How Tsutomu Yamaguchi Survived the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bombings.

When the twin atomic bombs were detonated in Japan, Tsutomu Yamaguchi was a 29-year-old engineer with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The engineer embarked on a three-month business trip on behalf of his employer, during which he and his coworkers designed an oil tanker near Hiroshima. The journey was scheduled to complete on August 6, 1945. (Andrews). Yamaguchi was eager to return home to his son Katsutoshi and wife Hisako, but a series of unfortunate events delayed his departure.

At 8:15 a.m., Yamaguchi was walking to Mitsubishi’s shipyard when he spotted an aircraft drone flying overhead. The bomber threw a small object that was tied to a parachute, generating bright lightning-like light in the sky. He dove into a ditch after hearing a loud noise. A shock wave erupted, which dragged him up and whirled him like a tornado, ultimately tossing him into a potato patch. Yamaguchi reported that he felt he had fainted, and when he awoke, the sun was obscured by debris and dust propelled by the atomic explosion (Andrews). The explosion left him with burns on his forearms, face, and ruptured eardrums.

Yamaguchi endeavored to survive the bombing chaos at least for the sake of his family. During the Hiroshima moments, he so desperately wanted to return to his family that when he learned that trains were leaving the city, he gathered his strength and set out to find one. He crossed the river to find a train, despite the fact that several bridges had collapsed and been burned. Therefore, he crawled through the “apocalyptic” bridges of corpses, which were blocking the river, to reach the train. However…