Expository Reading and Writing Summer Assignment
Check out of a local library (but not the HMHS library), or buy a copy of John Hersey’s Hiroshima (purchased books,
used ones, are incredibly cheap; once finished, the books can be donated to the school for extra credit). Make sure to get
a recent edition of the book, one that has the fifth chapter, “Aftermath.”
As you read, handwrite the answers to the following questions, in complete sentences. The assignment is to be
submitted on the first day of school, the test—on the next day.
Study Guide Questions for Hiroshima
Chapter 1: A Noiseless Flash
Mr./Rev. Tanimoto
1. What happened at 8:15, August 6, 1945?
2. What kind of raid did most Hiroshima residents expect?
3. Who/What is "Mr. B"?
4. What kept Rev. Tanimoto up the night before the bombing?
5. Why did police recently question Mr. Tanimoto?
6. How many planes were detected by radar that morning?
7. What was the first thing noticed when the bomb went off?
8. What protected Mr. Tanimoto from the blast?
Hatsuyo Nakamura
9. Why didn't Hatsuyo move the children when the new air warning went off?
10. What were all the able-bodied girls asked to do?
11. What was her neighbor doing to his home?
12. How did Hatsuyo's husband die?
13. How did Hatsuyo support herself and her children?
Dr. Masakazu Fujii
14. Why did Dr. Fujii get up early that morning?
15. Why are there extra beds in Japanese Hospitals?
16. What was Dr. Fujii's single doctor hospital built next to?
17. Why had Dr. Fujii been turning patients away recently?
18. Specifically, what did the explosion do to his hospital?
19. How did Dr. Fujii keep from drowning?
Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge
20. What was Father Kleinsorge suffering from the morning of the blast?
21. What did Father Kleinsorge change into for air raid alerts?
22. What did the flash remind Kleinsorge of from his childhood?
Dr. Terufumi Sasaki
23. Why was Dr. Sasaki scolded by another doctor earlier?
24. What was Dr. Sasaki holding in his hand when the bomb exploded?
25. How many doctors in Sasaki's hospital were unhurt?
Toshiko Sasaki
26. What was Toshiko in charge of at the factory?
27. What had a prominent local Navy man done recently?
28. What large objects were located behind Toshiko's desk?
29. What injury did Toshiko suffer from in the blast?
Chapter 2: The Fire
1. What was designated as a temporary hospital in case of emergency?
2. What was falling out of the sky?
3. What was wrapped around Toshio's (Hatsuyo's son's) feet?
4. What did Hatsuyo go back inside her wrecked home to retrieve?
5. What happened to her next-door neighbor tearing his house down?
6. Where did she stash her sewing machine?
7. What caused most of Hiroshima's fires?
8. Where did Father Kleinsorge end up right after the blast?
9. How did Father Kleinsorge first try to pull Mrs. Hoshijima from the rubble?
10. What condition did Father Kleinsorge find his paper mache briefcase in?
11. What did Dr. Fujii realize would put him in great danger when he was trapped on the river?
12. Who ended up freeing Dr. Fujii?
13. What is a Molotoffano hanakago?
14. What did Dr. Fujii and Dr. Machii observe that puzzled them?
15. Where did Dr. Fujii take refuge from the fire?
16. Where did Dr. Sasaki finally obtain eyeglasses?
17. Out of a city of 245,000, how many were killed or "doomed with one blow?"
18. How long did Terufumi Sasaki estimate she was unconscious under the bookcases and rubble?
19. When the fires came, what decision did Father Kleinsorge have to make regarding those that were still trapped in the
rubble?
20. What happened to Mr. Fukai after they dragged him away from his window?
21. What had the explosion done to clothing patterns on some of the victims?
22. White colors repelled the heat of the bomb. What did dark colors do?
23. What was the only thing Mr. Tanimoto could do as he ran past screaming people trapped in the rubble?
24. Who did Mr. Tanimoto run into along the river?
25. What were injured people at the evacuation area calling for?
26. What provided Miss Sasaki shelter after she was pulled from the tin factory rubble?
27. What did Dr Fujii examine on Dr. Machii's daughter with great curiosity?
28. What did the refugees fear the Americans would do?
29. What happened when Mrs. Nakamura and her children drank from the river?
30. What, to Father Kleinsorge's amazement, blast weren't victims doing?
31. What was with the boat Mr. Tanimoto found?
32. What drove some of the refugees into the river?
33. What did the victims fear when it began to rain?
34. What ripped through the refugee's park?
35. What did Mr. Tanimoto and Father Kleinsorge go into town for?
36. What did they eat that was roasted on the vine?
37. Why was the young woman, Mrs. Kamai, holding the dead infant?
Chapter 3: Details Are Being Investigated
1. What effect did the announcement from the naval launch have on the survivors at the river?
2. Who did Mr. Tanimoto find standing up to their necks in water?
3. Why wouldn't the people on the sand spit get in Mr. Tanimoto's boat?
4. What happened when he took one woman by the hand?
5. What did Mr. Tanimoto have to keep telling himself as he helped people?
6. How did Dr. Sasaki and the hospital staff see when working after dark?
7. How many hours had Dr. Sasaki worked before he tried to sleep?
8. What happened when he finally tried to take a nap?
9. Why did soldiers draw swords on Mr. Tanimoto and the priests?
10. What delighted Hatsuyo Nakamura's children that night?
11. What was floating in the river?
12. What did Mr. Tanimoto realize when he saw what was in the river?
13. How many tons did this "new bomb" have an equivalency to?
14. What was the first duty according to the army doctor?
15. What did Mr. Tanimoto take back to the park in lieu of doctors?
16. What was wrong with the 20 soldiers Father Kleinsorge came across?
17. How did he give them water?
18. What did he discuss eating with a slightly wounded man?
19. What was the woman handing out that made Father Kleinsorge want to cry?
20. What did Father Kleinsorge have to fill out at the police station?
21. How many days was Miss Sasaki left under the lean-to?
22. Where were Miss Sasaki's mother, father, and baby brother when the bomb went off?
23. Did Miss Sasaki have to have her leg amputated?
24. How many hours of sleep did Dr. Sasaki get during the first three days?
25. What happened to the X-ray stock in the hospital basement?
26. After the third day, how many doctors were there to treat the 10,000 patients?
27. How did Dr. Sasaki's mother find out he was all right?
28. What happened at 11:02 am, August 9th?
29. How long had the young woman been holding the dead infant?
30. What did the young woman keep asking Mr. Tanimoto?
31. What happened to Mrs. Nakamura's son Hideo?
32. Why did Mr. Tanimoto hate Miss Tanaka's father?
33. What did Mr. Tanimoto do for Mr. Tanaka as he lay dying?
34. According to Hersey, what was a greater moral responsibility to the Japanese than caring for the living?
35. What news did Mrs. Nakamura's sister bring her?
36. What did the emperor do that Mr. Tanimoto called a "wonderful blessing?"
Chapter 4 - Panic Grass and Feverfew
1. What did Father Kleinsorge believe had a talismanic quality? (this means it was like a lucky charm)
2. What was happening to Father Kleinsorge's wounds that should have healed?
3. What happened to Mrs. Nakamura when she started to comb her hair?
4. What did they eventually call the "strange capricious disease" people were coming down with?
5. What covered everything that gave Miss Sasaki the creeps?
6. How many people were in Miss Sasaki's "semi private" room?
7. What new "queer symptoms" began showing up in many of Dr. Sasaki's patients?
8. What new disaster hit the city that caused further destruction?
9. What condition was Miss Nakamura's sewing machine when it was finally retrieved?
10. What problem occurred when using needles in atomic bomb patients?
11. What was the most useful therapy for bomb patients?
12. What did the symptoms of radiation sickness resemble?
13. What group of patients "delighted" Dr. Fujii?
14. Who controlled Hiroshima's municipal government?
16. What did Macarthur do regarding Japanese scientific publications?
17. What questions about God did Miss Sasaki ask Father Kleinsorge?
18. What did Mrs. Nakamura sell for food?
19. How did the pieces of Father Kleinsorge's new house stay together?
20. What did Miss Sasaki connect to?
21. In Japan, what does Hersey say is even more important than institution?
22. What one feeling did the six survivors share?
23. Whom did Dr. Sasaki feel should be brought to trial?
Chapter 5: The Aftermath
Hatsuyo Nakamura
1. What marked the lowest, saddest moment of Mrs. Nakamura's life?
2. What term did the Japanese shy away from when referring to those who went through the blasts?
3. What is a "Hibakusha?"
4. What incident finally prompted the Japanese government to provide relief for the hibakusha?
5. How did non-hibakusha employers treat survivors?
6. What nickname did the women at the factory give Mrs. Nakamura?
7. What law was passed in 1957 to help victims?
8. What did the "Health Books" provide victims with?
9. Where did Hatsuyo Nakamura's son Toshio end up working?
10. What did Mrs. Nakamura take up for pleasure after she retired?
11. What was Mrs. Nakamura supposed to be able to summon up at the Yasukuni Shrine?
12. What happened to Mrs. Nakamura when she danced on the Emperor's birthday 4 decades later?
13. Did she go home from the hospital?
Dr. Terufumi Sasaki
14. What would be Dr. Sasaki's life work?
15. Why did Dr. Sasaki choose the woman he did to marry?
16. What made up most of Dr. Sasaki's work as a surgeon?
17. What was the ultimate conclusion concerning keloid scars?
18. What did Dr. Sasaki decide to do in 1951?
19. What disease was much higher in hibakusha than normal?
20. How did Dr. Sasaki react to the revelations concerning what hibakusha suffered?
21. What did doctors find when Dr. Sasaki underwent a physical examination?
22. What did Dr. Sasaki's wife die of?
23. What was Dr. Sasaki's one regret?
Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge
24. What did Father Kleinsorge become a classic case of?
25. What did one of Father Kleinsorge's colleagues jokingly say about him and Japan?
26. What was Father Kleinsorge's most disturbing complaint?
27. What was Father Kleinsorge's favorite reading material when traveling?
28. What did Father Kleinsorge injure when he slipped on the icy path?
29. What never told lies, according to Father Kleinsorge?
30. What did Yoshiki-san lie to Father Kleinsorge about?
Toshiko Sasaki
31. What new blow did Toshiko Sasaki experience?
32. Who was the only person that gave Toshiko comfort?
33. Where did she send her brother and sister?
34. Where did she find work?
35. What profession did she eventually qualify for?
36. What did the surgeries finally do for her legs?
37. Who was brought to the orphanage from time to time?
38. What opinion did she have that was not conventional for hibakusha?
39. What new qualification did she earn after realizing she might have to care for her brother?
40. Where did Sasaki go when she knew she would never marry?
41. What did Father Takakura promise her?
42. What did Toshiko become the first Japanese director of?
43. What was on of the happiest moments of her life?
Dr. Masakuzu Fujii
44. What was Dr. Fujii's hobby for years?
45. How did her obtain penicillin for his patients?
46. How did Dr. Fujii deal with psychological effects of the bomb?
47. What sport did he "succumb" to?
48. Where did his "adventure" take him in 1956?
49. What quarrel did Dr. Fujii have as President of the Hiroshima Lion's club?
50. What questionable accident did Dr. Fujii suffer?
51. How did he live his final eleven years?
52. What was discovered in his liver after is autopsy?
Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto
53. Where did anger of many hibakusha "modulate" toward?
54. What did Rev. Tanimoto realize he needed to build?
55. What did American occupation personnel do to supply depots?
73. Where was Rev. Tanimoto invited to raise money?
74. What did he decide to devote his life to during the voyage?
75. What role did the Reverend Mr. Green assume when Rev. Tanimoto moved in with him?
76. What did Rev. Tanimoto do as he "toured?"
79. What did the people of Hiroshima feel about Mr. Tanimoto's proposal when it was published?
80. What did the Japanese Diet revel on the 4th anniversary of the blast?
81. Where was Rev. Tanimoto at this time?
83. How much did Rev. Tanimoto raise for his church?
85. What was the high point of Mr. Tanimoto's second tour?
86. What were the 12 Keloid girls called in the press?
87. Where did Norman Cousins suggest further surgery be done?
88. How many girls were chosen for plastic surgery?
89. What show did Mr. Tanimoto find himself featured on?
91. What guest shocked Rev. Tanimoto?
93. How were the "maidens" shown to the TV audience?