Strange but True

Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction.

History has its fair share of miracles, but few are as haunting and unbelievable as the story of Tsutomu Yamaguchi—the man who stood in the heart of humanity’s darkest invention, not once, but twice, and still walked away to tell the tale.

It was August 6, 1945, in Hiroshima. Yamaguchi, a 29-year-old naval engineer, was preparing to return home after a three-month work assignment. The morning was warm and ordinary—until the sky split open. At 8:15 a.m., the first atomic bomb ever used in war detonated less than three kilometers from where he stood.

The explosion ripped through the city. A blinding flash seared his eyes, his eardrums burst, and his skin was burned. The mushroom cloud rose, swallowing Hiroshima in fire and silence. Amid the destruction, Yamaguchi staggered through the chaos, his body wounded but alive.

Somehow, against all odds, he managed to reach the train station—one of the few things still barely operating. Bandaged and battered, he made his way back home to Nagasaki, where he sought comfort with his family. Fate, however, was not done with him.

Just three days later, on August 9, as Yamaguchi reported to his office to explain what had happened in Hiroshima, the unthinkable struck again. Another blinding flash. Another thunderous wave of destruction. This time, it was Nagasaki.

And once more, Yamaguchi was there.

The second bomb devastated the city, but miraculously, Yamaguchi survived again. His home, though damaged, still stood. His family—his wife and infant son—escaped harm. Twice the world had tried to erase him with nuclear fire, and twice he had endured.

Yamaguchi lived on, carrying the scars of both blasts for the rest of his life. Yet he chose not to be consumed by bitterness. Instead, he spent his later years sharing his story and campaigning for nuclear disarmament. His voice carried the weight of lived experience: a man who had seen the power of annihilation firsthand.

He passed away in 2010, at the age of 93.—