Journal 7: Alexandra Edwards

I think the most interesting person so far in the book is Mrs. Nakamura. I think she is interesting because she lost her husband due to this war but continues on with her life for her kids. After the bomb went off she dug all of her children out of the debris and went back and dug through it three or four more times to get things for her children. Her story really shows a mother’s love for her children. “…and although the day was very hot, she worried rather confusedly about their being cold, so she went back into the wreckage and burrowed underneath and found a bundle of clothes she had packed for an emergency, and she dressed them in pants, blouses, shoes, padded-cotton air-raid helmets called bokuzuki, and even, irrationally, overcoats” (Hersey 19). I find it incredible that this mother went back and dug through the ruins of her home so her children would have clothes and not be cold even in the extreme heat.

The Red Cross Hospital after the bomb in Hiroshima 

I researched about why the bomb was silent to those in Hiroshima. I found that light travels faster than sound, all the sites I looked at said there will be an explosion with the bomb but it will be several seconds after the light is seen. This data was gained from a distance since the effects of the atomic bomb are extreme. So whether the sound of the bomb was all but forgotten with the chaos of the bomb or if it was disguised by the sounds destruction the bomb caused, or whether at that close of a distance there truly is no sound will remain unknown hopefully forever.