On August 15, 2010, Kazuo Suzuki wrote a memoir entitled “The Air Raid and My Brother’s Birth.” The following points summarize that account and interviews with him.
• From June 1945 until the end of the war on August 15, he was 15 and working under the student mobilization program. His work site changed weekly within northern Ibaraki. Strafing by Grumman carrier aircraft continued every day.
Research note: the “Grummans” were probably F6Fs.
• During the Isohara air raid late on July 19, 1945, incendiary bombs from a B-29 hit his home directly. By morning, it had burned to the ground.
• At about 8 a.m. the following morning, July 20, a single B-29 approached from the northwest. He could not see the aircraft, but heard the whistling sound of a falling bomb and hid beneath a tree. The extraordinary sound of the explosion shook him deeply.
Research note: his home is thought to have been about 2.5 kilometers from the impact point.
• The next day, July 21, his brother Katsutoshi was born at their mother’s family home in Sorakubo, Hitachi.
Research note: it was the late Katsutoshi Suzuki who later connected Bomb Hill with the simulated atomic bomb dropped on Kitaibaraki.
The Isohara raid on July 19 and Katsutoshi’s birth on July 21 are independently documented. Kazuo Suzuki’s testimony and memoir therefore provide strong evidence for the bombing on July 20.