Mr.Kubota who is Chairman of the Net, several members of COARA and other people posted back about the memoir.

I will copy them here.

Massages from Watarase Area Network (WAN)

@response Hiroo Ogawa (WAN) 91/08/06 16:01

I have read the vivid description of the memoir of a man who was directly exposed to the flash 46 years ago.

I cannot help but opening my eyes widest ever.

We, human beings on the planet earth, must stand against, from the purest heart , those countries that repeatedly carry out underground nuclear tests and scatter radioactive fallouts.

As is well known, scholars all around the world warn that the number of the dead by radioactive-induced cancer is growing rapidly.

This is an actual imminent problem, not an ideological dispute, isn't it?.

　　Yoshikiri

As Mr.Matsumura had contacted with Mr.Terao in Oita, I received a call from him directly.
This was a surprise but a delightful one for me.
I appreciated him because this was a sort of relation through the PC communication. I have copied it on the net immediately.
Thank you again, Mr.Matsumura.

Shiozaki

Thanks to Mr.Matsumura and Mr.Shiozaki

Dear Mr.Takeharu Terao,
I have realized anew the terror of the war by reading your memoir on A-bomb experience. I am in the same generation as you. Then I was a second year college student of Maebashi medical school(now Medical School of Gunma University ). As I commuted to school by a street car from Kiryu, I did not experience the tragedy of the actual war by myself. Kiryu city was spared from bombing even during the Maebashi air-raid. I just witnessed from a shelter the bombardment of incendiary shells looking like a rain fall under the attack. I saw, from 30kilometer distance, the sky was burning in a hell fire.

After the traffic was recovered within a few days, I went to Maebashi in search for my relative. In a vast blackened field, I only found a small wooden billboard showing the refuge place of the relative. What was curious, I was surprised to know anew how small the housing block was when it was burnt down. My relative's house was first thought to be a reinforced concrete, but actually it turned out that it was made from wood and mortar. The remains were just a small pile of wreckage.

When I got to the school, I found it barely escaped the damage at the north end of the block. The hall of the school was used as a rescue station. The floor was stained by blood. In the anatomy lecture room, there were many corpses including a body with a helmet killed in a watch station by machine gunning from the fighter planes, and other civilians corpses. Luckily, all of my nearly 200 students survived.

Even this experience was a hell to me. The memoir that describes a direct exposure experience to atomic bombing is, therefore, very serious and impressive for us. I was not aware of the fact at all that the shock wave spread concentrically from the blast center to outside with time difference.

Then paper and radio reported a "new type" bomb was dropped at Hiroshima, but we didn't have any idea that the city was annihilated. After a while, we heard the magnitude of the damage and danger of radioactivity. I feel sympathy for your difficulty of A-bomb survival since then.

Nuclear tests are being carried out repeatedly. Even in "peaceful use" purposes, the accident of Chernobyl and radioactive waste still continue to pollute our environment. I feel impatient at the fact that an anti-nuclear movement tends to override its ideology, preventing it from becoming a real movement based upon the humanity. Human is foolish. I am afraid of the trend that people only look for instant conveniences, forgetting the fact that they are contaminating environment and heading toward the brink of the extinction. By reading your memoir, I have renewed my will to minimize the destruction of the environment through the discussion using PC communications. Thank you again for your effort to publish the memoir.

Watarase Net Yoshio Kubota(WAN0005)

Recently, my son(the third grade of an elementary school) seems to understand the meaning of war or A-bomb.
She often asks me to take him to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He probably learned the history in "Peace Lesson."
I said to him "What? Didn't you remember that I took you to Hiroshima two years ago? He didn't, though.

Yes, I by myself remember the shock I got at Hiroshima A-bomb Museum when I was first taken there by my mother at just the same age as my daughter. The shock was so big that I actually saw the hell on earth, I couldn't sleep alone at night for a while. My daughter has become the same age now, indeed.I also visited Hiroshima again about a year and half ago with an American daughter Sharon who stayed at my house for half a year. It seemed she had also been shocked to see it. Until then, she was making merry on a commuter air line, but she suddenly fell in silence at the Museum. She was absorbed in reading almost all data exhibited.

I learned for the first time the meaning of act by Mr.Akiba who was once a member of COARA.
Mr.Akiba constantly invited local newspaper reporters to Hiroshima at his own expenses. His activity was called the Akiba Project and was praised by many people.

I also recall a story by Mrs.Uratsuka who witnessed the victims near Usa railroad station just before the end of the war. And Mr.Terao's memoir of this time. I realize anew the terror and tragedy of a war much stronger than before.

But wars still continue to break as are seen on TV even now. I hope many memorial halls should be constructed in every country all around the world to hand down the tragedy the country experienced. Of course, in Badgered. It is a good idea that Japan, as an economic giant, offers fund to the construction of the hall. A branch exhibition annex of Hiroshima could be built next to it.

Dear Mr.Terao,

Thank you very much for your posting of your precious experience.

At first, I was at a loss but I read it through with the courage not to turn my eyes aside.

When I went to Hiroshima Memorial Hall in my school trip, I was shocked and threw up.

Your memoir reminds me of the same feeling of, terrible, difficult, and sad memories.

Yesterday was the day of A-bomb.
At Hiroshima memorial ceremony, Mayor Hiraoka declared Peace and apologized for the first time about the colonialism and the war of aggression in the past. I think this is a great thing.

What is to be blamed is war itself.

I believe we have to keep asking to ourselves deep in mind about the meaning of "peace" and "the total elimination of nuclear weapons."

I was also moved to learn that many members of COARA certainly hand down the heart cry of Mr.Terao.

Dear Mr.Terao, thank you very much.

Yesterday morning at 8:15, I prayed in silence under a siren. Your figure came across my mind.
It was a miserable war, wasn't it?
Since then, 46 years have passed, a long and hard way through the battle for survival."
You have published your bitter memory with courage, I say thank you from my heart.

Please make yourself free from the bitter memory, you have already done enough.

Many members of COARA and other people have read your precious experience over and over again. I firmly believe those readers will surely hand down the wish of "abolition of silly war and nuclear arms" to the next generation and make efforts for peace of human being.

A newspaper reporter of Hita Tenryo brought back your precious memoir and pictures of you at an off-line meeting at Kunisaki. Many people including your old friends such as principal of Toin high school, principal of Showa girls' high school, and citizens of Hita are waiting for publication of the paper.

I may be frowned on at posting an unnecessary saying.
I remember Oita was one of the candidates of A-bomb attack, wasn't it?
I have once heard when Nagasaki was attacked, Oita was one of alternate targets of bombing. The reason was there was a naval air force base near the existing hover craft terminal. The naval factory was located at around Maizuru high school of today.

I learned this story when I lived in Oita.
I remember I felt very close and seriously thought about the fact of being bombed. 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　YUPA

@respons Machiko Hotani(WAN) 91/08/07 11:52

Mr.Terao and Mr.Matsumura,
I read the memoir. I could know new aspects different from what I have learned. I feel very seriously to read the memoir by Mr.Terao who continues to bleed even after 46 years. I really thank for your precious memoir. I also appreciate Mr.Matsumura who arranged posting to Watarase Net.

Mr.Ogawa and Mr.Kubota are of generation that has experienced the war. When compared with their postings, what I say will be quite insignificant, but I can't but say thank you very much for Mr.Terao who bravely posted his memoir.
My father, I remember, was also a soldier and must have had an experience of the war from Manchuria to Rabaul. He often talked about memories of life in army but never about reality of the war. This is probably because he didn't tell about the tragedy of the war in which he lost many friends in the combat．

I understand that it is much more bitter for Mr.Terao who has no other way but to keep silence during bitter 46 years. I know the father of Chiyonofuji, a famous sumo wrestler, never talked for 46 years about his experience of exposure to A-bomb. He must have hidden it from his family, and probably to his close friends and survived so long time. It was because, I guess, not only too bitter to talk but also from the fear of discrimination.

It is said that those who had been exposed to A-bomb was isolated by the wrong rumor saying "A-bomb flash can be infectious." You had experienced an intolerable tragedy and suffered so long time. You have my deepest sympathy. The other day I saw on TV a film titled "Death thorn." I understood that I didn't have any right even to sympathy the content of the film, I could only watch the film with tears in my eyes.

Now hot summer comes back when my father attends the veterans' meeting, and the when special programs of the last war will be aired. Mr.Terao wrote "Now I am allowed to forget, I want to forget." Yes, I agree. Although I still have ambivalence to read more, I wonder if I can ask you to continue.

I will hand down the fact from now on. As I don't have such experiences, I wonder if I have enough power. But the stories of you and Mrs.Uratsuka will help us a lot without doubt.thank you again.

By the way, dear Mr.Matsumura, I have heard of rumors about Mrs.Uratsuka's record.May I ask you to copy it on our net as well? I understand it was posted last year on your net. I am eager to read it. I might have asked you too much, but I would like to share the precious record with as many people as possible for the generation to come.

I really satisfy now to be involved in the PC communication group.

Thank you very much Mr.Terao.

My wife (Naoko Kawabe) is also from Hiroshima. She was a elementary school student then and lived in a hillside evacuation site.
She witnessed the eerie mushroom cloud and talked with her friends what had happened.

As her parents had also evacuated from Hiroshima, all family escaped from the tragedy. But her brother and sister were lived in a quarters in the suburb of Hiroshima to go school. They were exposed to radioactivity in Hiroshima after the blast.
As most of her classmates' parents were in Hiroshima, many classmates orphaned and scattered later.

My wife's parents were luckily safe and live healthy in Hiroshima city. They sometimes visit the A-bomb medical center in Beppu to stay.

In relation to this, I took four Dutch students to Hiroshima in May to let them see A-bomb Memorial Hall, A-bomb Dome, and Peace Park.

Auschwitz camp in the west, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the east.....There exists solid monument of sfoolish acts by mankind. I must think deep of the theme.