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It's probably because the aerial photographs are so well-known,
but a lot of people think that a mushroom cloud was visible when
the bomb when off. There was no such mushroom shaped cloud. At
least for those of us that were underneath it.
The sky was clear and blue that morning.
The glistening silver <B-29> bombers looked very pretty cutting
across the sky (They must've seemed pretty to me because I had
never experienced an aerial raid).
The lighthearted 18 year old girl that I was, I secretly waved
"Hi, Angel!" in my imagination.
鬼畜米英:Kichikubeiei was the way of the land at the time, so I
would be branded a national traitor if anyone were to hear that
I thought the planes pretty.
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【Some background information】
☆ 鬼畜米英Kichikubeiei : In Japan of those days, the education
"the Europeans and Americans who invade Asia were barbarous like
a demon or a beast" was carried out.
My mother was tending matters in the kitchen, and my father was
doing field work with his shirt off. My brother was in the
countryside for 建物疎開tatemonosokai (buildings were being
dismantled to mitigate the threat of incindiary bombs).
I was between our neighbor's laundry and our house, watching the
planes fly by. A white dot (the silhouette of a B29) flew by,
and 20 to 30 seconds later, A sudden FLASH!!
(I probably couldn't move so nimbly now, but I was young back
then)
Instinctively, I closed my eyes, covered my ears, and wrapped
myself in the 布団futon that was hanging next to me. I was
unconscious for a while, and woke up to find that one of the
walls of our house had fallen onto me. My upper body was
un-scathed, and the bleeding from my legs had nearly stopped. I
have no recollection of my exact actions, but because I had
wrapped myself in the futon, just about the only evidence of the
blast on my body was a chipped tooth. A few hours later, I
noticed that I had a fracture in my hip.
A few days later when my hair fell out, my mother lamented,
"What a terrible thing for a girl in her prime!"
But I am thankful that it was no worse.
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