VOLUME 5 • ISSUE 3 • September 2025

80 Years Later, Hiroshima’s Horror Still Haunts the World

Atomic bomb survivor Sadae Kasaoka recalls the day that shattered her life and changed history forever

On Aug. 6, 1945, Sadae Kasaoka was a 12-year-old student who was spending her first year at an all-girls’ school that did not offer summer classes or summer vacations.

The sixth of seven children, she lived with her parents and her 93-year-old grandmother in Eba, a district in Hiroshima City 2.2 miles south from ground zero.

Her three older sisters were married and moved to live with their husbands’ families, her older brother was a student at the Marine Technical College in Kobe and her younger brother was in the 5th grade at an elementary school that had evacuated students to a small town in Kisa in Futami District, about 65 miles northeast of Hiroshima City.

The day before, Sadae had been working with her classmates on “labor day” duty, clearing away bomb-damaged buildings in Otemachi. The district is now home to the Orizuru Tower that overlooks a city — and its memories — that endure beyond the ruins.

On August 6, having the day off from her labor day assignment, Sadae had planned to spend time alone at home. Earlier, her parents had gone to help demolish a friend’s house near City Hall. An all-clear siren signaling that a previous warning was over brought her a sense of relief: No more enemy planes on the way.

She put away her breakfast items, washed the dishes, hung a load of laundry on a pole in the yard and was heading back to the house, toward an east-facing veranda, when she noticed her home’s large, 8-foot-long glass window began to turn a deep red, then orange, followed by a loud roar.

The window shattered, glass flew toward her as her body was blown back by what felt like an unseen force. When she regained consciousness, she felt a warm liquid as she touched her head. Glass had cut her scalp but she felt no pain, just sticky blood.

At that moment, Sadae Kasaoka’s life became a continuous series of loss upon loss, of unspeakable horrors, the events in her life determined as a result of what took place on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945.

Today, 80 years after the bombing, Ms. Kasaoka continues to bear witness to that historic, cataclysmic day. Despite her petite, fragile appearance, she delivered an intensely powerful message to a large crowd gathered at the Honpa Hongwanji Hawaiʻi Betsuin, as well dozens more online.

Aided by her translator Mayumi Miyahara and Ai Nishimoto of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, the 92-year-old survivor gave an unflinching recounting of the days and weeks after the bombing — her tone turning fervent when she came to the subject of war and the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Entitled “In Remembrance and Reflection” the program commemorating 80 years since the end of World War II, opened with a service officiated by Bishop Toshiyuki Umitani who introduced Ms. Kasaoka.

In her presentation, she took the audience back to the hours, days, weeks, months and years following the bombing, retelling apocalyptic events without anguish from the moment she took her grandmother to a shelter followed by how her older brother retrieved their father.

“By chance, my older brother, who had been in Kobe at the time, brought my father back on a hand cart but I could not recognize the person lying on the cart,” she said. “His face was swollen, his eyes were wide open, his lips curled. He was all black from head to toe as if black paint had been poured over his body.”

At first, she couldn’t recognize him until he spoke.

“When he said, ‘Give me water!’ and ʻWe tried to escape, but we got separated,’ it was only then that I realized this was my Dad, my Otosan.”

His skin peeled away when touched. Without access to medical supplies, they used vegetables to form compresses, only to watch them dry up as soon as they were applied; his flesh was so hot.

At one point, while looking for vegetables, young Sadae came upon ghostly figures walking past her, covered in gray ash with what appeared to be bits of clothing peeling away in strips from their bodies as they stumbled by her.

“I realized they were not ghosts and the fabric falling off their arms was their own flesh,” she said. “The white ash covering their bodies came from the bomb.

“My father died on August 8, worried about his wife and his children. He was 52.”

Later, her brother was told that their mother’s name was on a list of those who had died and some remains had been found. She also died on August 8 and her body disposed of, but hair and small bone fragments were all that remained.

“But there was no way of knowing if it was her,” Ms. Kasaoka.

For years after the bombing, she felt a deep hatred for Americans, only to realize later how people throughout the world, Americans included, supported the abolishment of nuclear weapons and sympathized with Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims through the International Red Cross and the Foster Parents Plan that sought to help orphans whose parents perished.

In the decades since 1945, Ms. Kasaoka graduated from high school, although four years later than when she normally would have; she landed a job despite facing discrimination against hibakusha or bomb survivors; she married Kenji Kasaoka, a fellow survivor, in 1957, only to lose him to cancer 10 years later at the age of 35. Together they had two children.

While it’s estimated that 140,000 lives were lost as a direct result of the bomb, those who survived still carry the fear that the effects of radiation exposure continue to this day, generations later.

At the age of 92, Ms. Kasaoka tirelessly calls attention to the horrors of nuclear weapons and the futility of war as she advocates for peace.

“A single bomb took away our dreams and our hopes for the future,” she said.

“War changes people. It changes our humanity. Those who suffer the most are the elderly and the innocent.

“If everyone came together, we can create a powerful voice.

“I hope and pray that someday soon we can live peaceful lives without the fear of war.”

The program opened with a commemorative service officiated by Bishop Toshiyuki Umitani who acknowledged the cooperation of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation and Ms. Kasaoka.

A poster exhibit in the Social Hall, featuring some 30 works on eight panels, provided visitors with a sweeping view of the bombing’s history — from the making of the bomb to its enduring impact on society.

Presented by the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii Office of the Bishop, the Peace Day Committee, Honpa Hongwanji Betsuin and the Honolulu District Ministers Association the gathering served as both a memorial and a call for peace.

– Gail S. Tagashira