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Part 3 Rescue and Medical Relief

1. Aid Units from Nishisonogi County
(1) Yagami Village Aid Unit
(2) Ōkusa Village Aid Unit
(3) Ikiriki Village Aid Unit
(4) Muramatsu Village Aid Unit
(5) Nagaura Village Aid Units
(6) Kamedake Village Aid Unit
(7) Kurosaki Village Aid Unit
(8) Mie Village and Fukuda Village, Teguma Aid Unit
(9) Fukahori Village Aid Unit
(10) Kayaki Village Aid Unit
2. Aid Units of Kitatakaki County
(1) Toishi Village Aid Unit
(2) Koga Village Aid Unit
(3) Tayui Village Aid Unit
(4) Enoura Village Aid Unit
(5) Fukaumi Village Aid Unit
(6) Oe Village Aid Unit
(7) Yuemachi Aid Unit
(8) Konagai Village Aid Unit
(9) Moriyama Village Aid Unit
3. Shimabara City Aid Unit
4. Aid Units from Minamitakaki County
(1) Aino Village Aid Unit
(2) Moriyama Village Aid Unit
(3) Taishō Village Aid Unit
(4) Unzen Agriculture Institute Aid Unit
(5) Saigō Village Aid Unit
(6) Nishiariechō Aid Unit
(7) Minamiarimachō Aid Unit
(8) Kuchinotsuchō Aid Unit
(9) Obamachō Aid Unit

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Aid units were mainly assembled from the defense units in towns and cities in the southern part of Nagasaki Prefecture, as well as other groups such as the National Militia Unit. Approximately 30 local governments in the counties of Nishisonogi, Kitatakaki and Minamitakaki dispatched aid units. Although modes of transportation ranged from boats, trucks and railroad to travel on foot, the earliest aid units arrived in Nagasaki on the very night of the atomic bombing. No accurate records remain to shed light on the actions taken by local governments, but the following accounts were compiled on the basis of various memoirs and testimonies and from interviews conducted by Nagasaki City.
　The dispatch of aid units from these outlying areas seems to have resulted from an order given by Nagasaki Prefectural Air-Defense Headquarters to related organizations via neighboring police stations, as indicated by statements in “The Sixth Report on Nagasaki Air-Raid Damage on August 9” issued by the governor of Nagasaki Prefecture.

1. Aid Units from Nishisonogi County

1) Yagami Village Aid Unit
　Nagasaki Prefecture sent a message to the Yagami Village office on the evening after the atomic bombing (August 9), through the police station and defense unit, requesting the dispatch of aid units. Defense Unit Chief Hayashida Rintarō relayed emergency requests to local teams and youth associations. The first aid unit immediately left the village riding in three trucks.
　From the 10th, the day after the atomic bombing, the village women’s association and the women’s youth association (women’s militia unit) were mobilized to respond to a request for the preparation of 2,000 rice balls. The 500 to 600 bags of rice and wheat stored at the youth association as an emergency food supply for Nagasaki Prefecture were carried to the Fukiya sake brewery and washed and cooked using the brewery facilities. There was no time to polish the rice, so the rice balls were prepared with brown rice. Rectangular containers were collected from private houses but were insufficient for 2,000 meals, so baskets designed to carry loquats were used to pack 30 to 40 rice balls each. One benefit was that these baskets facilitated the transportation of the food. Rice balls were prepared and sent out three times a day for the first two or three days, and, although the exact date is unclear, this apparently continued for one week. The entire village was mobilized, the defense unit and youth association members traveling to Nagasaki, and the women’s association preparing the rice balls and attending to the injured accommodated in Yagami Elementary School.
　Continuously from around 2:00 p.m. on the day of the atomic bombing, the families living along the national highway prepared buckets of water and dippers to provide drinking water to the evacuees and injured people filing past.
　The defense unit of approximately 400 members was divided into eight teams and dispatched by rotation a few teams at a time. Regarding the aid units, the main operation of each group, which comprised approximately 50 members, was the disposal of the dead. The main area of activity was the devastated neighborhoods between Ibinokuchi and Ōhashi, where 10 to 15 bodies were collected and cremated using gasoline and wooden debris. The stench of decomposing bodies was severe in the hot weather. The corpses were terribly disfigured, some with eyeballs protruding as much as six centimeters, others cut right in half. Seeing bodies in such a state, some of the rescuers became sick and crouched in the shadows. The unit members working under these grim conditions received rations of liquor and also strong mints called “Jintan.”
　The Yagami Village aid unit engaged in the disposal of the dead for nine days from August 9 to 17, with a total of 700 persons mobilized.
　Approximately 90 members of the Yagami women’s militia unit were also dispatched on August 14, 15 and 17, but the details of their activities remain unknown.

2) Ōkusa Village Aid Unit
　The Ōkusa Village Defense Unit (Unit Chief Hashimoto Sanekazu), comprised of 140 members divided into four teams, was dispatched twice, on August 10 and 11, half of the members at a time. The following is a summary of their activities.
　At 6:00 p.m. on August 9, instructions were received over the telephone from the police chief of Togitsu Police Station for the Ōkusa Village Defense Unit to take the field. “A new type of bomb was dropped on Nagasaki City,” related the police chief. “Since the entire city has been destroyed, no food, not even a loaf of bread, remains. All members of the defense unit are requested to take the field.”
　On August 10, approximately 70 members of the defense unit left for Nagasaki by train. They left the train at Michino’o Railroad Station to conduct aid activities on foot, but the area was so strewn with corpses and debris that it was difficult to discern even the location of roads. It was necessary, therefore, to clear a path through the debris before attempting to rescue the injured and dispose of the dead. That night, approximately 70 members from the women’s association and the youth association tried to polish rice in preparation for the distribution of rice balls the next day, but the rice-polishing machines could not be used because of the power failure, and the 70 members had to break up into four groups and polish the rice manually.
　On August 11, the remaining 72 defense unit members left for the schoolyard of Irabayashi Elementary School, carrying the rice balls. They arrived at the schoolyard around 10:00 a.m., taking cover along the way when enemy aircraft flew over the city. In the schoolyard, four staff members from City Hall, three police officers and one doctor had to attend to more than 220 patients. 12 of the injured people died that day, and the members had to conduct makeshift cremations.
　

3) Ikiriki Village Aid Unit
　The Ikiriki Village Defense Unit (seven teams totaling about 200 members) led by Unit Chief Aki Yasuo) organized an aid unit along with another 30 members led by Yamaguchi Tsuneemon. In addition, several members of the women’s youth association participated in the aid unit.
　The Ikiriki Village aid unit departed by train at 7:30 a.m. on August 11. After leaving the train at Michino’o Railroad Station, the group went to the task force headquarters in Tateyama and received instructions. The following is an excerpt from the memoir of Yamashita Kumaichi:

Our operation that day was to clear the road between Urakami and Michino’o. That included clearing scattered unburned debris and corpses. Some of the bodies had burned to ashes along with their houses; others were lying dead on the road. They had all died with their limbs bent into the same position. These bodies, with their faces inflamed dark red, no hair and no clothing, were beyond gender identification. We collected the largest number of bodies near the base of the iron staircase leading up to the Mitsubishi athletic field, close to present-day Hamaguchi-machi Tram Stop.
　At one point, probably between Matsuyama and Ōhashi, we found six or seven bodies. Among them were the bodies of a mother and her baby. The baby, who had died with its head on its mother’s thigh, still had the umbilical cord connecting it to the mother’s belly. By now I had come to feel nothing when seeing so many corpses, but the sight of the mother and baby made my hair suddenly stand on end as though I had been electrocuted. It would seem that the pressure of the explosion had made the mother give birth and that the baby had died with its head on the mother’s thigh. I wondered if the baby, born unexpectedly because of the atomic bombing, took a single breath of the air in this world. What a sad destiny. I stopped working and clasped my hands in prayer toward them.

The Ikiriki Village Aid Unit was mobilized only once that day.

4) Muramatsu Village Aid Unit
　The villages of Muramatsu and Nagaura both organized aid units on the evening of the atomic bombing, under instructions from the Togitsu Police Station. The Muramatsu Village Defense Unit (Unit Chief Hisamatsu Ryōichi), comprised of approximately 200 members broke into five teams and visited Nagasaki in rotation, each team dividing into two aid units. Each unit was dispatched for two days, with the first team (approximately 50 members) sent out on the 10th and the second team (approximately 50 members) on the 11th.
　At the time, the area north of Muramatsu Village had such poor transportation that people called it a “remote island.” Each aid unit set out in the early morning on foot or by bicycle and engaged in rescuing the injured and collecting corpses, mainly in the Urakami Area.

5) Nagaura Village Aid Units
　Nagaura Village Defense Unit (Unit Chief Fukaumi Kinjirō), comprised of seven teams (250 members in total), also divided into two aid units. The two teams of approximately 100 members each engaged in aid activities, dispatched on August 10 and 11. It is said that the Nagaura Village aid units traveled by steamship across Ōmura Bay and landed at Togitsu.

6) Kamedake Village Aid Unit
　The Kamedake Village aid unit was mobilized on August 11, but many people had left for Nagasaki the previous day, worrying about the safety of family members and relatives. (Many people also took action individually for family members and relatives in other cities, towns and villages.)
　On August 11, the Kamedake Village Defense Unit (Unit Chief Yamazoe Seitarō) received mobilization instructions from the Togitsu Police Station. The defense unit immediately organized its eight teams (about 350 members in total) into three aid unit divisions. The first division of about 100 members departed as early as 4:00 p.m. on August 11, boarding the Ebisu-maru from Kamedake to Togitsu (travel time: 1 hour) and proceeding from Togitsu on foot. They arrived at Shiroyama-machi around 7:00 in the evening on the same day.
　The unit continued aid operations such as collecting corpses and clearing roads until the next morning, when they returned to the village.
　On August 12, 100 members of the second aid unit division arrived at Shiroyama-machi by the same route, took over from the first aid unit in conducting aid operations, and returned to the village. As it turned out, the third aid unit division was never mobilized.

7) Kurosaki Village Aid Unit
　The aid unit organized by the Kurosaki Village Defense Unit was mobilized for two days from August 10 and engaged in the disposal of the dead throughout the Hamaguchi-machi and Aburagi-machi area. The number of members mobilized is unknown. Special relief unit member Nagabuchi Denshirō, who acted in concert with the Kurosaki aid unit, described the situation as follows:

Most of the relief operations for the injured ended on the morning of August 10, and we collected corpses in the afternoon. I picked up corpses along with the Kurosaki Defense Unit in the vicinity of Iwakawa-machi and Hamaguchi-machi, examined the corpses as best I could and recorded the details. Some of the bodies were charred beyond differentiation between men and women. After examining about 20 bodies, I had the members of the defense unit gather debris and place the bodies on it. I piled additional wood on top, sprinkled gasoline on it, and cremated the bodies. The large-scale cremations in the wasteland under the midsummer sun dazed us with the intense heat.
　On August 11, we were assigned to join the Kurosaki Defense Unit in collecting corpses in the vicinity of Aburagi Valley. We did this in the morning and then went to the vicinity of Nagasaki Commercial School and began picking up corpses there.
　In that area not a single house or building was left unburned, and there were bodies scattered all around, some still lying on the roads, others who died in the air-raid shelter after evacuation or burned to death inside buildings. Since most of the corpses were naked, we could not handle them with bare hands and had to use a tobikuchi (firefighter’s hook) to drag them out of the air-raid shelters. However, the hook slipped off easily, making it very difficult to move the corpses from one place to another.
　At around 10:00 a.m., one member of the defense unit informed me that several kegs of kasushōchū (distilled liquor) had been left unburned in a gutted Mitsubishi warehouse in Hamaguchi-machi and that he had seen people taking some of them away. ‘We could fetch some too,’ he suggested. Since our work was so badly hampered by the stench of the dead bodies, and because shōchū has antiseptic properties, I went to the Mitsubishi warehouse with two members of the defense unit and obtained two of the kegs of the liquor, arriving back in Aburagi Valley around noon.
　While eating our simple box lunches of white rice and pickled red plums, we drank the liquor and quickly consumed an amount equivalent to about 27 liters. In the afternoon we made surprising progress, thanks to the numbing effect of the liquor. We picked up more than 10 corpses nearby, examined them for identifying marks one after another, and then cremated them in the same way we had the day before. I had never imagined that shōchū could have such an effect.

8) Mie Village and Fukuda Village, Teguma Aid Unit
　The aid unit organized by the Mie Village Defense Unit (Unit Chief Hisamatsu Masayuki) rushed to provide aid by loading rice balls and other foodstuffs onto a small motorboat. An aid unit was also dispatched from the Teguma Defense Unit, but the details remain unknown.

9) Fukahori Village Aid Unit
　On the day of the atomic bombing, the Fukahori Village Defense Unit (Unit Chief Yamasaki Yasukatsu) received emergency instructions from the Fukahori Police Station to summon its approximately 200 members. Most of the defense unit members boarded four or five 20 to 30-ton fishing vessels and landed at the Inasa waterfront and Dejima Wharf on the evening of August 9. They then engaged in aid operations in the devastated part of the city.
　The following morning, the defense unit departed again on fishing vessels with rice balls loaded on board and conducted operations mainly at Inasa and Takenokubo. Inasa Police Station Officer Uchino Kikuji described the situation as follows in his memoir:

On the second day (August 10), Fukahori Defense Unit Chief Yamasaki Yasukatsu arrived with a party of 30 men to help deal with the crisis. I asked Mr. Yamasaki to clear electric wires, roof tiles, stones and other debris from the roads so that automobiles could pass. Fifteen of the men carried out this work while the other 15 helped to identify bodies and determine names and places of death. After that, the two teams joined together in moving the bodies to an open space in front of a temporary police box in Takenokubo-machi. We were able to place 32 bodies there.
　Meanwhile, having received a report that some people were calling for help from beneath the rubble of the Keihō Middle School building, we immediately rushed to the site with two police officers and three members of the Fukahori Defense Unit. The victims were trapped under the debris and unable to move, and we had to remove beams, pillars, roof tiles, earth and sand before rescuing them.

The Fukahori Village Defense Unit dispatched approximately 200 aid unit members over the two-day period.

10) Kayaki Village Aid Unit
　Approximately 60 aid unit members from Kayaki Village were mobilized on August 11 and 12. The Kayaki Village Defense Unit (Unit Chief Shibahara Seiki), comprised of two teams of 90 men in total, was mobilized in rotation, one team at a time.
　The first day, approximately 30 members of the initial team departed on a truck at 7:00 a.m. At Egami, on the way to the devastated part of the city, members of the Tameishi Village aid unit boarded the truck, increasing the number to approximately 50. The team divided into small groups of five members each and engaged in the collection of corpses in the Mori-machi neighborhood and the areas near the air-raid shelters in Ōhashi and along the riversides.
　In Mori-machi, a corpse had to be pulled out of a sewage ditch in front of the Mitsubishi Arms Factory. An officer from the Fukahori Police Station assumed leadership. The corpse was slippery because the skin of the arms and lower legs had been burned off, and the aid unit had to use ropes that they had found somewhere to tie the corpse and pull it out of the ditch. As it turned out, however, other corpses rose to the surface one after another, until there were five in all. Carrying the bodies tainted with sewage made the stretchers too dirty to be used for other purposes, and they were discarded on the way to the village. The first team rode back in the truck, surrounded by the stench of death, and returned to the village at 7:00 p.m.
　On August 12, 30 members of the second team were dispatched on a fishing boat. They brought stretchers made by tying straw mats to poles with three underlying cross-supports. The aid unit worked that day in the Takenokubo neighborhood, where they found relatively few corpses because most of them had already been picked up by other aid units. For this reason, the Kayaki Village aid unit engaged in rescuing people pinned under the rubble of houses and in transferring the injured to Inasa Elementary School, rather than in disposing of the dead. They returned to the village late in the evening. About 60 men were mobilized during the two-day period.

2. Aid Units of Kitatakaki County

1) Toishi Village Aid Unit
　As previously mentioned, Toishi Village was the place where the first “radiosonde” landed after being dropped from one of the American aircraft. The defense unit of this village (Unit Chief Fujinaga Kishirō) was dispatched to Nagasaki for a second time following the radiosonde commotion.
　The Toishi Village Defense Unit (160 members) was divided into five teams. The approximately 30 members of the second team departed as an advance party, towing a hand pump because of the information that Nagasaki had suffered catastrophic fires and that fire-fighting equipment should be brought. At 3:00 or 4:00 p.m. on August 9, the advance party arrived in Nagasaki after a three-hour journey. However, since the fires were already beyond control, the party followed the instructions of the police and immediately headed for Hamaguchi-machi, passing through the neighborhoods north of the NHK Nagasaki Broadcasting Station.
　It was already night when the advance party arrived in Hamaguchi-machi and Iwakawa-machi, where many fires were still burning. In this area the party carried out its operations all night long, clearing roads and rescuing persons who were crying for help here and there.
　Meanwhile, approximately 70 members of the second aid unit, comprised mainly of the third defense unit team, departed several hours behind the advance party and arrived at Takenokubo-machi at around 11:00 p.m. The second aid unit continued its operations all night long, as did the advance party, rescuing the injured and transferring them on stretchers to Inasa Elementary School, a designated emergency accommodation for the injured.
　Both of the Toishi Village aid units continued their activities until the next morning (August 10th), assembled at a point in front of City Hall at 1:00 p.m. and returned to the village. The number of men mobilized to serve in the aid units was approximately 100.

2) Koga Village Aid Unit
　The Isahaya Police Station submitted a request by telephone for the preparation of emergency food and the dispatch of aid units. The first request, for food, was made in the afternoon. Although the number of meals that were prepared is unknown, the town office immediately sent messengers to 27 hamlets to ask villagers to prepare meals with a serving size of two rice balls per person, with pickled white radish and pickled plums, with the added request that, “the rice balls should be large in size.” (Rice was later sent to the villagers from the prefecture’s store of emergency rice.)
　Meanwhile, the Koga Village Defense Unit (six teams, approximately 220 members), sounded a siren to assemble everyone and began preparing for aid operations. Since 120 members quickly assembled, a team was immediately organized and a team leader appointed, departing the village on foot at 5:00 p.m. on August 9 with one gasoline pump and relief meals of rice balls and box lunches. When the team reached Hongōchi-machi after passing through Himi Tunnel in the dying sunlight, an air-raid alarm was issued, following an air-raid alert. The team then had to head back into the tunnel, where they heard from an injured evacuee that it was difficult to enter the city because of the terrible chaos. In the tunnel, one side of which had been converted into a factory, the passage was filled with aid unit members from Yagami, Himi, Toishi and Koga, as well as evacuees from Nagasaki. While some aid units headed for Nagasaki, the Koga Village aid unit decided to spend that night where they were.
　At 7:00 a.m. on August 10, the day after the atomic bombing, the Koga Village aid unit arrived at the Air Defense Headquarters in Tateyama and received instructions to take the gasoline pump to Katsuyama Elementary School and to engage in rescuing the injured and collecting corpses in areas such as Mt. Kompira, Zenza-machi and Sakamoto-machi.
　The following is an excerpt from the memoir of Kiri Kunima concerning the rescue operations conducted at Mt. Kompira:

Our team climbed Mt. Kompira, carrying stretchers. Our instructions from headquarters were to transfer the injured to the first-aid station at Irabayashi Elementary School because other aid units were engaged in the collection of corpses. Injured people were lying in a hut on the hillside, some so badly burned that they were too horrible to look at or to identify as male or female, lying head-to-head in two rows. We handed them the rice balls we had carried from headquarters, and most of them managed to put the rice balls into their mouths. One of the injured people complained that the rice smelled bad. There was no doubt that some of the rice balls, which had been sent from various places in the summer heat, had begun to spoil.
　‘Eat a little from the middle of the rice ball,’ our chief suggested, comforting the man. ‘You can’t recover your strength when you’re hungry.’ After that we carried the injured people down the hillside one after another.
　The people who had suffered severe burns gave off a strange odor, and swarms of flies alighted on the open flesh. Every time one of the flies bit an affected part, the person on the stretcher groaned, ‘Ouch! Flies, flies!’ I pulled off some bamboo leaves and tried to beat the flies away as we descended the hillside to Nishiyama and rushed to Irabayashi Elementary School via Katafuchi.
　When we arrived at the school, we found the schoolyard teeming with stretchers bearing the injured, who were being treated in the order of arrival. The line of stretchers did not seem to be moving forward. Looking closely, I saw that some of the injured had already died on their stretchers. Other people were milling around the stretchers trying to identify relatives. Some were successfully reunited with loved ones and attended to them on the spot. The first-aid station at Irabayashi Elementary School was thronged with the injured.

The Koga Village aid unit returned to the village at around 5:00 p.m. on that day (August 10). After August 11, the aid unit took to the field with the only truck in the village (owned by Watanabe Ryōichi). Another 80 members participated on August 11 and 50 each day from August 12 to August 14, engaging in operations such as rescuing the injured, picking up corpses and clearing roads. August 14 was the last day that relief food arrived in the form of rice balls.
　The number of mobilized personnel reached approximately 350 in total over the six days from August 9 to 14. During the operation, one of the unit members died of a sudden illness.

3) Tayui Village Aid Unit
　At the time, the Tayui Village Office had been evacuated to a room at Tayui Elementary School. The explosion of the atomic bomb shattered windows, and when the radiosonde landed there one or two hours later, the village was thrown into panic. In the midst of the chaos, the village received a request from Nagasaki Prefecture to dispatch an aid unit, only learning then about the great damage inflicted on the city of Nagasaki.
　In response, the Tayui Village Defense Unit (Unit Chief Taira Iheiji) mobilized 15 people a day from its approximately 250 members to form an aid unit, or 105 people in total, during the week from August 10 to 16. Wearing straw sandals, the aid unit members walked to Nagasaki, six hours round trip, the delay being due to the obstruction of roads between Tayui and Nagasaki.
　Although their aid operations varied day by day, aid unit members mainly engaged in collecting and cremating the dead in the Inasa and Takenokubo neighborhoods and transferring the injured to an emergency first-aid station at Goshinji Temple, as well as similar operations in the vicinity of Nagasaki Medical College Hospital. The meeting place for the return journey was City Hall, where large quantities of shōchū liquor were distributed as a special ration to allay the terrible fatigue of the members before they returned to their village.

4) Enoura Village Aid Unit
　Enoura Village, where a radiosonde was dropped as in Tayui Village, also received a request from Nagasaki Prefecture to dispatch an aid unit for a duration of about one week during the radiosonde commotion.
　Village Chief Matsubara Boku closed the radiosonde drop area to traffic on August 10th and, after ordering his staff to keep watch over the device from a safe distance, left for Nagasaki alone by bus. He witnessed the devastation in the Urakami District, returned to his village the same day and mapped out plans for aid operations. In this village, national militia unit members aged 15 or 16 to 60 years were mobilized, divided into seven teams and dispatched daily, 40 or 45 members at a time.
　The village’s aid unit took the field from August 11. Aid unit members from fishing hamlets went by boat and joined aid unit members from farming hamlets who had departed at around 3:00 a.m. The unit entered Nagasaki at around 8:00 a.m. and immediately set to work. Although the request was to clear roads, they engaged in picking up corpses and disposing of the dead for the first four or five days. The area of activity included the entire district from Nagasaki Medical College Hospital in Sakamoto-machi to Ōhashi. A temple was designated for accommodation, but the unit members rarely used it because they returned to their village daily and were replaced by new members the next morning. The meeting place for the return journey was City Hall, and shōchū liquor was distributed to the unit members to help relieve their shock and fatigue before they set off for home.
　The Enoura village aid unit remained in operation for one week, from the August 11 to 17. Approximately 300 members were dispatched.

5) Fukaumi Village Aid Unit
　The first aid unit dispatched from Fukaumi Village was comprised of 18 members of the National Militia Unit led by Sawamura Kōhachi. The official name was Nagasaki District No. 6 Special Guard Unit Yue Forces Fukaumi District Unit. The following is a description of the aid activities carried out by the Fukaumi District Unit.
　In the afternoon on the day of the atomic bombing, the group of 18 members led by Sawamura Kōhachi assembled at Oe Railroad Station with instructions from Yue Forces Chief Umehara Sōkichi to transport the atomic bombed injured. They boarded a westbound train to Nagasaki between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. and got off at Michino’o. By now the injured had gathered at Michino’o Railroad Station. The members of the aid unit helped the injured board the train for Isahaya and traveled with them to Isahaya Railroad Station where they helped them disembark. In Isahaya, the aid unit received help from the local defense unit and other rescue units in transporting the injured to Isahaya Naval Hospital and other venues. From the day after the atomic bombing, they used Isahaya Railroad Station as a base and helped the injured people arriving from Nagasaki to get off the train, carried them to accommodations, and disposed of the dead. The aid unit continued these operations until August 15.
　In addition, several members of the defense unit from Fukaumi Village (Unit Chief Takato Kuradai, two teams of approximately 100 members) were dispatched to Nagasaki City on August 13 and engaged in aid operations.
　
6) Oe Village Aid Unit
　Oe Village Defense Unit (Unit Chief Hayashida Takuma, two teams, approximately 100 members) dispatched an aid unit (28 members in total) led by Hayashida Hanemon on August 12. The aid unit got off the train at Michino’o Railroad Station, passed through the hypocenter area, and received instructions regarding the field of operation at the crossroads in Hamaguchi-machi. The members then split into two teams, engaged in picking up corpses and disposing of the dead in the Sakamoto and Shiroyama districts, and returned to their village that night.

7) Yuemachi Aid Unit
　In the evening on the day of the atomic bombing, the town mayor of Yue, Honda Kikuo, ordered the Yue Defense Unit (Unit Chief Mizukami Shichigorō, three teams, approximately 150 members) to gather approximately 20 members, led by Yonemitsu Asao, for dispatch to Nagasaki from August 11. The main task was to clear roads in the entire neighborhood of Sakamoto-machi, where Nagasaki Medical College and its attached hospital were located. Leaving Yue Station at around 6:00 a.m. and returning to Yue-machi in the evening as a matter of routine, the operations continued for five days until August 15.
　Another aid unit from Yue seems to have taken the field from around August 10 and engaged in disposal of the dead all night long, but the area of activity and the number of members are unknown.

8) Konagai Village Aid Unit
　In Konagai, as in Yue, the mayor issued an emergency order in the evening of the atomic bombing for the organization of an aid unit from the village defense unit (Unit Chief Tagawa Hachirō, seven teams, approximately 200 members). The Konagai aid unit averaging 35 members was dispatched daily in rotation for three days from August 10 to 12. Some 107 members in total were mobilized by train from the village, located near the border with Saga Prefecture.
　The field of operation was the entire neighborhood of Iwakawa-machi and Mezame-machi. Starting by rescuing the injured, the aid unit engaged in disposing of the dead and clearing the debris of destroyed houses. The Konagai Village aid unit also cleared the ruins of Urakami Railroad Station on August 12.

9) Moriyama Village Aid Unit
　The Moriyama Village aid unit was comprised of approximately 30 people from the local defense unit as well as veterans. At midnight on August 12, they assembled at Moriyama Railroad Station and departed on foot. The unit arrived at Hongōchi-machi, Nagasaki at 7:00 a.m. the following day and proceeded to City Hall. Under the instructions of the person in charge, they transferred injured people from the Iwakawa-machi and Matsuyama-machi neighborhoods to Nagasaki Commercial School, which had been designated a temporary relief station.
　The unit conducted aid operations only on this day. The members went to Isahaya by train and returned to their village on foot, arriving late at night.

3. Shimabara City Aid Unit

Immediately after the atomic bombing, the Shimabara City Defense Unit received instructions from the Shimabara Police Station to respond to the situation in Nagasaki and organized an aid unit of 65 members led by Miyazaki Kunitsugu (then fire division chief). The unit departed by train (Shimabara Railroad), leaving at 3:00 p.m. on the day of the atomic bombing. Several police officers and members of the first Shimabara City Medical Relief Unit accompanied the aid unit. However, the arrival of the unit in Nagasaki was delayed by successive air-raid alarms. The train arrived late at Isahaya (at 1:00 a.m.); the unit transferred to another train, which had also been delayed on the Nagasaki Line, and arrived at Michino’o Railroad Station around 3:00 a.m. Three army press division members were on board the same train: photographer Yamahata Yōsuke, artist Yamada Eiji, and writer Higashi Jun. They had been dispatched from the Western Force Press Division.
　The Shimabara City Aid Unit entered the Urakami district from Michino’o Railroad Station, only to find a scorched wasteland smoking in the dark. After resting for a few hours, the unit headed for the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Steelworks early in the morning on August 10, as instructed by the Shimabara Police Station. The steelworks had been designated a temporary relief station where aid units were to receive instructions regarding aid operations.
　That day, the Shimabara City Aid Unit was instructed to take the field as stretcher teams, five members per team, in the Shiroyama area. One of the members was placed on 24-hour air-raid lookout in response to the atomic bombing; another went ahead confirming the safety of the path by thrusting a bamboo pole into ash, soil and scattered unburned objects. The unit engaged in picking up the dead and injured, carrying the injured to the main building of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Steelworks and the dead to the adjacent warehouse. On August 11, the aid unit was dispatched to the Yamazato area where it engaged in rescue operations for the injured. For two days from August 12 to 13, the unit was dispatched to Nagasaki Medical College and engaged in similar operations there.
　During this period, aid unit members worked while eating rationed rice balls that had sometimes gone bad and drinking water leaking from nearby water pipes. Although an increasing number of members were suffering terribly from fatigue, both mentally and physically, they nevertheless completed the mission and returned to Shimabara by train, leaving at 6:00 p.m. on August 13. The aid period was five days from August 9, with 325 men mobilized.

4. Aid Units from Minamitakaki County

1) Aino Village Aid Unit
　The Aino Village Aid Unit was organized at night on the day of the atomic bombing. A total of 70 defense unit members were assigned to go to Nagasaki. Carrying enough food for three or four days, the aid unit members left Aino Railroad Station by train at 7:00 a.m. on August 10, the day after the atomic bombing. Several train carriages were packed with aid units dispatched by municipalities in the southern part of Shimabara Peninsula.
　The officers of the Umegasaki Police Station designated a facility in Zenza-machi as quarters for the Aino Village Aid Unit. Until August 11, aid unit members brought injured people on stretchers from the vicinity of Zenza-machi to the Katsuyama Elementary School relief station. On August 12, the unit members were mobilized to the neighborhood of Ōhashi. There they pulled corpses one by one from the Urakami River in the area downhill from Yamazato Elementary School, identified them when possible and cremated them on the riverside. They tried to pull the bodies out of the river using their hands, but they could not do so due to the peeling skin. As a result they had to use wires to lift the bodies from the water.
　From August 13, their operation became a joint activity with soldiers. They continued transferring the injured, stranded in air-raid shelters, until August 16. The unit members heard the radio report of Japan’s surrender on August 15, the day before the operation was terminated. They resisted the urge to flee and continued to engage in rescuing the injured with unchanging devotion.
　Trains were out of service when the Aino Village Aid Unit members left Nagasaki on foot around 10:00 p.m. on August 16, passing through Himi Tunnel and reaching their village via Isahaya the following day. The period of mobilization was seven days, with 490 men mobilized in total.

2) Moriyama Village Aid Unit
　Immediately after the atomic bombing, the Moriyama Village Defense Unit received instructions from Kōziro Police Station to help deal with the situation in Nagasaki. Defense Unit Chief Yoshida Yasuo summoned the group leaders to his home and arranged for an aid unit of 36 members in total, mobilized from each team, to depart from Aino Railroad Station by train, leaving at around 3:30 p.m. on August 9. Two police officers accompanied the unit. In front of the station, as the unit was about to leave, the Kōziro Police Station Chief said, “A new type of bomb similar to the one used on Hiroshima has been dropped on Nagasaki. All of you will have to give your utmost to assist the injured.”
　The Moriyama Village Aid Unit arrived at Michino’o Railroad Station that night and passed through burning neighborhoods until finally reaching Takenokubo, where they received instructions from the Inasa Police Station early on the morning of August 10 to leave corpses as they were and first of all rescue the injured in air-raid shelters in the Takenokubo and Shiroyama areas. They proceeded to carry the injured from several air-raid shelters to Inasa Elementary School. From August 11, unit members engaged in rescue operations in the same area. On August 12, since 16 replacement members had arrived, 16 of the original members returned to the village. All the members left the site on August 14 or 15.
　The mobilization period was roughly one week, with about 250 men mobilized in total.

3) Taishō Village Aid Unit
　The chief of the Taishō Village Defense Unit had passed away, and Komine Yōji, second team leader, received a request from Kōjiro Police Station to dispatch an aid unit to Nagasaki City at around 10:00 a.m. on August 10. The leaders of the first to fifth teams immediately assembled at a police box to discuss the request, but it took time to organize a unit because most of the young men in the village had been mobilized for labor services or conscripted into the military. Finally, 12 men departed as an aid unit by truck at around 11:00 a.m. on August 11.
　After arriving at Nagasaki City, the Taishō Village Aid Unit acted in concert with the Kōjiro-machi Aid Unit, engaging in rescue of the injured and disposal of the dead in the Shiroyama and Takenokubo areas. The unit cotinued its operations until August 13, the instructed time limit, and returned to the village that night.
　The mobilization period was three days, with 36 men mobilized in total.

4) Unzen Agriculture Institute Aid Unit
　Located in present-day Kunimi-chō, the Unzen Agriculture Institute Aid Unit was comprised of all of the 50 first and second-year trainees. The group departed Yue Railroad Station at around 10:00 a.m. on August 11, got off at Nagayo Railroad Station and proceeded on foot to Togitsu Elementary School, the designated lodging for the unit.
　The aid unit was not asked to handle the dead or injured but rather to clear areas that had been destroyed by fire. However, it is said that quite a few of the young trainees begged to go home when they saw the charred bodies still scattered in the ruins. The aid unit commenced operations from August 12, the day following its arrival. At 8:00 each morning the members headed for work on foot from Togitsu Elementary School, carrying three rice balls each and a few slices of pickled white radish, and walking back to their lodgings at 6:00 p.m. Their operations continued until August 15. On the 16th, they boarded a train at Michino’o Railroad Station, changed trains at Isahaya, and returned home.
　Their mobilization period was five days, with a total of 250 trainees mobilized.

5) Saigō Village Aid Unit
　The Saigō Village Defense Unit (15 teams, approximately 400 members) dispatched an aid unit of about 30 members by train on the morning of August 10. It is said that from that night, the unit camped in the atomic wasteland and engaged in rescuing the injured and disposing of the dead until August 17. The mobilization period was eight days, with 210 people mobilized in total.

6) Nishiariechō Aid Unit
　The Nishiarie Defense Unit (10 teams) received a request from Arie Police Station about two hours after the atomic bombing, asking for help in dealing with the situation in Nagasaki. As a result, a total of 30 members, or three members from each team, were organized into an aid unit and sent to the city by train a few hours later. The aid unit got off at Nagayo Railroad Station, walked to Michino’o via Togitsu and arrived at Ōhashi at nearly midnight. Since fires were still burning in all directions, the aid unit spent the night in a safe spot and waited until morning to go to the police station at Katsuyama Elementary School to receive instructions.
　The first instruction was to remove medical supplies from an air-raid shelter near Nagasaki Medical College Hospital. Although the aid unit immediately returned to Sakamoto-machi and set to work, there were large quantities of medical supplies and they had to spend all morning to take them out of the air-raid shelter. Their next instruction was to go to the food supply station and ration rice balls. The aid unit members engaged in this task all afternoon.
　Whether operations in Nishiarie-chō took one day or more is unknown.

7) Minamiarimachō Aid Unit
　The Minamiarima-chō Defense Unit (Unit Chief: Inoue Shigeru, five teams) received instructions from Kuchinotsu Police Station to dispatch an aid unit immediately after the atomic bombing. The aid unit was divided into two teams, the main team of which had been organized by three towns when the unit chief from Kazusa-chō, vice unit chief from Kuchinotsu-chō and division chief from Minamiarima-chō assembled at Kuchinotsu Police Station. From Minamiarima-chō, 16 people joined the aid unit.
　The mixed aid unit boarded a truck and headed for Nagasaki via Obama. The mobilization period and areas of operation are unknown, but the aid unit is thought to have taken actions similar to those of the second team of the Kuchinotsu-chō Defense Unit, introduced below.

8) Kuchinotsuchō Aid Unit
　Many people in the towns of Kuchinotsu-chō and Kazusa-chō saw a huge pillar of fire and smoke rise in the direction of Nagasaki and heard the thunderous sound of the atomic bomb explosion. Nagasaki is located to the northwest of these towns on the opposite side of Tachibana Bay.
　Soon after that, the chief of Kuchinotsu Police Station received an emergency report from Isahaya Police Station and sent an emergency summons to each defense unit in the towns and villages under its jurisdiction. Each of the four teams of the Kuchinotsu-chō Defense Unit rang a fire bell and summoned members to the respective police stations. The chief informed the assembled unit members that Nagasaki had been destroyed by a new-type bomb and was now engulfed in flames, and he instructed them go to the rescue of people in Nagasaki using fire engines. Forty members per team rode on the fire engines.
　The second team (Chief Hayashida Torayoshi) departed with 36 team members, three doctors and one police officer, a total of 40 people, at around 2:30 p.m. on August 9. In Isahaya, the fire engines were brought to a stop by the Home Fire Protection Unit due to the closure of roads to vehicles. It was evening when the second team reached the area of Koga, and dark when they arrived at Himi Tunnel and found it already filled with the injured. The second team then walked to the Air Defense Headquarters in Tateyama and without delay proceeded to the Iwakawa-machi area.
　After arriving at Iwakawa-machi, the aid unit began operations that would continue throughout the night. Although shrouded in darkness, they could see that Iwakawa-machi was reduced to a macabre state of death and devastation. After dawn, the aid unit members were further horrified to see that the injured people they had seen the day before had died. One injured man, who rose to his feet and began walking but soon fell flat, had already stopped breathing when they reached him. It was under these grim circumstances that the five-day aid operation, with priority on rescuing injured in the area from Iwakawa-machi to Nagasaki Medical College Hospital, was brought to an end.
　On August 14, having no vehicle, the second team aid unit members walked to Isahaya and returned to their town using the Shimabara Railroad from Isahaya.
　Although the mobilization period and number of mobilized members are unknown, the first, third and fourth teams are thought to have engaged in rescue operations similar to those of the second team.

9) Obama-chō Aid Unit
　The Obama-chō Defense Unit also received instructions from the chief of Obama Police Station to help deal with the situation in Nagasaki immediately after the atomic bombing. The first aid unit of 30 members led by Nakata Sutekichi hurriedly took the field using fire engines. Along the way, in the vicinity of Aino and Koga, the aid unit barely avoided attacks by two enemy airplanes. The first aid unit members entered Nagasaki and reported to the Inasa Police Station by order of the Air Defense Headquarters at around 5:00 p.m.
　Conducted in the Takenokubo area immediately after arrival, the operations involved investigating the number of corpses and removing them to air-raid shelters. This was done by dividing the unit into two teams. After identifying 88 bodies, Unit Chief Nakata began moving the corpses. This process lasted until late at night. Nakata and his men napped for one or two hours in the early morning in a space created by moving the corpses to the right and left. On August 10, the second day, the aid unit carried the injured from the vicinity of the air-raid shelter to Inasa Elementary School using two stretchers that had been supplied.
　Operations on the third day involved carrying the corpses out of the air-raid shelter and cremating them. During this time, the unit members heard a strange sound from far inside the shelter and, going to investigate, found two children alive. The children were immediately rescued and handed over to the police. They turned out to be infant brothers. It was a miserable scene, with these children, not even knowing their own parents’ names, eating something given to them by a police officer. The brothers were taken to Inasa Elementary School on stretchers.
　Operations on August 12, the fourth day, also involved disposal of the dead. By then, however, the aid unit members were exhausted from the continuous operations. Fortunately, since the 30 members of the second aid unit arrived in the evening and took over the task, the first unit members were able to return to their town by midnight.
　Although it is not known for how long the second aid unit continued operations, the Obama Defense Unit also dispatched a third aid unit of 30 members, bringing the total to 90 mobilized members.
　According to records kept by Inasa Police Station, in addition to Obama Aid Unit, aid units from Kōjiro-machi and the Yamada Village Defense Unit also continued aid operations in the Takenokubo and Shiroyama areas. However, neither the mobilization period nor the number of mobilized members is known.

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