A man named Kei

It's probably become a standard that everyone who visits Japan goes to Hiroshima, or at least wants to, and when I first came to Japan on holiday in 2003 I too had the same desire. That time, much of my short stay was spent away from the city in the suburbs of Hiroshima or on the beautiful island of Miyajima, with it's famous floating torii gate. A one hour trip to the Hiroshima peace park and Atomic bomb museum increased my awareness of what happened on August 6th 1945, but it was a visit made in the context of sight-seeing and was ultimately only a cursory one.

And so the opportunity came to return to Hiroshima. Sarah was going to meet her friend Lucy, and Johanna and I wanted to go as well, so we trundled along together with Lucy's friend Suzanne and made our way to the World Friendship Center, a house 20 mins from the memorial area which offered bed and breakfast and lots of other services. The centre is run with the cooperation of the A-bomb survivors and many organisations that work for peace, and they aim to educate people about what happened and what the bomb meant for it's victims. One way they do this is through organising meetings between A-bomb survivors and civilians, usually tourists or foreigners like us. So, on Saturday morning, having spent time on Friday in the museum trying to learn what happened, we went back to the museum to meet a survivor. A man named Kei.

Keijiro Matsushima (Kei to his friends) is 76 years old, born and raised in Hiroshima city. His family consisted of five members, for whom 1945 was a terrible year. His two brothers were fighting in the war; his father was seriously ill and with the city under continual threat of bombing, Kei's mother and father evacuated to his father's old home 40kms north east of the city. In the month following their evacuation, Kei's father died.

As a 16 year old just starting high school, Kei was one of the many school students drafted to work pulling down houses to make firebreaks (the city's housing stock was largely wooden, and should fire break out it would spread rapidly), or to work in munitions factories. He was living in a dormitory where, like everywhere else, food was short and they were always hungry.

At the beginning of August it was decided that some students should return to classes for a short period of schooling, and first graders at high school were among this group. And at 8am on August the 6th, 1945, Kei was sat in his second floor classroom at his desk next to the window in a maths lesson, 2 kms away from where the bomb was to explode. Kei feels lucky that school started so early, commenting that "if school was to start at 8:30, I might have been in the street-car and barbecued".

It was 8:15 when Kei looked out of the window to see only 2 of the three B-29 bombers that were in the skies over Hiroshima. It was 8:15 when he saw the flash. And then felt the heat. And the shockwaves. At the epicentre, temperatures of 4,000 degrees had killed all living organisms instantly, leaving no traces other than shadows. Shockwaves destroyed nearly everything standing in their path. Kei didn't know this and, like everyone else, thought a bomb had gone off outside his building. In an instant he had jumped under his desk, covering his eyes and mouth and heard a huge noise. He is still uncertain whether it was the explosion or the sound of buildings collapsing with the shockwaves.

Kei started to crawl towards the exit, and soon realised that he was covered in blood from shards of glass from the shattered window. He thought of death, and he thought of his mother, and he started to pray, chanting Buddhist sutras. Unaware of how long had passed, Kei made his way down the spiral staircase to witness scenes of horror and destruction in the streets outside. With so many students injured, Kei felt he should help, and started to assist a friend in getting to the hospital. As they walked into the city, they were met by many people shuffling away from the flames. Kei describes these people as looking like "smoked and broiled pigs... damaged, swollen up and disfigured so badly." They marched with their arms held out in front of them, their clothes burnt and singed with faces like baked pumpkin (in Japan, pumpkins are green and the skin blisters and bubbles when cooked). They had no voices, there was no crying and screaming. Around them houses were smashed and power lines fallen, and when they arrived at the hospital they saw the crowds awaiting help, among them many of the doctors and nurses themselves badly burned and wounded. Kei and his friend turned back to the school and his friend was picked up by one of the first rescue trucks. He also survived.

Kei decided to make his escape from the city, and his first stop would be his dormitory to collect his belongings. But his dormitory was ruined and nothing was salvageable. He continued on his way and on reaching the Miyuki bridge he stopped momentarily. Noting that stones from the bridge had fallen in one direction only (those of the north side feel to the pavement below and those of the south side plunged to the bottom of the river) Kei recalled an article about America's new weapon he had read in a magazine for boys. He realised that there must have been only one strong blast and perhaps the Americans had invented an atomic bomb.

Looking at the city from the bridge Kei saw many places he remembered from his youth. Now they were destroyed and covered in thick grey smoke. He recalls feeling ready to make a kamikaze attack, that he would have committed suicide in order to protect Japan and injure the enemy, but in hindsight he calls this stupid, and that "education is a great thing."

Kei finally made it to the train station at 5pm, almost 9 hours after the bomb dropped. He finally reached his mother's home at 12 midnight, and she was surprised, glad and relieved, having seen the flash and heard the boom from the paddy fields where she was working. Everyone around her had been certain that there were no survivors.

For the next week Kei was bedridden with diarrhea and fever, both symptoms of radiation sickness, a fate that faced many relatives of the victims who entered the city the next day to search for relatives. Many survivors died the night of August 6th, many days later and many over the following months and years of a myriad illnesses such as cancers and leukemia. Kei himself suffered further illness, with stomach problems and cancer of the kidney. Fortunately both were operable, but the frequency of such illnesses is much higher in survivors of the A-bomb.

Six days after the 2nd bomb had fallen in Nagasaki, the Emporer was heard by the people for the first time in history. To the people of Japan, the Emporer was God, and the Emporer was Japan. He spoke on the radio and declared that Japan would surrender to the enemy. Kei describes feeling both relieved and disappointed. Relieved that bombings would be over and that he would be able to sleep better, but disappointed because during the war, students had been educated that they should live and die for the Emporer and thus for Japan.


Kei went on to become a Junior High school English teacher, and worked in the US in 1966 teaching in various schools.

Now Kei works for peace. He, and many other survivors and inhabitants of Hiroshima work in the hope that the nuclear weaponry should never again be used on this earth, and that all nuclear weapons will be destroyed. The Mayor of Hiroshima is tireless in his work as representative of his town, writing continuously to governments and nations whose activities threaten to break agreed treaties on the reduction of nuclear arms. It is thought that 140,000 people died in Hiroshima in 1945 as a result of the atomic bomb.

Hiroshima itself is now a magical city, both welcoming and surprising. The city was rebuilt completely, and important historical monuments such as Hiroshima Castle and Shukkei-en gardens (a landscaped park originally constructed in the 1600s) have been rebuilt to reflect their former glory. The modern city is vibrant and joyous. People are friendly, such as Machiko, the lady who ran the Okonomiyaki restaurant and entertained while she cooked, and the waiter in Opium bar, who asked us to write english slogans on a pair of jeans and then gave us free cake as a thank you. But among the newness that surrounds you are constant reminders of where this city came from. Plaques and stones dotted along pavements and hidden in backstreets commemorate those who died, and those family lines that were ended by the bomb. Hiroshima is a city that does not want it's past to be in vain, and it is a city that has a very bright future.