{"id":15926,"date":"2025-08-08T12:57:57","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T12:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/?p=15926"},"modified":"2025-08-08T12:57:57","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T12:57:57","slug":"a-noiseless-flash-hiroshima-80-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2025\/08\/08\/a-noiseless-flash-hiroshima-80-years-later\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A Noiseless Flash\u2019: Hiroshima, 80 years later"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
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Sign up for the Nieman Storyboard newsletter,<\/em><\/a> delivered every Friday in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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***<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Dear Storyboard community, <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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This week marks 80 years since the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki<\/a>, which destroyed both cities and killed some 210,000 people, including tens of thousands of children. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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It provides a moment to reflect on the horrors of war, and to reread John Hersey’s “Hiroshima,”<\/a> published in The New Yorker one year later, in August 1946. The article shaped the world\u2019s collective memory of the event. It begins: <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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At exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning, on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in the plant office and was turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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The New Yorker dedicated its entire issue that week to Hersey\u2019s 30,000-word piece. With precise detail and a spare, matter-of-fact tone, Hersey recounts the stories of six survivors \u2014 Sasaki, Dr. Masakazu Fujii, Hatsuyo Nakamura, Kiyoshi Tanimoto, Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, and Dr. Terufumi Sasaki \u2014 from the moments before the bomb dropped to the hours, days, and months that followed.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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\u201cHiroshima\u201d is widely viewed as one of the most important works of journalism of the 20th century. It helped open the world’s eyes to the devastation caused by nuclear weapons, and ushered in a new era in narrative nonfiction. This week, at The New Yorker, Jane Mayer reflects<\/a> on the story\u2019s legacy:  <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Hersey\u2019s candor had a seismic impact: the magazine sold out, and a book version of the article sold millions of copies. Stephanie Hinnershitz, a military historian, told me that Hersey\u2019s reporting \u201cdidn\u2019t just change the public debate about nuclear weapons \u2014 it created the debate.\u201d Until then, she explained, President Harry Truman had celebrated the attack as a strategic masterstroke, \u201cwithout addressing the human cost.\u201d Officials shamelessly downplayed the effects of radiation; one called it a \u201cvery pleasant way to die.\u201d Hinnershitz said, \u201cHersey broke that censorship.\u201d He alerted the world to what the U.S. government had hidden.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Author Lesley M.M. Blume’s book “Fallout”<\/a> details how Hersey managed to get past heavy U.S. government censorship<\/a> to tell the story. Hersey also returned to the survivors’ stories 40 years later<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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In 2020, Storyboard contributor Erika Hayasaki, whose father was born in Japan, wrote for Narratively about how Hersey’s work affected her own journey<\/a>. She first read the story for a middle school book report: <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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[Hersey’s] omniscient, controlled voice felt godlike and all-knowing, free from authorial editorializing. He was hailed as a writer who \u201clet \u2018Hiroshima\u2019 speak for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n \n

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When I first read the book in 1991, I was struggling to make sense of my place among some Americans who still \u2014 46 years after the bomb \u2014 saw someone like me as subhuman. I was a child with a Japanese immigrant father (he was born three years after the bomb) and a white mother. I grew up in a small Midwestern town as one of only a handful of Asians. \u2026 <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n \n

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When my teacher, Mrs. Ott, assigned a book report about a historical event in middle school, I asked my father what I should write about.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n \n

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\u201cWhat about the atomic bomb they dropped on Japan?\u201d he said, as if we had discussed this event my entire life. I had no idea what he was talking about. I only knew that once I had stumbled across my father cleaning the hot tub he had built with slabs of wood in our backyard. Staring at the sky as it began to drizzle, he muttered something about how Americans never knew \u201cblack rain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Hayasaki goes on to meet one of Hiroshima’s survivors, Koko Kondo, the eldest daughter of Kiyoshi Tanimoto, who were both featured in Hersey’s story: <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Kondo realized her own calling when it came to social justice was to take on the legacy of Hiroshima. She decided she did not just want to see nuclear weapons controlled or curtailed. She wanted them abolished. And she knew that for as long as she still had her voice, she would continue to tell their story \u2014 Hiroshima\u2019s story \u2014 to anyone who would listen. Today, Kondo has one unequivocal pursuit: a nuclear weapon\u2013free world. \u201cFor the sake of the children,\u201d she told me.  <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Many Nieman Storyboard contributors have written about Hersey\u2019s influence on their work<\/a> \u2014\u00a0see below for more examples.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Is it still possible for one story to change the global narrative and open our eyes to injustice? Despite the fragmented and distorted modern media ecosystem, I\u2019d like to think so. Every story, however big or small, makes it safer for others to share their own stories, and for the larger truth to emerge. It’s up to each of us to choose and tell stories with responsibility and care to help make that happen.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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As Koko Kondo shared with Hayasaki: <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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\u201cMy father told me we might not change the whole world,\u201d Kondo told me before we signed off. \u201cBut if we tell our story, person to person … someday.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Collected reflections on John Hersey\u2019s \u2018Hiroshima\u2019<\/a><\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\"\"<\/a>
John Hersey. Photo via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> \n
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\u201cIf anyone in the room thinks of himself or herself as an artist, this is not a course for you. I teach a craft.\u201d <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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[ Read the story<\/a> ]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Links of note<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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