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''The Last Train From Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back'' is a book by American author Charles R. Pellegrino and published on January 19, 2010 by Henry Holt and Company that documents life in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the time immediately preceding, during and following the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Japan. The story focuses on individuals such as Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a ''hibakusha'' (explosion-affected person) who was the only person confirmed by the government of Japan to have survived the ''pika-don'' (flash-bang) of both attacks. The story of the impacts in Japan on the residents of the two targeted cities and of the response of the Japanese government to the attack is interwoven with details of the Americans who carried out the missions and their reactions to the damage they had wrought. Pellegrino faced criticism from members of the 509th Composite Group, the unit created by the United States Army Air Forces tasked with operational deployment of the two nuclear weapons, for including extensive details provided by Joseph Fuoco, who falsely claimed to have been aboard the mission to Hiroshima as flight engineer as a last-minute substitute. Questions were also raised about the existence of two characters described as survivors. After further investigation, and amid questions of Pellegrino's academic qualifications, Henry Holt announced that it was suspending further publication of the book. ==The book== Yamaguchi, an employee of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, had been in Hiroshima on a business trip on August 6, 1945, when the Enola Gay dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb on that city with Yamaguchi located about two miles from the hypocenter. After a night amid the devastation in that city he returned by train with a number of other bomb survivors to his hometown of Nagasaki, where he was reporting back to his superiors at Mitsubishi about his experiences in Hiroshima when the Fat Man bomb was detonated over that city. Pellegrino follows what could have been as many as 165 double survivors in what Dwight Garner of ''The New York Times Book Review'' called a "sober and authoritative new book" that stands as "a firm, compelling synthesis of earlier memoirs and archival material" that could be described as "John Hersey infused with Richard Preston and a fleck of Michael Crichton". Pellegrino documents the random nature of survival, with people who had been outdoors wiped off the face of the earth in a fraction of a second, while others who had been indoors and were afforded protection in "shock cocoons" from the gamma rays and the heat blast survived. People who had been outdoors or exposed to windows facing the explosion and were wearing dark-colored clothing received severe burns, while those wearing white suffered less of an effect. Those wearing patterned or striped clothing suffered burns on their skin that matched the designs of their clothing. The shock to those who found themselves to have survived the bombing turned many into "ant walkers", following other survivors in lines walking aimlessly through the destroyed cities. At times they encountered "alligator people", whose skin had been so badly charred that their exteriors became reptilian in appearance.〔 He follows the experiences of doctors who had emerged from the rubble of their hospitals only to find themselves with little of the medical equipment and supplies that were so desperately needed. Some patients who had initially appeared to have survived the bomb without a scratch suffered no ill effects for a few days and then suddenly started vomiting, losing their hair, and bleeding to death as a result of the effects of the then-unknown condition of radiation poisoning. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Last Train from Hiroshima」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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