It is hardly news now when writers of fact use the techniques of fiction writers to shape their stories. The era of the so-called New Journalists, born in the 1960s, (Hersey once said he was the grandfather of the movement) used first and third person fictional narrative styles to tell their tales, to bring power and immediacy to their work.

But, as noted, and unlike Wilder, Hersey had a major obstacle to overcome — America’s then near universal hatred of the Japanese. Patrick Sharp, in his “From Yellow Peril to Japanese Wasteland: John Hersey’s Hiroshima” concluded that there is substantial evidence to establish that hatred of the Japanese had been engendered in the United States years before the War. Since the turn of the century, American authors had been writing future-war stories in which Asian invaders armed with superior technologies attack the United States. The most well known story in this tradition was Jack London’s “The Unparalleled Invasion,” published in 1910.

According to Sharp, even President Truman “set the tone for this ‘revenge’ narrative with his assertion that ‘the Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold.’” He also notes the “U.S. government (had) engaged in a long and protracted battle” to control narratives about the atomic bomb, and… had hired William Laurence, the New York Times Pulitzer prize-winning science writer, as the official reporter of the Manhattan Project.” Rather than detail what had happened to Japanese civilians, the reports from Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the year following the attacks “emphasized strategic damage to buildings, bridges, and other war-related infrastructure…” Not people.

So, Hersey moved carefully, and he picked amongst his 30 interviewees, selecting a clerk and widow, two doctors, including one who worked for an international relief agency. The choice of medical professionals allows Hersey to reveal, through their eyes, the effect of radiation on those killed and those who survived the blast. He also chose two members of the clergy, one Catholic, one Protestant. The protestant had been educated in the U.S., been under suspicion by Japanese authorities because he wore American clothing, and had connections with America.

Rather than detail what had happened to Japanese civilians, the reports from Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the year following the attacks ’emphasized strategic damage to buildings, bridges, and other war-related infrastructure…’

He chooses his words carefully, too. He begins with the Reverend Mr. Tanimoto and tells how he got up at 5 a.m., alone in his parsonage, because “for some time his wife had been commuting with their year-old baby to spend nights with a friend in Ushida…” He notes that of all the important cities of Japan, “only two, Kyoto and Hiroshima, had not been visited in strength by B-san, or Mr. B, as the Japanese, with a mixture of respect and unhappy familiarity, called the B-29.” Those who lived in Hiroshima were almost “sick with anxiety,” expecting American bombers to arrive over their airspace. Hersey notes, with terrible irony, many of the city’s inhabitants expected something “special” had been planned for the city.

Hersey, like a good reporter setting the scene for his story, informs his readers that Hiroshima comprised six islands formed by seven estuarial rivers that branch from the Ota River, and several evacuation programs had reduced its population from a “wartime peak of 380,000 to about 245,000.” But that morning, the remaining inhabitants experienced a “tremendous flash of light.” To Mr. Tanimoto it seemed a “sheet of sun.” He took a few steps and “threw himself between two big rocks” in a garden. Hersey reports the man did not see what happened but “felt a sudden pressure, and then splinters and pieces of board and fragments of tile fell on him.”