Newly Found Hiroshima Memoir Offers Grim Eyewitness of 8:15 Blast and a Pastor’s Peace Effort
On Hiroshima's 81st anniversary, Kiyoshi Tanimoto's long-lost English memoir Hiroshima 8:15 The Lost Memoir has surfaced in Yale archives via John Hersey's collection, offering a fresh eyewitness account of the blast and the minister's postwar relief work. The memoir describes the sharp flash, a tremendous explosion, and the devastation as his family was buried under rubble; it also recounts survivors' suffering, including radiation sickness, and his later peace activism with the Hiroshima Maidens. Found by Hersey's grandson Cannon Hersey and filmmaker Taku Nishimae, the manuscript adds to Hersey's 1946 Hiroshima coverage and is set to become a feature film at the 2028 Cannes festival, with Takehiro Hira attached to star as Tanimoto.