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TIL that a man by the name of Tsutomu Yamaguchi is the only person alive to be officially credited for surviving both nuclear bomb blasts. He was in Hiroshima on business for an employer when the bomb dropped, survived, and then went to work in Nagasaki three days later when the second detonated.
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At that point I hope his employers just let him have some time off rather than risk another city.
Ha, clearly you don't know Japanese employers
What employers? They got nuked remember?
Even.In.Death.
Doesn't work for me:(
I was hoping this was a subreddit
You can't die unless your employer dies of radiation poisoning first.
That would be the smart move.
I can only imagine how paranoid this person was after the second bomb
What if they thought the bombs were following him?
They're shooting the cans! Stay away from the cans!
Man, Tommy Boy is such an underrated movie.
Yeah, I am just gonna take this vacation to Bikini Atoll. I'll be back next Tuesday.
Kinda he was shunned by society as a kind of black cat unlucky.
Harsh, but in fairness when you've pretty much got a recent 100% record for cities visited being nuked, it's understandable. Nobody wants to risk a nuke dropping on them.
Tsutomu, we know why you went through must be terrible, but work must go on. Since the Nagasaki plant is out of commission, we've transferred you to the city where our largest competitor is based...
Article is his obituary
Ah shit, I meant he was the only person to survive both blasts who received this crediting.
False. I don't know where this notion comes from. There were many, many people that witnessed both
The book "To hell and back the last train to Nagasaki" tells the stories of some people that survived both bombings. Just a random FYI. Great book. It was very eye opening.
Edit: some of these people were able to save others thanks to knowing what was happening.
Somewhat true. He says he knows of many people who did, but he is the only IDENTIFIED and VERIFIED person known to survive both blasts.
Maybe he's the only guy that didn't eventually die from it.
Wrong! There were at least 165 double survivors.
But no sources...
Did you even read the article? It says "officially credited" for a reason.
He was the only one officially credited, but not the only one to survive both. I'm not sure how important that official credit is...
How many survived being injured by both and present when both went off?
There were AT LEAST 165 double survivors. See the section in this link under double survivors.
http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Hibakusha
So this whole post is wrong. Awesome TIL
Being exposed to two nukes left him with... abilities.
"1hp wtf" -USA 1945
99 in 2 fuck this game
That's why you should always buy a helmet
Lmfao
"need 100 my friendo ))"
Lmfao funniest post on this thread
Oops
At that point I'd be pretty paranoid about when death would come for me.
That's seriously some final destination stuff.
Imagine you're experiencing an existential crisis at the time, wondering if God hates you and you really have a place in the universe. Then you get your answer...twice.
But is it glass half full answer: hey I survived. I must have a purpose!
Or glass half empty: shit he wants me dead and it's not for lack of trying.
GOD DAMNIT!! Missed the little shit again!
"Hello there!"
At this point I'd believe I'm invincible.
I supposed to be dead twice over also and I am now forever paranoid about everything.
Imagine his feelings in that particular moment in Nagasaki .... "Oh Crap... Not again..." thats just crazy, i hope his employer gave him atleast a raise or some days off
What's even more insane is he was trying to explain to his boss about a bomb that leveled an entire city (Hiroshima) when the second bomb went off
"....Yeah, it was exactly like that"
"Show me that Again, that's really neat! You say that's what it was like?"
I wouldve shit my nuclear pants
I imagine him telling the story to his Co workers at the water cooler. Telling the story and was like "it was just a plane like that I saw..." A few seconds later all hell breaks out.
I bet he's great at BBQ's though
Unofficially, there were a few more..
I sat in once for a Classical Malay Language class by this lecturer who turned out to be one of sixteen from the Malay Archipelago who survived Hiroshima, and he told of how the group was split in two, nine of whom were sent to Nagasaki for the purpose of securing ship transport back home.
He added that out of the nine, three survived the Nagasaki blast, to become teachers and lecturers in their hometowns. They were all dead by the time he told me his story (about 20 years ago now), and aside from the hibakusha payment from the Japanese government, received no special treatment.
There were somewhere between 60 and 120 unofficial survivors of both, but now that they're all dead, their lives will remain forever anonymous.
I just read the obituary of one of them. His name is Tsutomu, it's in the title.
Previous poster mentioned "unofficial survivors." Tsutomu was known.
Some of them still live, probably.
I could imagine there could be quite a few - there was quite a stigma attached to those who were on site at either location ("Black Rain" sums this up pretty effectively). Young people in particular had good reason to hide their involvement in either/both blasts.
Damn I still can't believe that our government purposely bombs innocent citizens.
The Japanese were just as brutal and indifferent to the suffering they imposed on China and Korea during their conquests. No point blubbering about it now. Hopefully we've learned not to be so harsh to each other now.
We haven't.
Time will tell.
I'm by no means pro-war, and I'm not American, but I guess it was a necessary evil to end the war?
I don't know, I love history but I'm not a historian so I don't know all the politics involved per se.
It wasn't. Japan had already decided to surrender by the time the first bomb dropped. It was purely a show of power.
Ha ha. In my years on reddit, I've seen so many comments like this, I should really just have a comment ready to copy and paste.
The Japanese government was very split on the idea of surrender. On one hand, the Japanese government started putting out feelers to discuss surrender long before either of the atomic bombs. On the other hand, the Japanese thought the US only had one bomb after Hiroshima. After the second bomb, they thought maybe the US had an unlimited supply of them (which contributed toward influencing the Japanese towards surrender). The military generals considered staging a coup against the emperor to continue fighting the war. It seems like the "kamikaze" ideal became a little too infused into the military's thinking and they considered taking the entire country into a kamikaze-like defeat. It's far from a simple "they had already decided to surrender" story.
Edit:
Here's a source (keep in mind that bombs were dropped August 6 and August 9):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan
I do wonder if dropping the second bomb on a populated city was necessary though....
Seems like you could wait longer than 3 days to see how the first one settles in.
The Japanese were absolutely not ready to surrender. You could make an argument that they would have surrendered to the USSR regardless of the US bombs - but as of August 5th, 1945, the Japanese weren't close to surrendering.
I mean, the nukes were not the worst thing we did. Simply firebombing Tokyo did a lot more damage and killed a lot more people.
Watch "Grave of the Fireflies" if you feel like wallowing in misery for a bit.
No such thing as a civilian in a total war. Schools, hospitals, homes, etc. are all legitimate military targets
Why..? They attacked us first, you expect the USA to sit by and do nothing when you bring an attack to our soil? You need to get a grip man.
This guy had god mode enabled for most of the 40s.
Dude had a nuke dropped on him... took a long weekend and figured that was enough time with the wife and kids...better get back to work.
It wasn't really a nuke...
a huge fucking bomb
How so?
How do you figure?
It
wasn'twas really a nuke ftfySemantics.
Only in Japan would a dude be so hard. "Excuse me Mr. Employer-san- I seek no time off and no charity but I'm afraid my return trip to Nagasaki may be delayed. The bomb has caused some setbacks on the rail lines. I beg your forgiveness and I will return to work as soon as I'm physically able."
I believe the exact conversation went:
Mechanic: Someone set up us the bomb!
Employer: You have no chance to survive make your time!
That work ethic is quite admirable.
So does this make him extremely lucky or extremely unlucky? I can't decide...
If he'd died, probably unlucky. I'm gonna go with he was just having a bad couple of days.
Both.
Extremely lucky.
It wasn't extremely unlucky that he was in both cities. The US army was firebombing the country side and most cities. However they were NOT firebombing cities that were potential targets of the atomic bomb because they wanted data about the effectiveness of the weapon, and already having significant human death and infrastructure destruction fron non-nuclear weapons in a city would obscure that data.
So Nagasaki and Hiroshima were spared the firebombing. So some people who lived nearby were effectively "funneled" into these 2 cities, including the Japanese man who is the subject of this thread, to avoid conventional bombs.
So there was much less randomness in the situation of him being in both cities than one would guess.
So it would be a misnomer to call him extremely unlucky for witnessing both bombs.
However it would be accurate to call him extremely lucky to survive both bombs.
And his name means "Work" in Japanese.
(Actual the reading does, not the character. But never let the truth get in the way of a quip, I say.)
TIFU by getting nuked for a second time
If a survivor posted that, it'd be the end of all TIFUS
I immediately imagined him saying "oh, COME on!" like Job.
This has to be the single most appropriate time for someone to say "You have got to be kidding me!"
And the person who survived the titanic sinking only to go sailing on the britannic.
Well it was already a hospital ship and only 30 people died on that one.
I would think being in a city that just had a nuclear bomb dropped on it would warrant some time off, but I'm just a bitchy millennial
Nah, in today's world, you wouldn't need to ask for time off... you'd be dead
He was the actual target.
I heard he still wasn't granted FMLA
That would've been a pretty good medical emergency
Talk about being at the wrong place at the wrong time. X2
Some people have all the luck.
Hes the only man alive who is dead.
Yeah, my bad on that.
He went to work 3 days after a nuclear bomb went off , that dude is the definition of loyal... I'd be like fuck this I'm out!!
There was a book I read in the 1960s called "Nine Who Survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki." Mr. Yamaguchi may be the only one alive today, but there were others who survived both attacks. One told of seeing the bright flash in Nagasaki and knew what was coming. He dove under a desk just before the shockwave hit. He credited that action for his survival.
I came her to post about the book. It's probably been 30 years since I read it and remembered it as Ten Who Survived.
Insert 'Bad Luck Yamaguchi' meme.
Survives Hiroshima and goes on business trip.
Nagasaki.
while working in Nagasaki "Damn bro that was some mad shit, I can't believe I survived that huge ass American bomb, I hope no one ever has to experien- boom, bright light etc JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, AGAIN???!!!!!!! 💥💥💥💥💥
If you're far enough away to not die the boom would be a while after the light.
Yes I'm aware of the monumental difference in speed between light and sound, I simply added that because they are the two most basic signs associated with an atomic blast
Tfw burned all of your life's luck in two weeks.
Dude lived to 93, I'd say he was probably actually made of materialized luck.
Bad Luck Brian
"Oh no, not again."
Nah, I'm pretty sure Steve Rannazzisi was there, too.
God damn. Dude must have thought it was armaggedon.
Doomsday x2
God either really wanted this guy to live or really wanted him to die
He himself said he met plenty of people who experienced the same thing.
Get this fake shit out of my face.
He's the only person to be officially recognized for it. I know there were plenty of others, but none of them have been credited for it by the government.
They really needed those TPS reports in Nagasaki.
deleted 0.3543 What is ^^^this?
Maybe I'm just an ignorant idiot, but I never realised that the bombs were dropped 3 days apart. I thought it was a couple of hours, a day at the most.
Im fairly sure the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima were atomic and not nuclear.
That's like saying they were squares not rectangles.
Technological differences. Also, squares and rectangles, while similar, are different.
Both are correct, one is just more specific. All atomic bombs are nuclear bombs but not all nuclear bombs are atomic bombs. Just as all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares.
Can't just go around renaming things. That kind of fuckery screws with the order of things. 2 atomic bombs were dropped. Attempting to retcon this makes heads explode.
What? They're synonyms. Nuclear and atomic bombs are the same things.
Nuclear bombs can mean either fission or fusion bombs. Atomic bombs are only fission bombs.
Which would be incorrect. All squares are rectangles.
Nuclear and atomic bombs are synonyms.
Maybe you're thinking of thermonuclear bombs, aka fusion bombs.
I was thinking of thermonuclear bombs. TIL that atom bombs and nuclear bombs are the same. Coming from a lack of knowledge, using both interchangeably was very confusing.
LPT: Stay away from this man.
I think the most incredible thing is hat he "went to work" again three days later. 3 DAYS LATER....
If comics have taught me anything, this guy should have some pretty amazing super-powers.
"YOU MISSED! How could you miss, he was 3 feet in front of you!"
I need that Szechuan sauce.
Sometimes big artillery doesn't equate to big accuracy.
In Hiroshima: "Fuck." In Nagasaki: "FUCK!"
The radiolab podcast story of him is awesome
It's only 20mins, check it out
Guinness world record
Weren't the bombs atomic, rather than nuclear?
Weren't they explosives, not bombs?
See my reply to user Sadsharks. Then back to mom's basement with you.
Nah. "Atom" bombs, H-Bombs, Neutron bombs, are all nuclear weapons because the processes that release the particles and energy are nuclear, in contrast to conventional explosives where the processes are molecular. "Atom bomb" is not a good name honestly.
"Nuclear" is a much better description. "Atomic bomb" is used as name sometimes, but the atoms are relevant for conventional bombs only (with chemical reactions happening), while in nuclear weapons the released energy comes from the nuclear reactions.
The fuck do you think a nucleus is?
From a livescience.com article:
"Hydrogen bombs, or thermonuclear bombs, are more powerful than atomic or "fission" bombs, so the similarly sized seismic events cast doubt on North Korea's claims, experts say. The difference between thermonuclear bombs and fission bombs begins at the atomic level. Fission bombs, like those used in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, work by splitting the nucleus of an atom. When the neutrons, or neutral particles, of the atom's nucleus split, some hit the nuclei of nearby atoms, splitting them, too. The result is a very explosive chain reaction. The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki exploded with the yield of 15 kilotons and 20 kilotons of TNT, respectively, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists."
The fuck do you think an answer to a question looks like?
Nuclear bomb and atom bomb are two terms for the same things.
You're right in saying that thermonuclear bombs are different, but both fission and hermonuclear fusion bombs fall under the umbrella of nuclear bombs.
The us warned the people of both cities before the attacks. He's a lucky idiot.
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/q3tsHlxXejQ/maxresdefault.jpg
Edit: INB4 retired jpeg
Would Tsutomu Yamaguchibe luck be considered good luck or bad luck?
Cancer?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JEY24tPHOk
Jesus the radiation exposure. I wonder if he is part of the Hibakusha or not
Read about this guy in "The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945". His story was very interesting, made it back home to Nagasaki, scared from the experience. His experience from the first one probably saved him in Nagasaki. Highly recommend the book as well.
The real Bad Luck Brian.
Like seeing a movie in IMAX.
Hoe did he survive? Was he able to take some sort of shelter? Did he suffer and effects from the bombs dropping at all?
Is this considered extreme bad luck or extreme good luck?
I wonder how high his luck stat is.
The guy ain't lucky he is immortal find him on mt olympus after retiring
That sounds like one hell of a movie plot.
So is this guy the luckiest or the unluckiest person ever?
It wasn't extreme bad luck that he (and many other witnesses) were in both cities.
The US army was firebombing the country side and most cities. However they were NOT firebombing cities that were potential targets of the atomic bomb because they wanted data about the effectiveness of the weapon, and already having significant human death and infrastructure destruction fron non-nuclear weapons in a city would obscure that data.
So Nagasaki and Hiroshima were spared the firebombing. So some people who lived nearby were effectively "funneled" into these 2 cities, including the Japanese man who is the subject of this thread, to avoid conventional bombs.
So there was much less randomness in the situation of him being in both cities than one would guess.
Nuclear launch detected.
Power overwhelming
Where in Detroit did this guy work?
Unbreakable!
Who goes to work 3 days after surviving a nuclear blast? You'd think he'd get a few days off.
I always assumed both bombs were dropped on the same day for some reason. Was the first bomb not enough of an incentive to surrender...?
it was 1945, not only did the Japanese military REALLY not want to surrender, but it took time for the Japanese to really understand what happened at Hiroshima. the US only gave Japan 3 days to surrender before we hit Nagasaki.
Damn. I guess they got the message after that 2nd blast. I wonder if there were plans in place to drop more if they still didn't surrender...
Funny story we didn't have more ready lol
Not quite true, there was a third plutonium bomb that could have been in the theater in a few weeks. It would have used the infamous Demon Core that killed some Los Alamos scientists during testing in a criticality experiment. After that there was capacity for three
or fourmore bombs per month through the end of 1945.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project#Bombings
The US was talking shit like "yeah we totally have hundreds more of these, better just surrender now" but they didn't actually have more.
Not that it would've mattered, if Japan didn't surrender the US and USSR would've invaded. Would've been incredibly bloody and probably would've resulted in the country being split in two like Germany, but Japan was pretty fucked at that point, bombs or no bombs.
There were plans to keep dropping them at Truman's discretion until surrender was accepted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project#Bombings
The dropping of the second bomb is a bit of a controversial topic, but essentially the USA wanted to prove that the nuke wasn't a one-off weapon: they had more, and they could keep using them.
(In actual fact they only had the two bombs at the time, but they were in the midst of making more. Still a bit of a bluff on their part.)
Japan had beaten "Never, ever surrender" into their people's heads so thoroughly that it was believed that only the threat of the complete annihilation of Japan as a nation could get them to back down.
Even after hearing news of the first Bomb dropped on Hiroshima the emperor didn't order the surrender.
TIL Steve Busheeeemii was a cop during 9/11 which flew the planes into the morgue and didn't stop until he was tired.
Atomic. Not nuclear..
Nuclear weapon is the technical term, "atomic bomb" is something you might find in the media - as name for the same thing.
Incorrect sir. Read your history. We dropped zero nuclear bombs on Japan. We however did drop two atomic..or fission bombs. Nuclear bombs are fusion bombs. There's a difference.
Nuclear weapon includes both, fission and fusion.
Okay fine. Fission bomb. Not nuclear. So dim witted people don't make the assumption that the bombs dropped on Japan are anything like modern day nuclear fusion bombs..
The description in the title is correct, and replacing "nuclear bomb" by "atomic bomb" wouldn't improve it at all. You could replace it by "fission bomb" to make it more precise, but then some people would be confused what a fission bomb is because they don't know that word.
There are still pure fission bombs around, and even more boosted fission weapons (where nearly all the energy released comes from fission), not every nuclear weapon is a fusion weapon.