Late Father Tadashi Hasegawa of Memorial Cathedral for World Peace in Hiroshima was 14-year-old when the atomic bomb was dropped on the city. The bomb destroyed the city and killed over 140,000 people.
Horribly burned, with little in the way of food or shelter he, along with his family, struggled to survive.
A chance encounter with Father Pedro Arrupe, then a novitiate master of Jesuit Order living in Hiroshima, would lead to his healing, both in body and spirit, and set him on the path to priesthood.
In 2010, Father Hasegawa published his biology in Japanese, describing his experience as an atomic bomb survivor.
He passed away from cancer a year later, but before leaving this earth his niece Agnes Thaler and her husband Richard Thaler of Los Angeles promised him that they would have his story translated into English and published in the U.S.
The August 6 Foundation was created in order to carry out that promise.
Father Hasegawa’s book “The Morning of August 6, I was 14 Years Old” is available for a free download on www.august6foundation.org