With his permission, we reproduce in full the memoir “The Air Raid and My Brother’s Birth,” written on August 15, 2010, by Kazuo Suzuki of the Nakamachi district of Isohara, Kitaibaraki. Its chronology is important evidence in identifying the impact site. It also vividly conveys life in northern Ibaraki as the war drew to a close.

The “brother” in this account is the late Katsutoshi Suzuki. Born the day after the simulated atomic bombing of Kitaibaraki, he was the first to connect the local memory of Bomb Hill with the Kitaibaraki pumpkin bomb recorded in U.S. military documents.

The Air Raid and My Brother’s Birth
Kazuo Suzuki

After the bombing of Hitachi’s Kaigan Works in June 1945, our student labor assignments changed from week to week. We went to build a small factory on a hillside beyond Suwadai, piled sandbags for an antiaircraft position at the Taga Works, and worked on pillboxes near the coast beyond Sawa Station, just in front of the pine woods, to resist an enemy landing. A soldier showed us a “new weapon”: a board about the size of a mandarin-orange box with five five-sun nails driven into it. I was disappointed. “What a childish idea,” I thought. He explained that piano wire would be stretched 40 to 50 centimeters above the ground so that enemy soldiers would trip and fall onto the nails. It sounded plausible, but I remember doubting whether it would work so neatly.

The B-29 raids grew fiercer day by day. In daylight, Grummans swarmed low like horseflies and strafed anything they saw moving. Near Futatsushima Tunnel, a passenger train was attacked and passengers were killed.

While I was harvesting wheat in a field at Terayama, a Grumman suddenly flew past at extremely low altitude beside the field, near what is now the main gate of Isohara Kyoei High School. The pilot’s yellow scarf and his smile left a strong impression.

Rain began falling harder on the evening of July 17, and grew heavier as night deepened. I had finished my schoolwork with a Japanese-Chinese character dictionary under a dim light and was about to go to bed when I heard an unfamiliar sound, rather like thunder. Certain it was naval gunfire, I woke my sleeping parents. Taking my drowsy younger sister and brother and my mother, I fled through rain so heavy that we could see nothing, following the flashes of shells toward the tunnel. No one else was there at first, but soon it filled with people. The ships apparently moved south from off Onahama, firing at the Hitachi and Taga factories. The bombardment stopped on the morning of the 18th. The weather cleared so completely that the rain seemed unreal.

On the 19th, Father, who commanded the seventh section of the local civil-defense corps, was making his daily visits to its station. Unusually, he went to check on the Numata family in Hitachi, which had been directly exposed to the bombardment two nights before. We expected him on the last train and waited together. It felt as though the B-29s would come again that night. I wanted to sleep while I could, but stayed awake.

Mother, holding her belly with the baby almost due, called the three of us into the dim living room. She took a small jar from the cupboard and put the remaining sugar before us. “We don’t know when we’ll be able to buy sugar again,” she said. “Let’s make some hot sugar water and drink it together.” I have never forgotten the taste as the four of us slowly savored that sweetness for the first time in so long.

Father returned after ten and told us about Hitachi. My uncle’s home had escaped damage so far, but the factory area had been badly hit and there seemed to be many dead and wounded. It was late, so we went straight to bed and fell asleep. I awoke to a violent banging on the shutters. “Get up, quickly!” my uncle from Tokyo shouted. In the darkness, I hurried outside with Mother and my younger sister and brother, carrying only a drawstring bag on my back. B-29 engines roared overhead, and the southern sky glowed crimson. By that light—the flames over Takahagi—we hurried into the cave beside the Kannon shrine. The neighbors were already waiting inside. At that moment, the large formation was bombing Hitachi, Tajiri and Takahagi. “Quickly, quickly. Don’t cry. Be quiet,” people told us. We settled on a straw mat and felt a little relief.

Then came a deafening “da-daan.” Everything lit up as brightly as noon. From the rice fields to our home stretched a sea of fire. Looking carefully, I saw red flames rising all along the eaves of our house. Without thinking, I rushed toward it, but a civil-defense member stopped me. How bitter it was to watch our home collapse in flames. The B-29s had gone, and in the quiet darkness, strips of burning cloth drifted down from the sky. Some landed on the thatched roof of the main family house and set it alight. We joined the villagers in fighting the fire and put it out. Our own home, both the main dwelling and the smaller retirement house, was reduced to ashes. The flames where the rice was stored had a different color. Neighbors brought buckets to help. I concentrated water on the blue flames, but it instantly turned to steam. Only after repeated dousing did the fire go out. In daylight, we found two straw bales of yellowed rice in the ruins. They became precious food until the next harvest.

Father said that just before the fire reached us, he had been leading the horse toward the Terayama field. He let it go and hurried back, but by then the flames prevented him from entering the house.

As it grew light, neighbors continued fighting the fire with buckets, but everything had turned to ash. In my room, the character dictionary that had been lying open beside my pillow retained its shape in ashes. Of the eight hexagonal incendiary bombs, one had pierced the middle of my bedding near its upper end. I shuddered to think what would have happened had we been a little later. Looking down at myself in the growing light, I felt crushed: I was wearing a winter uniform, winter trousers and gaiters. All changes of clothing had burned. The only thing I had brought out was the drawstring bag, and it contained nothing but undershirts and nappies for the baby.

By the morning of the 20th, the house had completely burned out. Light rain fell. Mother and my younger sister and brother were taken in at the retirement house of the main family home. At about eight, a single B-29 flew nearby. Hearing the whistling of a falling bomb, I hurried under a tree. The tremendous explosion of what I thought was a one-ton bomb shook me to the core. It apparently left a hole about 15 meters across in the hills of what later became the Dainippon coal-mine district. The drizzle eventually stopped, and people from across the town brought words of encouragement and everyday necessities.

I was worried about Mother, whose delivery was so near. Father was very busy because, as section commander, he had to attend the civil-defense station. We decided that Mother should return to her family home in Sorakubo, and I went to buy train tickets. Trains were running, but military traffic had priority and tickets were difficult to obtain. We finally boarded a train at about two. Carrying the drawstring bag, taking my younger brother and helping Mother, I walked just under four kilometers from Kawajiri Station to Sorakubo. Following the railway, we eventually reached her family home. My uncle there was fighting in the South, and the household was being held together by my strong-minded aunt, my grandmother and two children. We were effectively forcing ourselves into their home.

Mother could barely walk. Thinking of the child about to be born, she must have been overwhelmed by grief and anxiety at having lost everything in an instant. I cannot forget the sight of her crossing the threshold in tears and embracing her elderly mother. My aunt also welcomed us warmly.

A little later, the Numata family from Hitachi arrived at Sorakubo, pushing a two-wheeled cart piled with clothes and household goods. Their house too had burned completely. Mother and my aunt rejoiced that everyone was safe. The family home suddenly became crowded and lively. Lit only by lamps, it grew dark early. We slept crowded together, and, exhausted by the previous night’s lack of sleep, I fell deeply asleep until my uncle woke me. Mother’s labor was approaching, and the two of us went to fetch a midwife from Tajiri.

It was about three in the morning. I walked close beside my uncle along the still-dark road. Kawajiri had been reduced to ruins. Here and there, flames rose between blackened posts: an eerie sight. We finally found the midwife’s house. My uncle persuaded her to come despite the difficulties, and we brought her back.

When we arrived at about five, as daylight came, we heard a baby crying. “A boy has been born,” Grandmother said brightly. Mother was not especially strong, but she must have summoned all her resolve. We were relieved to leave the care after delivery to the midwife.

Nearly 100 houses were burned by incendiaries in that Isohara raid, and one person died.

A boy was born on the morning of July 21. He was later named Katsutoshi.

On August 15, Mother and the baby prepared to return to Isohara. My aunt helped carry their belongings as we headed toward Kawajiri Station. I had gone to Mother’s family home to bring them back, and noticed how unusual it was not to see any Grummans. When we reached the station, something felt strange. Everyone there seemed stunned. The Emperor’s radio broadcast at noon had announced Japan’s defeat. I could not believe it. I will never forget that feeling of utter emptiness.

Mother and Katsutoshi were then given a room in the retirement house of the main family home, where they stayed until a new home could be built.

Recollections written on August 15, 2010.