Katsuji Yoshida was 13 when the atomic bomb hit his hometown of Nagasaki, Japan on Aug. 9, 1945.
“Everything was destroyed, and there were dead bodies everywhere,” Yoshida said.
Yoshida spoke to about 30 people Tuesday at Swift Hall in an event sponsored by the Public Affairs Residential College. He talked about his experience in the attack that killed at least 40,000 people, and the importance of peace.
Yoshida, 73, said he had been evacuated from school because of an air raid earlier in the day, and he and six friends were on their way back when an explosion blew them away by nearly 200 feet — across a field and river and into a rice paddy.
“Our entire bodies had been scorched,” said Yoshida, who spoke through a translator. “Our skin was coming off, hanging in strips from our bodies.”
Although he and his friends felt their throats burning from thirst, Yoshida said, their teachers told them not to drink water when injured — and this information saved their lives.
“There is a river running through Nagasaki, and people ran to get water,” Yoshida said. “But everyone who stuck his head in the river for a drink didn’t take his head back out.”
He and his friends thought they would get some relief when the sun went down, but it was only temporary.
“It was excruciating pain,” Yoshida said, “but we didn’t know what to do. My face puffed up and swelled so much that it covered my eyes and I couldn’t see.”
Yoshida recounted the pain of going through 13 operations to get well, including three skin grafts to replace damaged skin on the right side of his face. He said his left side healed before the right because when the bomb went off, his right side was closer to the blast.
Even after the third skin graft was successful, he said the skin still looked dark and unnatural.
“I couldn’t stand the sight of my own face,” said Yoshida, who still wears a patch over his right ear. “Everyone always stared, and I was ashamed to go out in public.”
Other injuries included damage to his right hand, which took 13 years to heal. His legs never fully recovered. He said he hasn’t been able to sit cross-legged on the floor — as is Japanese custom — since the bombing, he said.
This August will mark the 60th anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing, and Yoshida wants to make sure that people remember the bombing and those whose lives it affected.
It is important to learn about the people who were injured as well as those who died, Yoshida said. Of the six friends he was with when the bomb went off, he was the only one to survive.
Learning the importance of peace is the most important lesson to take away from the bombing, Yoshida said.
“I ask myself how I ended up like this, and it’s because we went to war,” said Yoshida, who is a member of the Nagasaki Foundation for the Promotion of Peace. “The basis for peace is to understand the pain of other people.”
Weinberg senior Lars Johnson said speakers such as Yoshida help people understand the full impact of war.
“I think any time you’re going to discuss war, you have to understand what that means,” Johnson said. “His experience is a part of war, and it means innocent people losing their lives.”
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