Michihiko Hachiya (1903–1980)

Dr. Michihiko Hachiya was home when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. He lived roughly a mile from the hypocenter, near the hospital where he was director. He and his wife were injured by debris, but made it out of their house before it collapsed. They headed for the hospital, but it was on fire. Colleagues saved them, and he underwent surgery. While recuperating in the burned out hospital, he began a diary, which he continued for the next seven weeks. In it he records his show more experiences, both as a patient and a doctor, as well as the stories of his colleagues and patients. It is a remarkable document both for its content and tone.

As Dr. Hachiya recovered, his scientific curiosity returned, and he began working with his colleague to discover who was dying and why. Some patients recovered from horrible burns, while others seemed fine at first but then succumbed rapidly. Without a microscope, he first postulated dysentery, because of the prevalence of diarrhea, and even germ warfare. But once they began doing autopsies and had a microscope they discovered the internal hemorrhaging and extremely low white blood cell and platelet counts, as well as damage to red blood cells. I found the evolution of his thinking in just a few weeks to be fascinating.

Equally interesting were his views on the Emperor, Japan's military leaders, and the American occupiers. But these larger issues take the backseat to his interest in his patients' stories and the details of life. His diary is foremost a warm tribute to his colleagues and friends, whose work throughout the disaster he admired, and to the triumph of life over death. His pleasure in small successes and little luxuries (a clean bathroom, tea, a letter delivered) offsets the grim horrors that surround him. Highly recommended reading. show less

Doctor and hospital administrator Michihiko Hachiya was badly injured when an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The doctor and his wife made their way to the Communications Hospital after the blast and remained there as patients for the next several weeks. The doctor kept a diary recording his observations, thoughts, and feelings as he recovered and resumed his duties while still in recovery.

Rumors are flying and facts are scarce since the bomb severed communication show more between Hiroshima and the rest of the world. The reader feels Dr. Hachiya’s bewilderment as he tries to figure out why patients with seemingly minor injuries were suddenly sickening and dying. The reader knows they’re victims of radiation poisoning, but Dr. Hachiya doesn’t know what the reader knows. He assembles data on the patients who died as well as on patients who recovered, and he discovers that a patient’s proximity to the epicenter of the explosion is predictive of the outcome of their disease.

This is as close to a primary source on the effects of the A-bomb on Hiroshima as you’ll get without being able to read Japanese. show less

This slim volume is an amazing first-hand count of the days' aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by doctor. Hachiya was both a victim and treated victims from the bombing, so there are personal details of the event itself and recovery from the terrible effects. The clarity with which Hachiya writes and the details of death, destruction, and the difficulties facing the survivors are gut-wrenching at times. The fact that this was a personal diary not meant for publication has an show more amazing literary quality that keeps you immersed in the narrative. Never feeling like a memoir or diary written by an amateur. This will be a hard read to forget anytime soon. show less

We've all read John Hersey's 1946 book Hiroshima. (What? You haven't? Well, just drop everything and do it--now. Yes, it's that good and that valuable.) Now where was I? Oh yes, I was about to ask why, if one has already read Hersey's historically accurate account of the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, one should now read Hiroshima Diary by Michihiko Hachiya.

The answer is that Hachiya's is a first-person account by one who experienced the bombing and who, show more despite his own injuries, worked as a medical professional in the ruins of one Hiroshima hospital in the attempt to help other victims. Something, however, was very wrong. Beyond the burned skin, broken bones, and severe lacerations caused by exploding glass windows and collapsing roofs, patients experienced nausea, vomiting, and bloody diarrhea, and conventional treatment seemed to have no effect. The injured died. Then things became worse. People who had apparently escaped any injury at all began to come into the hospital with subcutaneous hemorrhaging and hair loss, and many of those also died. The doctors had never before encountered radiation poisoning.

Beyond the medical situation, Dr. Hachiya records his challenges with infrastructure breakdown, the dissolution of civil order, and the trauma of having one's social and cultural realities shattered. Hachiya's home had vanished, consumed by the flames that followed the pikadon. He and so many others had no place to shelter but at the hospital, into which wind and rain poured through twisted, glassless window frames. Outside the walls, fires burned, built deliberately to cremate the ever-growing supply of bodies. Wind spread the odors throughout the building. Human excrement accumulated around the entrances, and outdoor latrines bred relentless armies of flies.

The descriptive writing in Hiroshima Diary is effective and indicative of a learned and skillful writer. Actually, it indicates a multiplicity of effective writers. The effort, obviously, begins with Dr. Hachiya himself and is continued by his translators, one a medical doctor and the other a linguist skilled in both Japanese and English. Some works may lose meaningful nuances through the act of translation, but not so Hiroshima Diary. Simply put, I found it extremely well written, and I felt that I had come to know Dr. Hachiya quite well by the end of his diary, and I was sorry when I had to bid him sayōnara.

I value this book not so much because it adds to some great literary canon and certainly not because it left me with a happy, upbeat feeling, but because it opened a door to a greater understanding of human response to an almost unimaginable catastrophe. There are no “enemies” or “allies” in Hiroshima Diary; there are only people reacting to unprecedented events that destroy their personal worlds and leave them adrift to aid others or to be aided, to help or to hinder, and to survive or to die. show less