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Summary Of Hiroshima By John Hersey

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Many of us don’t realize just how devastating the atomic bomb was on Hiroshima. The author John Hersey in his book called Hiroshima suggests that we as Americans should feel more compassion towards those affected by the bomb as he tries to explain how terrifying that bomb really was. The book follows 6 different characters as it changes viewpoints we get to see the different ways people were in despair and in need of help. The book was published about 40 years after the tragedy as it persuades it readers of just how badly the atomic bomb affected their lives. The book was mainly aimed towards the general public that were a part of a subscription to get articles and such in the mail. There were multiple people that contributed to the book such …show more content…

Firstly, a summary and basic knowledge will be needed to meet the requirements for understanding the full story. John Hersey’s book Hiroshima implies that the author is just simply wanting to bring awareness of the situation to make the general public comprehend the tragedy. In order for Hersey to be able to make his book, and inform his audience, he asked for 6 people to give their firsthand accounts of the occurrence. Two of them were doctors, two women, and two religious men were used to perceive the whole situation from the most painful moments to the happiest. At the beginning of the book our first character is Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto who is described as a community leader and a Methodist Pastor who luckily is unscathed by the explosion but trouble starts once fire caused by the explosion spreads throughout the town like wildfire forcing him to leave his location. On his way to the outskirts of town he helps people that are injured and carries them over. Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge who is a Jesuit priest consoles the ones in need of and helps bring water to those who need it. A lot of them escape towards the outskirts of town near a river but now they have to protect the injured from whirlwinds, the rising of the tide, and from the fire. The book then moves on to Miss Toshiko Sasaki who is a young clerk whose leg gets fractured in the explosion but she is out of luck as the wound is not treated and it gets infected which is not treated for until weeks after the explosion. The book then describes how many doctors were killed by the bomb with more than half being dead or heavily injured. The story then introduces Dr. Masakazu Fujii who is injured and is unable to help anybody else out but himself. Dr. Terufumi Sasaki is uninjured and remains to be part of the staff of the Red Cross Hospital and barely ever leaves his post. Weeks after the explosion a new factor of terror come in,

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In “ Before Hiroshima : The Path Towards total War ; Ronald Takaki discusses the various reasons on why America decided to drop the atomic bombs on Japan and why they felt like dropping bombs were better than having to invade. During the time of World War 2, as the bombs were being dropped on different parts on the country, they were not only killing the men that were fighting in the war, but also killing innocent civilians. General Hap Arnold explaines his point of view on why he thinks using atomic bombing in war should be used only in the proper way. He states in the book that “He did not want to violate the widely held American moral view that war should be fought against soldiers, not civilians”. (Pg.26)

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When Paul Fussell admits to the atrocious nature of the atom bomb in his essay, ‘Thank God for the Atom Bomb,’ he appears to weaken the central emotional argument of his piece: that the destruction of Hiroshima is an intricate issue that one must look upon from a perspective which considers both sides. Paul Fussell makes the point men had been through hell for some years: “Why allow one more American high school kid to see his intestines blown out of his body and spread before him in the dirt while he screams when we can end the whole thing just like that?” Here he belives the concept of taking thousands of lives save many thousands more is much more important and that the dropping of the bomb was for the greater good. Fussell’s vivid descriptions, “not for the weak-stomached” seem to work against him, creating intense

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Sasaki, one of the survivors mentioned in the book, was a skilled surgeon who had shown his generosity by operating on those in need without a permit, risking arrest. This selfless surgeon had happened to be perfectly positioned at the time of the bomb so that he was the only doctor to be completely untouched. In all of the confusion after the attack, Dr. Sasaki immediately “got bandages and began to bind the wounds of those inside the hospital” (Hersey, 29). As wounded survivors made their way to Red Cross hospital he tirelessly worked on each victim all day, selflessly giving his time, energy, and skill into helping others.

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The residents of Hiroshima, Japan began their day routinely on August 6, 1945. Some commuted to work or school, some sat down to read a newspaper, and some tended to the needs of their children. At exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning, all aspects of life as known to the city’s population of two hundred and forty five thousand people were decimated within an instant; it was an instant in which the first atomic bomb was dropped from an American plane, killing nearly one hundred thousand people and injuring another one hundred thousand more. In its original edition, John Hersey’s Hiroshima traces the lives of six survivors, beginning a few minutes prior to the bombing and covering the period directly thereafter. When the bomb detonates, the Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, a community leader and an American-educated Methodist pastor, throws himself between two large rocks and is hit with debris from a nearby house.

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According to U.S. estimated, 60,000 to 70,000 people were killed by the bomb, 140,000 were injured many more were made homeless as a result of the bomb and some of them were missing. A very dangerous radiation reached over 100,000 kilometers. In the blast, thousands of people died instantly. The city is completely destroyed, there are 90,000 buildings and 60,000 of them were completely destroyed by the explosion. In all, approximately 33% or ⅓ of Hiroshima is completely destroyed.

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