Finished: Hiroshima (Hersey). Tragic book about six survivors of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Tragic in so many ways....but mostly tragic that the bomb had to be dropped at all. Don't get me wrong, I am in full support of America, but I hate war. I hate even more the tragedy of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I hate loss of life anywhere, and especially innocent loss of life. I don't know why leaders of countries can't just be happy with what they have and not go to war to take what others have that they want. I know it's not as simple as that, especially today, but back during the World Wars, it seemed to be all about fighting for more land and power. Maybe if the leaders could have done one on one battle and settled things between themselves it would be different, but entire countries full of innocent people are always the biggest victims of war.

The book Hiroshima was written by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, so the story has more of a reporting the facts flair to it. It follows Toshinki Sasaki, a young female sales clerk, Dr. Masakazu Fugii, a doctor with his own private hospital, Hatsuyo Nakamura, a war widow with three young children, Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a German priest who works in a mission house in Japan, Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, a young surgeon, not related to Toshinki Sasaki, and Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto, a pastor of a Methodist church. Each of these six people was within 3/4 to 1 mile of the center of the blast. The details of what each person was doing at the precise moment that the huge "light flashed" when the bomb hit is chronicled, along with their injuries, their recoveries, their journeys helping other people and being helped, their subsequent illnesses from "radiation disease", and how they managed for the rest of their lives. The details are horrific and gut wrenching. The descriptions of these victims, and others who were more severely injured were so vivid. The journalist actually followed up forty years after first publishing the book to see where all the six were at in their lives, and all were still alive but one.

Hibakusha...that became the Japanese word for describing an Atom bomb survivor. Only one hibakusha could truly understand the malaise and illness and experience that another hibakusha was going through. I may not be able to directly understand it, but certainly reading this book opened my eyes to an event which I'd never really read about in detail until now. A good book!