worst of humanity but also the best. He endured indescribable pain but also found hope and forgiveness. He was a survivor but also an activist. He was an example of courage, resilience, and compassion.