Stories from the witnesses and survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima
Most people died instantly when "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" were dropped on Japan. The thousands of people who did survive died in the years that followed due to injuries and radiation exposure. Also, thousand of survivors and witnesses did live until they were old (some are still living) and shared their stories. Below are some quotes and links to some stories that surivors have shared with reporters. *NOTE: some of these stories you may not want to read, they can be disturbing to some people*
Hiroshima survivor stories
One survivor, Fujie Urata Matsumoto describes what they saw:
"The pumpkin field in front of the house was blown clean. Nothing was left of the whole thick crop, except that in place of the pumpkins there was a woman's head. I looked at the face to see if I knew her. It was a woman of about forty. She must have been from another part of town -- I had never seen her around here. A gold tooth gleamed in the wide-open mouth. A handful of singed hair hung down from the left temple over her cheek, dangling in her mouth. Her eyelids were drawn up, showing black holes where the eyes had been burned out. . . . She had probably looked square into the flash and gotten her eyeballs burned."
"The pumpkin field in front of the house was blown clean. Nothing was left of the whole thick crop, except that in place of the pumpkins there was a woman's head. I looked at the face to see if I knew her. It was a woman of about forty. She must have been from another part of town -- I had never seen her around here. A gold tooth gleamed in the wide-open mouth. A handful of singed hair hung down from the left temple over her cheek, dangling in her mouth. Her eyelids were drawn up, showing black holes where the eyes had been burned out. . . . She had probably looked square into the flash and gotten her eyeballs burned."