Nagasaki: The Last Witnesses

Japanese studies scholar Sheftall turns to the bombing of Nagasaki in this harrowing follow-up to Hiroshima. In his opening passages, Sheftall briefly surveys Nagasaki’s history, particularly the Mitsubishi Corporation’s 1920s transformation of the city into an industrial center, and its unique landscape—the city occupied two valleys amidst three mountain peaks—all of which contributed to the day’s fateful events. After several last-minute reroutes due to poor visibility, the bomb was dropped over the less populated of the city’s valleys, which contained two Mitsubishi plants, inadvertently allowing a mountain to shield many downtown residents from the blast. The bulk of the text presents the recollections of five now-elderly survivors; four were teenagers at the time, but all had been put to work for the war effort. One 16-year-old, home after working an overnight factory shift, stood by his window shirtless to cool off; he recalls feeling “like someone had just pressed a laundry steam iron onto his bare back” before “a tremendous gust” sent him “tumbling through the air.” A 13-year-old employed digging an air raid shelter recalls that “a blast of hot wind hit her like a giant slap... flinging her into the far wall of the ditch.” The horrors were compounded in the aftermath as residents feared further attacks and inadvertently exposed themselves to radiation. Sheftall’s meticulous, novelistic recreations are deeply immersive. It’s an invaluable contribution to 20th-century history. (Aug.)