Hiroshima, 8:15
The Lost Memoir
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- Vorbestellbar
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- Erwartet am 4. Aug. 2026
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- 10,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
A newly discovered firsthand account of the Hiroshima bombing and its aftermath from one of the survivors—bringing unprecedented immediacy to our understanding of this world-changing event.
“A stunning historical discovery and a heartrending testimony.” —Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize–winning coauthor of American Prometheus
At approximately 8:15 on the morning of August 6, 1945, Kiyoshi Tanimoto was on the outskirts of Hiroshima when a flash in the sky signaled the birth of a horrifying new world. In an instant, tens of thousands of Hiroshima residents had been vaporized or crushed to death.
As Tanimoto, a thirty-six-year-old Methodist minister, raced back to the city center in search of his wife and infant daughter, he encountered unimaginable devastation: structures leveled; fires everywhere; uncountable injured suffering from burns, broken bones, and the effects of radiation. In the days, weeks, and months that followed this unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, he invested body and soul in helping his living congregants obtain food, shelter, and medical care, as well as identifying and burying with as much dignity as possible those who had perished. He dedicated himself to rebuilding not only his church, but his city and his nation.
Tanimoto went on to gain renown as one of the survivors featured in John Hersey’s New Yorker piece and book, Hiroshima, which changed the American public’s understanding of the event. But Tanimoto also wrote his own story. Hiroshima, 8:15 is Tanimoto’s never-before-published firsthand account of the bombing of Hiroshima, written in the immediate aftermath, in his own words.
This singular memoir is both an invaluable addition to the historical record and an urgent eyewitness testimony of one of the most calamitous events to befall humanity. At a time when the threat of nuclear war still looms, Tanimoto’s message of peace, and his vision of a better path forward for humankind, is of vital importance.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Atomic blast survivor Tanimoto—a Japanese Methodist minister who featured in John Hersey's groundbreaking report Hiroshima—wrote down his own harrowing observations of the catastrophic event. In his introduction, journalist David Corn details how Tanimoto's unpublished, English-language manuscript recently resurfaced, discovered among Hersey's papers. At the time of the bombing, Tanimoto was two miles out of town; seeing "a sharp flash of light," he dropped between two large garden rocks as "a strong blast of wind filled the air." He emerged to find himself surrounded by devastation, which he describes with a reporter's dispassion: "Skin from faces, hands, arms, and breasts was stripped off or hanging loose. People were moving... without expression... following one after another in silence... like a procession of ghosts.... Everything was beyond their comprehension." In the aftermath, Tanimoto attempted to return home, but was slowed by strangers pleading for help. He eventually found his family, though he ended up bedridden with radiation sickness. Tanimoto's powerful recollections emphasize the on-the-ground disbelief that such devastation could occur so instantaneously, with no forewarning, as well as the persistent guilt felt by survivors. (Tanimoto recalls running away in tears from people asking him for help, as their terrible conditions led him to imagine his wife and child in the same state.) It's a grim reminder of the bomb's awful toll.
