“Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor Story” by Caren Stelson
Carolrhoda Books, Minneapolis, 2016, 144 pages, Grades 5-7.
In the past year, North Korea has repeatedly advanced its atomic program through missile launches and nuclear explosions. These are reckless tests that will not bode well for North Korea, or for the rest of the world.
There are two kinds of fallout from nuclear explosions. First, there is the physical fallout with the atoms falling back to the earth contaminating large areas of land and sea. Second, there are the human problems caused by the destruction of lives and physical property. In 1945, as the Second World War was coming to its violent conclusion, the United States was faced with two brutal choices. The first option meant invading the Japanese Islands and facing horrific causalities. The second meant using the atomic bomb on Japan.
The United States successfully explodes the atomic bomb in the summer of 1945 in New Mexico. Then President Truman warns the Japanese government that a terrible weapon would be unleashed on them if they didn’t unconditionally surrender. They refuse to surrender for a multitude of reasons. With this, Truman authorizes the dropping of the bomb. The first city is Hiroshima and the second is Nagasaki.
August 9, 1945 begins no differently than any other day in Nagasaki. Six-year-old Sachiko Yasui is eating her meager breakfast of boiled wheat balls in hot water with her family. The radio is turned on and the patriotic song “Umi Yukada” blares forth: “If I die for the Emperor, it will not be a regret.” Her 2-year-old brother Aki takes a toy glider and pretending to be a Kamikaze pilot, plunges it into the floor mat shouting: “We will win the war.” (p.10)
At 11 a.m., Sachiko and her playmates hear the atomic bomb plunging downward. One child yells “Tekki” (enemy plane) and they all lay face down on the ground. Moments later, the atomic bomb blows up over Nagasaki with the explosive force of 21,000 tons of TNT.
Sachiko is only 900 yards from the hypocenter of the explosion. She is thrown into the air, then slammed to the ground and finally buried under debris. As the mushroom cloud rises thousands of feet over the city, fires break out everywhere. Day changes into night and everywhere, people are killed. Flying debris turned deadly and many people are impaled by tree limbs and shattered wood.
Sachiko’s uncle frantically digs her out of the ground and brings her to her mother. Dazed, Mrs. Yasui manages to find two of her three sons and her other daughter in the rubble. Two-year-old Aki is brought to her, dead, killed by flying debris. Mrs. Yasui bravely tries to protect her family and lead them to safety through the falling nuclear radiation. Much sorrow and sacrifice would follow.
What happens to Sachiko and her family? What does Japan learn from this horrific experience? Why does Sachiko, still alive today, have so much to teach us about the sanctity of life and the horrible dangers of nuclear weapons? To find out, go to the library and check out this award-winning book, “Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor Story” by Caren Stelson.
The author discusses the decisions involving the dropping of the atomic bomb with fairness. She unflinchingly describes the acts of brutality by the Japanese Imperial Army and its militant expansionism. Truman is shown as a man faced with terrible choices. But the heart of the book is about the human toll the bombing took on Sachiko’s family and the city of Nagasaki. It will take Sachiko more than 50 years before she can begin speaking to groups about the horrors of August 9, 1945. Her eulogy to us today is this: “What happened to me, must never happen to you.”
