Memoir of Hiroshima survivor describing horrors of atomic bomb found after 79 years

When the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945, 70,000 people were killed instantly in Hiroshima. By the end of the year, more than 150,000 deaths were recorded in total from radiation poisoning and injuries.

When the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945, 70,000 people were killed instantly in Hiroshima. By the end of the year, more than 150,000 deaths were recorded in total from radiation poisoning and injuries.

Now, the memoir of a man who narrowly avoided dying in Hiroshima has been rediscovered more than 80 years after the unthinkable attack.

Kiyoshi Tanimoto witnessed the destruction of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945. He had been out of town on the day the bomb dropped, but rushed back to help after hearing news of the horror.

His 230-page memoir, written in 1947, remained unpublished until it was recently rediscovered at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale.

It was sitting amongst the papers of reporter John Hersey, who became friends with Tanimoto after visiting Hiroshima months after the bomb went off.

Tanimoto passed away in 1986 at the age of 77, after detailing what he witnessed on the ground in Hiroshima after the bomb was dropped.

His daughter, Koko Tanimoto Kondo, said his father struggled to put what he witnessed into words, but decided a memoir was necessary.

‘The whole city was covered with dark clouds, and conflagrations were breaking out in various directions,’ Tanimoto recalled.

‘Could all of this have happened at once? It was then that black drops of rain, as big as blackberries, began to fall – rain caused by the atomic bomb.

Tanimoto’s daughter said he recounted the days and months after the bomb to ensure ‘no one experienced it ever again’.

Roughly 100,000 survivors of the atomic bombings are still alive today. Last year marked 80 years since the atomic bomb was dropped.