Hiroshima Diary

Hiroshima Diary: The Unparalleled Eyewitness Account of the Dawn of Nuclear War
By: Michihiko Hachiya, M.D.
Copyright: 1955
Tess Press

4 Bookmarks out of 5

I came across the Hiroshima Diary while browsing the used bookstore near where I went to undergrad and where I now currently work. I spent a lot of my high school and college days submerged in European history. I spent so long dappling in the European and Western historical world because it is a culture that is obviously familiar to me. I didn't have to re-learn a lot of things in order for the historical records to make sense. However, since graduating college, I have been craving other historical works from different parts of the world. I avoided Eastern history for so long because I long regarded it as boring, but I recently have developed a huge liking to learning about this part of the world. Mostly, it is so different from the world I am currently in and am fascinated by it.

This book is a chronicle of a Japanese physician who survived the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. To be honest, it never occurred to me much as I learned about the bombing of Hiroshima in school that anyone could survive an atom bombing. Hachiya tells his own personal story of what happened from almost two months after the bombing. It follows his day to day failures and victories. Hachiya knows little of what is happening outside of Hiroshima, such as the bombing of Nagasaki and the surrender of Japan. All these stories he learns through hear-say since communication outside the city is completely cut off after the bombing. That's probably what makes this book such a captivating read - Hachiya never meant for his journal to be published and was only keeping it for his own records. It is only 10 years after the fact that it is translated for the world to read.

That being said, this book can be very repetitive at times. While Hachiya is learning first-hand about radiation sickness and how to cope with it, he is only journaling so that he can have a record to look back on. The reader will find that Hachiya takes great care to document the health of many patients that are in the hospital and that many of the patients have the same symptoms. Hachiya also takes at length about various medical terms. Although I am no scientist myself, Hachiya never goes into lengthy detail and this is one aspect of the book that should not prevent a reader from finishing it with ease. When there is something that needs to be elaborated on, there is a footnote to accompany it.

The translator of the journal, Warner Wells, M.D. should be congratulated on the fact that he understands that the average American reader will not understand aspects of Japanese culture. When Hachiya mentions something specific to Chinese culture, Wells makes sure there is a footnote to explain to the reader what exactly it means. When something could not be directly translated into English, Wells also puts a footnote explaining what it means so that the reader understands the meaning of the word.

The only downfall of this journal is the fact that it follows every single day from the pikadon on. While it's hard to believe that this is a fault - I also find it very difficult to believe that Hachiya had time on the day of the bombing to sit down and journal. In fact, I think it was probably several days before he could think about writing. So, it's possible that Hachiya left out important details simply because it took probably a few days to write down everything that happened. Furthermore, the book contains quotes from people directly from conversations that were said. I find it hard to believe that Hachiya documented people's words in such detail. I wonder if Wells translated it like this on purpose to make the book easier to read. Either way, I wish I could read Japanese so that I could read Hachiya's journal in its original language.

All in all, I found this book to be fascinating. I know that the United States was at war against Japan at the time, but my heart goes out to all those people who suffered so much from the first atom bombing. No one knew then what the damage could be on a large scale, and Hachiya had to find out the hard way. I've never read an eyewitness account like this before and it made history open up to me in a new and very raw way. This is a simple read and doesn't take much concentration and I would recommend it to anyone. It opened my eyes the same way that All Quiet on the Western Front made me think differently about Germany during WWI.