Three days after the bombing, it was decided to establish the Motohara Emergency Hospital on the site of the burnt-out Urakami Dai-Ichi Hospital. It was an emergency hospital in name only, however, as there were no supporting physicians, medicine, or medical equipment. The 300 patients, severely wounded in the atomic bombing, were entrusted to the care of Dr. Akizuki, then 29 years old.

"At first I wanted to run away, but the employees weren't running away, and I was acquainted with half of the wounded. I was single, had no ties, and fortunately wasn't wounded myself. So, I thought I'd like to do something to help the people. But there wasn't any medicine, and it wasn't possible to treat the wounded even with me there. If I hadn't been familiar with this place, I might have taken off without telling anyone.

"It's extremely trying for a doctor to treat patients without medicine or equipment. I stayed, but every day, in my heart of hearts, I felt like running away. I became a doctor because I had been physically weak, and I wanted to personally cure illness. After I became a doctor, I never failed to do my duty, and somehow or another I was unable to leave my patients. They say that to be a doctor is to practice the art of benevolence. Even if we don't provide treatment, the patients are comforted just with the doctors and nurses at their bedside. After I got a real sense of that, I naturally couldn't run off and leave the patients. After people had called out to me for help, I couldn't very well leave them."

Working by candlelight, he applied oil to the burn wounds with a brush, used pincers to remove the shards of glass from their skin, and applied mercurochrome if it was available. That was the only treatment he could provide.

Dr. Tatsuichiro Akizuki

While alarmed by the growing circumference of fatalities advancing steadily from ground zero to the hill at Motohara, Dr. Akizuki continued to treat the people wounded in the atomic blast. The war ended on August 15th when Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration and surrendered unconditionally.

"People suffering burns over their entire body, screaming children, houses burnt to the ground--this was no longer a people willing to fight. That's why I was relieved at the defeat. At the same time, I wondered why the leaders and other prominent people had been unable to stop the fighting until it reached this point. By that time, it was too late. Rather than feeling angry frustration or sadness, I thought this was to be naturally expected. When the Imperial Edict announcing Japan's surrender was read out, I said that everyone would be saddened by our defeat, but this was also the end of our torment.

"With that amount of suffering caused by the burn wounds, with that number of fatalities, there was neither victory nor defeat. Later, as time went by, a strong desire grew within me to leave a record of what I, a physician, had seen with my own eyes and experienced--though the number of people I treated and the terrible wounds suffered in the atomic bombing were only a minute fraction of the actual costs. Scientifically and academically, the occurrences over those 40 days were just pitch black. There was no testimony of anything other than what I or we had seen, and for that reason, I wanted to leave an accurate record.

"For three years, starting a year before the atomic bombing, I never left here for even a single day. Outside the window from the hospital beds is the direction from which the people wounded in the bombing came streaming up towards us. Looking to the side while praying at the Sunday morning service, I saw that many of the family members of the people who came for treatment were here. I think I was able to write this because they were at the same place at that time."

Sugako Akizuki

"I was not physically strong, nor did I have any particular creed, so even I don't understand why I decided to build a hospital and stay there. I just think that everyone had a burden of some kind. It seemed as if the many people from this neighborhood who died were pushing me from behind. I do not know if anything like that exists in this world, but as I stand in this operating room representing the advances of medical science, I still see a double image of the dead from that time, burnt to a pitch black and strewn along the roadside.

"My life, which I spent here with my patients, was an oppressive burden, but it was the strength that allows me to continue. I feel as if it was given to me to bear, rather than something I bore. This was an affliction for me, but I could not lay it down and leave. I gave up the impossible attempt to forget everything and decided to live my life carrying that burden. My mental state today is the same as that when I didn't flee in the face of so many wounded people.

"There is a collapsed wall at the hospital. Recently, I was walking along there late at night, and the sound of my shoes echoed back from the wall with an eerie reverberation. After the bombing, many wounded people were climbing the wall at that very spot. The sound was something not of this world. I couldn't tell whether the wall was making the sound, or my footsteps were making the sound. Then I realized with a start that it sounded like a moan. Ordinarily, I would find it unpleasant to listen to that sound, but that night I walked back and forth listening to it.

"I think I received this award because people were able to share this burden with me."

The St. Francis Hospital

Translation :William Sakovich

The Specific Aspects of the Nagasaki Atomic Bombing The bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki was a plutonium bomb, which is said to have been about three times more powerful than the uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The bomb was 3.2 meters in length, 1.5 meters in diameter, and 4.5 tons in weight. It exploded about 500 meters above Matsuyama-machi at 11:02 a.m. on August 9, 1945. Injuries to Humans The death toll was 74,000 people, with another 75,000 suffering injuries. Within a 1 kilometer radius of the hypocenter almost 90% of the people died. Burns caused by the heat rays of the atomic bomb were severe, with the surface skin being completely burned and falling off, and leaving tissue and bone exposed. People were thrown by the force of the blast and countless pieces of glass and other debris pierced their skin. The radiation penetrated deep into people's bodies, causing them to suffer injuries and diseases such as cancer and leukemia to this very day.

Biological Damages At the moment of the explosion there was a brilliant flash of light. Ten seconds later an enormous roar sounded and a fearful blast swept across the area. Sharp rays of heat emitted massive amounts of radiation. There were no barriers to the spread of radiation. People didn't feel anything abnormal, as this radiation didn't produce sound or heat, but in actuality it had permeated deep into their bodies and affecting them greatly. The temperature directly under the explosion was estimated to be somewhere from 3,000 to 4,000 degrees Celsius. The force of the blast and the heat rays unleashed immediate destructive power, and then fires broke out which severely damaged one third of the buildings in the city, with all building inside a 2 kilometer radius of the explosion burnt to ashes. Urakami Dai-Ichi Hospital (today, the St. Francis Hospital) stood on a hill in Motohara about 1.4 kilometers from ground zero. The beautiful three-story red brick building was originally a Catholic seminary. The force of the blast destroyed the interior, and it had burned out, with only the exterior wall remaining. It was to be the only medical facility standing in the burnt fields immediately after the blast.(From "Records of the Nagasaki Atomic Bombing")