The last tomato - Hiroshima told in his own words: (6)

　
(6) There were those who were still alive under rubble.

I began to walk toward the northeast along the street-car street in front of the city office. Going straightly on the way, there was the west parade ground of the Hiroshima part II party. It was around the present Hiroshima castle park and the present Hiroshima prefecture office.

I thought that I would not be burnt to death even if I were surrounded by fire, since the parade ground was a large open field. Another reason why I went to that direction was that there was a Hiroshima branch of the Bank of Japan where Reiko of my elder sister worked.

My elder sister must have been in the bank at that time. I thought she had surely tried to escape in pitch-darkness. I discovered my elder sister and thought that we would escape together. However, a pitch-dark trouble did not clear up.
Although I understood that I received bombing, it was not understood for me that the surroundings were in darkness continuously.

I walked and walked, but I was still in darknesst. In the darkness, when I looked around carefully, I could see the wires of the street car hung down over the stone pavement of the street car, and street cars were fallen sideways. The neighboring houses which I could see were all destroyed completely.

When I walked through two stations of the street car, I saw that fire went up suddenly in the direction. I gave up going to my elder sister's place and tried to escape to the direction of the city south. However, fire went up also in the direction, and people were coming to me, crawling. I thought that I would go back together with people coming.

However, I thought over that I would be burnt to death if I would not overcome that fire once. Then I retraced my steps and I improved my feeling and began to walk in the direction of fire.

I walked forward the direction of the fire which was coming, because I heard the talk on how to escape fire from my friend who came to school from Kure. Kure was damaged in the air raid before two weeks when the atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima.

My friend was a navy lieutenant general's son and heard the way of the air raid of the U.S. Forces from his father. He talked to me in detail about it. According to it, first, B29 dropped the firebombs circularly to surround the circumference of a town. They surrounded the circumference by fires so that people inside the city could not escape outside. Then the town was burnt in all the directions shortly -- it came out and carried out.

Therefore, if I stayed in the central part of the town as I was, I would be burnt to death. I thought, at any my risk, that I should pass once through the fire which enclosed the surroundings, and I had to escape in any how. I tried to progress but I could not find the way out.

All the buildings were collapsed and hided all the roads. I went up unavoidably on the crushed roofs toward the southern direction from the street-car street. I stepped on the tiles, making tiles sound, and I heard voices from the bottom of the tiles, " help me --. help me --".

There were those who were still alive under rubble. They became an underlay of the crushed houses and could not escape. However, I could do nothing.

I experienced "back hair having been pulled"(feel it very hard to leave there) of the proverb. Also now, their cries at that time remain in the inner part of my ear clearly. At that moment, I felt my powerlessness and I considered that I wanted to get off to a safe place. I was going to south contrary to the direction aimed at first unawares. I thought and think that it was impossible that only one pupil of the middle school had removed rubble. Furthermore, I would be soon burnt to death, if I remained there.

I was asking to myself many and many times, However, However You.
I escaped, at every time saying, "It was unavoidable." and shaking off the thought.

However, Could I not really help them at that time? Even now, such thought does not go out of my head.

(To be continued)