FROM HIROSHIMA: A REPORT AND A QUESTION

Below is an extraordinary document, the first detailed account of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, written by one of the survivors, the Rev. John A. Siemes, S.J., professor of modern philosophy at Tokyo's Catholic University. Father Siemes, who was born 39 years ago in Germany, sent his impressions to the magazine Jesuit Missions:

Aug. 6 begins in a bright, clear, summer morning. About 7 o'clock, there is an air-raid alarm; about 8, the all-clear sounds. I am sitting in my room at the Novitiate of the Society of Jesus, approximately five kilometers from the center of the city. From my window, I have a wonderful view down the valley to the edge of the city.

Suddenly--the time is approximately 8:14--the whole valley is filled by a garish light, and I am conscious of a wave of heat. As I make for the door, I hear a moderately loud explosion; at the same time, the window breaks in with a loud crash. I am sprayed by fragments of glass. The entire window frame has been forced into the room. I realize now that a bomb has burst and I am under the impression that it exploded directly over our house. I am bleeding from cuts about the hands and head.

I force an opening in the jammed door by means of repeated blows with my hands and feet, and come to the broad hallway from which open the various rooms. All windows are broken and all doors are forced inwards. Most of my colleagues have been injured by fragments of glass.

Fire in the Valley. Down in the valley, perhaps one kilometer toward the city from us, several peasant homes are on fire, and the woods on the opposite side of the valley are aflame. Over the city, clouds of smoke are rising. A procession of people begins to stream up the valley from the city. The crowd thickens. Their steps are dragging, their faces blackened. Many are bleeding or have suffered burns. We give them first aid and bring them into the chapel. Our bandages and drugs are soon gone.

Among the passersby, there are many who are uninjured. Distraught by the magnitude of the disaster, most of them rush by and none conceives the thought of organizing help on his own initiative. During these days the Japanese displayed little initiative, preparedness, and organizational skill to meet a catastrophe.

What has become of Father Superior Lassalle and others who were at the center of the city at the Parish Church? About 4 o'clock in the afternoon, comes a report that the Church, Parish House and adjoining buildings had burned down, and that Father Superior and Father Schiffer had been seriously injured and that they had taken refuge in Asano Park on the river bank. Hurriedly, we get together two stretchers and rush toward the city.

Ruin in the City. The closer we get, the greater is the evidence of destruction. Houses at the outskirts are all severely damaged. Further in, all dwellings have been consumed by fire. We make our way to the street on the river bank. Twice we are forced into the river itself by the heat and smoke. All along we meet frightfully burned people. By the wayside are many dead and dying. On the Misasi Bridge we are met by a procession of soldiers who have suffered burns. Abandoned on the bridge, there stand with sunken heads a number of horses with large burns on their flanks.

Finally we reach the entrance of the park. A large proportion of the populace has taken refuge there, but even the trees of the park are on fire in several places. Paths and bridges are blocked by fallen trees and are almost impassable. It is now quite dark. At the far corner of the park we at last come upon our colleagues. Father Schiffer is lying on the ground deadly pale. He has a deep cut behind the ear and has lost so much blood that we fear for his life. Father Superior has suffered a deep wound on the leg.

They tell us of their experiences. They were in their rooms at the Parish House when came the intense light and immediately thereafter the sound of breaking windows, walls and furniture. The Church and all buildings in the vicinity collapsed at once. Soon fires which had begun some distance away were raging ever closer. It was high time to flee.

Mr. Fukai, the secretary of the Mission, was completely out of his mind. He did not want to leave the house and explained that he did not want to survive the destruction of his fatherland. Completely uninjured, he was forcefully carried away. The way they had meant to flee was no longer open and so they made for Asano Park. Fukai refused to go further, and remained behind. He has not been heard of since.

Charity amid Disaster. The transportation of our wounded is difficult. Were we to carry them on the shaky litters in the dark, they would suffer unbearable pain and lose dangerously large quantities of blood. Our rescuing angel in this difficult situation is a Japanese Protestant pastor. He has brought up a boat and offers to take our wounded upstream to a place where progress is easier.

We land on a sandspit which juts out from the shore. It is full of wounded. They scream for aid, for they are afraid of drowning as the river will rise with the oncoming tide. They themselves are too weak to move. However, we must press on.

A group of soldiers come along the road and their officer notices that we speak a foreign language. He at once draws his sword, screams at us, and threatens to cut us down. Father Laures Jr. seizes his arm and explains that we are German. He thought that we might well be Americans who had parachuted down. Rumors of parachutists are being bandied about the city.

It has become midnight. We determine to remove Father Schiffer first to the outskirts of the city. Despite all precautions, our progress is stumbling. One of the bearers falls and carries the litter with him. Father Schiffer becomes half unconscious from the fall, and vomits.

At the outskirts of the city, we put down the litter and turn back to fetch Father Superior. Most of the ruins are by now burned out. One of us remarks that the pungent smell reminds him of burned corpses.

About half past four in the morning, we finally arrive at the Novitiate. Our rescue expedition had taken almost twelve hours. Normally, one could go to the city and back in two hours.

In the Ashes. I get two hours' sleep on the floor. Then I say a Mass in gratiarum actionem. It is the 7th of August, the anniversary of the restitution of our Society. Then we take off again. The bright day now reveals the frightful picture which last night's darkness had partly concealed.

Where the city stood, everything, as far as the eye could reach, is a waste of ashes and ruin. The banks of the river are covered with dead and wounded; the rising waters have already covered some of the corpses. Naked burned cadavers are particularly numerous. Among them are wounded who still live. A few have crawled under burnt-out autos and trams.

We make our way to the place where our Church stood. In the ashes, we find a few molten remnants of the holy vessels.

We took under our care 50 refugees. Father Rector treated the wounded as well as he could. He had to confine himself in general to cleansing the wounds of purulent material. Even those with the smaller burns were very weak, and all suffered from diarrhea. Our work was, in the eyes of the people, a greater boost for Christianity than all our work during the preceding long years.

During the next few days, funeral processions passed our house from morning to night, bringing the deceased to a small valley near by. There the dead were burned. People brought their own wood and themselves did the cremation. Late at night, the little valley was lit up by the funeral pyres.

How Many Died? The magnitude of the disaster that befell Hiroshima was only slowly pieced together in my mind. As a result of the explosion, almost the entire city was destroyed at a single blow. The small Japanese houses in a diameter of five kilometers collapsed or were blown away. Those in the houses were buried in the ruins. Those in the open sustained burns. Fires spread rapidly. The heat which rose from the ground created a whirlwind which spread the fire throughout the whole city. As much as six kilometers from the center of the explosion, all houses were damaged, and many collapsed and caught fire.

How many people fell victims to this bomb? Hiroshima had a population of 400,000. Official statistics place the number who died at 70,000 up to Sept. 1, not counting the missing ... and 130,000 wounded, among them 43,500 severely wounded. Estimates made by ourselves on the basis of groups known to us show that the number of 100,000 dead is not too high.*

Thousands of wounded who died later could doubtless have been rescued, but rescue work in a catastrophe of this magnitude had not been envisioned. Since the whole city had been knocked out at a blow, everything which had been prepared for emergency work was lost. Those who received good care slowly healed of their burns. There were cases, however, whose prognosis seemed good but where death supervened suddenly. Some who had only small external wounds died within a week or later, after an inflammation of the pharynx and oral cavity. There cannot be any doubt that the bomb's radiation had some effect on the blood. However, myself and others who worked in the ruined area for some hours shortly after the explosion suffered no ill effects.

Query for Moralists. We have discussed among ourselves the ethics of the use of the bomb. Some condemned its use on a civil population. Others were of the view that in total war there was no essential difference between civilians and soldiers, and that the bomb itself was an effective force, warning Japan to surrender and thus to avoid total destruction. It seems logical to me that he who supports total war in principle cannot complain of a war against civilians.

The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Is it not attended by material and spiritual evils which far exceed whatever the good that might result? When will our moralists give us a clear answer to this question?

*Last week Supreme Allied Headquarters announced that the Hiroshima bomb dead totaled 78,150; still missing, 13,983; seriously injured, 9,428; slightly injured, 27,997.--ED.

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