Sunday September 27, 2026 10:30am - Hiroshima by John Hersey

The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples

Sep 12

2 min read

Updated: Sep 25

Dear Engaged Spirituality Family,

Engaged Spirituality will meet on ZOOM on Sunday September 27, 2026 at 10:30 AM PT, 11:30 AM MT, 12:30 PM CT, and 1:30 PM ET to discuss the first four chapters of the book Hiroshima by John Hersey. Attached please find my notes. The first part follows the 6 survivors that John Hersey chose to describe through the first 4 chapters. Then I have included a list of events that occurred during the timeframe of those same 4 chapters. Please try to make time to read the notes!

Chapter 1 – The Noiseless Flash – Before and during the bombing.

Chapter 2 – The Fire – Throughout the rest of the day of the bombing.

Chapter 3 - Details Are Being Investigated – During the week after the bombing.

Chapter 4 – Panic Grass and Fever Few – The rest of the year until the first anniversary of the bombing.

I have not done any Bare Bones notes because I would like you to have a complete picture of the lives of the 6 survivors that John Hersey chose to chronicle:

1. Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a young clerk of East Asia Tin Works who had just sat down at her place in the plant office and was turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk. 0.9 miles from the hypocenter.

2. Dr. Masakazu Fujii, a physician with a private single-doctor hospital perched 2/3 on the land and 1/3 on piles overhanging the Kyo River, Hiroshima, was settling down cross-legged to read the newspaper on the porch of his hospital and residence. 0.88 miles from the hypocenter.

3. Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, a tailor’s widow and mother of three stood by the window who supported her children, but poorly, by sewing. 0.75 miles from the hypocenter.

4. Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a German priest of the Society of Jesus, reclined in his underwear on a cot on the top floor of his order’s 3-story mission house, reading a Jesuit magazine. (Some of the other Jesuits are also included here.) 0.8 miles from the hypocenter.

5. Dr. Toshinki Sasaki, a young member of the surgical staff of the Hiroshima’s large, modern Red Cross hospital was walking along a hospital corridor at the time of the bombing. 0.9 miles from the hypocenter.

6. The Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, paused at the door of a rich man’s house in Koi, the city’s western suburb and prepared to unload a handcart full of things he had evacuated from Hiroshima in fear of the massive B-29 raid which everyone expected Hiroshima to suffer. 2 miles from the hypocenter.