Roamer: Remarkable survivor of both of Japan’s WWII atomic bombs

If you haven’t visited the Portadown bunker – get along when it reopens next April. Meanwhile, an update. Both of Roamer’s reports detailed some of the bunker’s ominously-named gadgetry.

The Bomb Power Indicator measured the pressure wave caused by nuclear explosions; the Ground Zero Indicator showed the direction of the detonation and the Teletalk ‘attack warning red’ signal confirmed that inter-ballistic missiles were approaching.

Everything in the bunker, and its former function, was very vividly explained by Colin Woods, the Leading ROC Observer there from 1983 to 1991. “People did survive nuclear bombs,” he explained, “even in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.”

Coincidentally, just several weeks ago news broke that a group of Japanese atomic bomb survivors called ‘Nihon Hidankyo’ won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. Known in Japanese as ‘hibakusha’, survivors from both cities got together in 1956 and have been campaigning ever since to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

It’s reckoned about 140,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki. “Vapourised, gone, over a period of days, weeks, months and years afterwards, something in the region of about 100,000 people in each city lost their lives,” Colin Woods explained.

“But loads and loads of people survived. The most astonishing one for me personally was a guy called Tsutomu Yamaguchi.”

An estimated 260,000 people survived the attacks, many suffering severe burns and radiation illness, but 29-year-old marine engineer Tsutomu Yamaguchi was the only person officially recognised as a survivor of both bombs and more about him in a moment.

Before that, some harrowing context. At 8.15 on the morning of August 6 1945 Hiroshima was devastated by the first atomic bomb used in war. Nicknamed ‘Little Boy’ it exploded some 1,800 feet above the city and reduced five square miles of central Hiroshima to ashes.

Three days later, just after 11 am on August 9, a second more powerful atomic bomb nicknamed ‘Fat Man’ exploded above Nagasaki. Due to the nature of the terrain there was less devastation than Hiroshima, with over two square miles flattened and half the number of deaths.

“Tsutomu Yamaguchi was standing in Hiroshima at a quarter past eight in the morning talking to his friends,” Colin Woods recounted in the Portadown bunker. “He saw parachutes starting to drop from a plane overhead, he saw the flash above the city and was temporarily blinded.”

Yamaguchi later described the flash as “the lighting of a huge magnesium flare” and said he jumped into a ditch but was sucked out and spun by a tornado into a field. With burns on his face and arms and both eardrums ruptured he clambered into a bomb shelter with some colleagues.

“They stayed there overnight and next day got their burns seen to and after a day’s rest Yamaguchi reported back to work in Nagasaki,” Colin continued. His house, his wife and family and his office were in Nagasaki “and he was standing at 11 o’clock telling his boss what happened in Hiroshima when a plane went overhead, and another flash, and he got hit again,” Colin recounted.

Afterwards Yamaguchi told reporters that he dropped to the ground seconds before shockwaves shattered his office window and sent pieces of glass flying in the air. He said his bandages were blown off and he thought “the mushroom cloud had followed me from Hiroshima!”

“But he survived,” Colin added. “He was in both explosions and managed to survive. His wife was in Nagasaki at the same time and unfortunately was doused in black rain (radioactive rain).

“They went on, they did have illnesses for the rest of their lives, they had a family, two girls and a boy. His wife lived till she was 88 and died of cancer of the kidney and liver. He lived till he was 93 – he died of leukaemia in 2010.” A year before his death Yamaguchi told reporters that his double radiation exposure was now “an official government record. It can tell the younger generation the horrifying history of the atomic bombings, even after I die”.