...has died at the age of 93. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was on business in Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945- in fact, he had been preparing to board a tram for home -when he discovered he left his personal seal back at the hotel. As he stepped off the tram, the first atomic bomb exploded just 3 kilometers away. It blew his eardrums, temporarily blinded him, burned him over the upper part of his body, and made his hair fall out. After a restless night at a makeshift hospital, he returned to work in his hometown the next day. Of course, that hometown was Nagasaki. On the ninth, he was reportedly in a discussion with his supervisor, who refused to believe that one bomb could decimate an entire city, when the second bomb went off- again, just 3 kilometers away. For those not conversant in metric, as I am not, that is just shy of 1.9 miles. I'm sure he was ready to surrender somewhat before Hirohito. Yamaguchi died today of stomach cancer; but it seems he spent most of his life with just a bit of Hearing loss.
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