Modern/Post-War Photos

Tsutomu Yamaguchi

First Recognized Survivor of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bombings During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the Japan cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first landed on 6 August 1945, and the second on 9 August, these two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date. Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was a Japanese national who survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. It should be noted that at least 160 people are known to have been affected by both bombings, but Yamaguchi is the only person to have been officially recognized by the government of Japan as surviving both explosions. In 1945, he was a resident of Nagasaki, and in Hiroshima on business for his employer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries when the city was bombed at 8:15am on August 6. When the bomb went off, Yamaguchi was approximately 3 km (1.8 miles) away. Yamaguchi recalls seeing the bomber and two small parachutes, before there was “a great flash in the sky, and I was blown over.” The explosion ruptured his eardrums, blinded him temporarily, and left him with serious burns over the top half of his body. Yamaguchi did not receive treatment until he got back to Nagasaki the next day. Despite being heavily bandaged, Yamaguchi reported to work three days after the explosion. At 11 am on August 9, he was describing the blast in Hiroshima when the American bomber Bockscar dropped the Fat Man atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Yamaguchi’s location was again 3 km (1.8 miles) from ground zero, but this time he was unhurt by the blast. When the Japanese government officially recognized atomic bomb survivors as Hibakusha in 1957, Yamaguchi was only identified as being present at Nagasaki. As he grew older, his opinions about the use of atomic weapons began to change. In his eighties, Yamaguchi wrote a book about his experiences and was invited to take part in a 2006 documentary about 165 double A-bomb survivors. At first, he didn’t feel the need to draw attention to his double survivor status. However as he aged, Yamaguchi applied for double recognition. The application was accepted by the Japanese government in March 2009, making Yamaguchi the only person officially recognized as a survivor of both bombings. In 2009, Tsutomu Yamaguchi learned that he was dying of stomach cancer. He passed away on 4 January 2010 in Nagasaki at the age of 93. On 22 December 2009, Canadian movie director James Cameron and author Charles Pellegrino met Yamaguchi while he was in a hospital in Nagasaki, and discussed the idea of making a film about nuclear weapons. Yamaguchi said, “I think it’s Cameron’s and Pellegrino’s destiny to make a film about nuclear weapons.”