Mitsue Akatsu, née Suda: “The noise was simply tremendous”

• When the bomb struck, I was at the thatched rest hut at the northernmost end of the rice field, carrying my two-year-old sister, the late Chii Koiso, on my back. I was seven. I knew an aircraft was coming by its sound, but I could not see it. The explosion made an absolutely tremendous noise. It was no ordinary sound—it felt loud enough to burst my eardrums. No fragments reached the place where I was.
Research note: Akatsu and Koiso are thought to have been slightly more than 400 meters from the impact point in a straight line, on higher ground, with woodland in between.

• Water collected where the bomb fell, making it look like a lake. It was deep, and the water was vivid blue. I think the impact was closer to Kamiakutsu’s rice field. I do not know whether people came there to fish.

• I often told friends at Sekinami Elementary School and others about the bomb, and I still sometimes tell people around me. I had thought it was a one-ton bomb.