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Hiroshima, 8:15
  • Published: 24 November 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529992731
  • Imprint: Ebury Press
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $45.00

Hiroshima, 8:15

The Lost Memoir

Formats & editions
Hardback
24 Nov 2026
EBook
6 Aug 2026
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The recently discovered and remarkable memoir of a Hiroshima survivor and hero, Kiyoshi Tanimoto, one of the 6 characters in John Hersey’s seminal 1946 book Hiroshima

A newly discovered firsthand account of the Hiroshima bombing and its aftermath from one of the survivors—a lost classic that brings unprecedented immediacy to our understanding of this world-changing event.


The whole city was covered with dark clouds, and conflagrations were breaking out in various directions. Could all of this have happened at once? It was then that black drops of rain, as big as blackberries, began to fall – rain caused by the atomic bomb. I wondered what had happened to my home and church. With a pale face, I ran down the Koi highway…

When the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima at 8.15am on 6 August 1945, Methodist minister Kiyoshi Tanimoto was just beginning his day by helping a neighbour on the outskirts of the city. Unbeknownst to him at that moment, the events that awaited him over the following days and weeks were full of horror, but through his courageous determination to save his family, church and city from total devastation, Tanimoto would become internationally recognised as a hero of Hiroshima. In 1946, he featured in American journalist John Hersey’s seminal book Hiroshima which catapulted Tanimoto into global fame – but it is only now that we have discovered the manuscript that he wrote in his own words.

With a powerful introduction from Tanimoto's daughter, Koko Kondo, a renowned peace activist in her own right, Hiroshima, 8:15 is a remarkable eyewitness account of this devastating moment of history. Written in the immediate aftermath of the bomb, the manuscript had been lost for many decades and was only recently discovered in a university archive.

Today, over eighty years later in a world fraught with conflict, Tanimoto’s story is a moving and powerful reminder of how the strength, love and resilience of the human spirit will always triumph over the things that divide us.


PRAISE FOR HIROSHIMA, 8:15

\"We have apparently spent eighty years forgetting what atomic warfare actually looks like. This intensely moving book is also an unsparing chronicle of the reality of mass destruction. Pray God it will restore some sense of urgency to our commitment to a nuclear-free world.\" — Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury

\"A stunning historical discovery and a heartrending testimony.\" — Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize–winning coauthor of American Prometheus, the book behind Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer

\"More urgent today than at any time since the end of the Cold War.\" — Serhii Plokhy, author of The Nuclear Age and Chernobyl

\"A rare and important addition to history.\" — Susan Southard, author of Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War
  • Published: 24 November 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529992731
  • Imprint: Ebury Press
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $45.00

About the author

Kiyoshi Tanimoto

Kiyoshi Tanimoto (1909-1986) was a Methodist minister from Hiroshima, who become known globally for his heroic actions in the aftermath of the atomic bomb of 1945. He was one of the six characters featured in John Hersey's Hiroshima (1946) and dedicated his life to helping those impacted by the bomb for decades after, the most notable example being his support of the Hiroshima Maidens. He was married to Chisa Tanimoto, and they had five children, including Koko Kondo, the anti-nuclear peace activist.
KT

Praise for Hiroshima, 8:15

Kiyoshi Tanimoto’s eyewitness account of the Hiroshima atomic bombing is both a stunning historical discovery and a heartrending testimony of human suffering. It echoes John Hersey’s groundbreaking 1946 New Yorker essay—but Tanimoto’s Japanese voice is equally powerful, and a poignant reminder that in the nuclear age, humanity always lives on the brink of extinction.

KAI BIRD, Pulitzer Prize–winning coauthor of American Prometheus, the biography that inspired Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer

The Methodist minister Kiyoshi Tanimoto, known as the ‘rescuing angel’ in nuclear-bombed Hiroshima, left a powerful eyewitness account and a stark warning about the savagery of the nuclear age for generations to come. It feels more urgent today than at any time since the end of the Cold War.

Serhii Plokhy, author of The Nuclear Age and Chernobyl

Written in 1947 but discovered nearly seven decades later in 2022, Hiroshima, 8:15 recounts the intimate details of Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto’s round-the-clock efforts and courageous split-second choices to save and care for countless survivors suffering from torturous injuries, whole-body burns, and radiation illness over the days, weeks, and months after the nuclear attack. Six months after the bombing, even as the people of Hiroshima and across Japan were facing starvation, Tanimoto begins the daunting, multiyear task to reconstruct his church from the atomic ashes with scant funds or supplies. A devout Methodist minister and community leader, Tanimoto offers his Christian perspectives on Hiroshima’s victimization from the atomic bombing and his views the roles of both Japan and the United States in the Pacific War. Hiroshima, 8:15 is a rare and important addition to history.

Susan Southard, author of Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War

We have apparently spent eighty years forgetting what atomic warfare actually looks like. Just now, we are staring into the abyss created by a steady erosion of the processes of shared control and accountability. Nuclear non-proliferation is more at risk than it has been since the 1970s. This intensely moving book, a record of Christian faith and practical compassion, is also an unsparing chronicle of the reality of mass destruction. Pray God it will restore some sense of urgency to our commitment to a nuclear-free world.

Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury

A long-forgotten firsthand account of one of history’s greatest tragedies. . . . An essential addition to the literature of nuclear warfare.

Kirkus Reviews