Logo

Logo

Tsutomu Yamaguchi: The man who survived two nuclear bombs

There are some incidents in history, which sound more like a nightmare than reality. In World War II, when Japan was…

Tsutomu Yamaguchi: The man who survived two nuclear bombs

The nuclear bombing

There are some incidents in history, which sound more like a nightmare than reality. In World War II, when Japan was about to bring the grand alliance of Allied powers to its knees with its refusal to surrender. Everyone was thinking of how to stop Japan, the Americans came up with a plan to drop the first nuclear weapon in the history of mankind on Japan. On 6th August 1945, Truman dropped the first nuclear bomb named ‘Little Boy’ on Hiroshima and then within 3 days on 9th August, the Americans dropped the second nuclear bomb named ‘Fatman’ on Nagasaki. In this aerial bombing, the hands of America were stained with the blood of more than 2 lakh people, most of them civilians. In this mass destruction, Tsutomu Yamaguchi was the only man in history who survived two nuclear bombs. 

 

Yamaguchi was the lone warrior who eyewitnessed the terror of nuclear bombing in 2 different cities in just 3 days. A 29-year-old naval engineer who was on his business trip to Hiroshima was prepared to leave the city on 6 August, but the city is full of immutable smog which was caused by the ignition of ‘Little Boy’ , the first nuclear bomb. After enduring the immediate aftermath of the Hiroshima blast, Yamaguchi and two colleagues navigate a hellish cityscape to find a functioning train station. Their journey takes them through scenes of apocalyptic destruction, culminating in a train ride to Nagasaki. 

 

Also read the article on Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb & the movie of the century: Today’s world has seen the new Oppenheimer moment and many are still processing 

 

Just after 3 days when he was narrating the horrors of Hiroshima to a mistrusted colleague, fate hit a second, disastrous blow. However, the Yamaguchi spirit was still undamaged. Despite being dangerously close to the epicentre, Yamaguchi survived, only to face an eerily similar scenario three days later in his hometown of Nagasaki. There the “Fat Man” roared, and once again Yamaguchi survived to tell the horrifying tale.

 

Apart from the aftermath of the bombing, it is very important to understand why these attacks only happened in Japan. The Pacific Theater saw Japan expand its territories, leading to increased tensions with the United States. After the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States officially entered the war. In the following years, fierce battles took place in the Pacific, where both sides suffered serious losses. By 1945, the United States had developed the atomic bomb, a weapon of unprecedented destructive power. Faced with a costly invasion of Japan and hoping for a quick end to the war, President Harry Truman made the fateful decision to deploy this new weapon. The collective effects of these bombings forced Japan to surrender and brought the elongated World War II to an end.

Advertisement