He survived both atomic bombs.

Claim

He survived both atomic bombs

Catch

NOT THE ONLY ONE

Verdict

One man, two bombs, one certificate

The story goes around every August: one man survived the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, went home to Nagasaki, and survived the second bomb too. It's true. But the version that spreads leaves out two things: he wasn't the only person it happened to, and the reason he became famous is a piece of paperwork he only asked for at 93.

Hiroshima, 6 August 1945

Tsutomu Yamaguchi was a 29-year-old engineer from Nagasaki who designed oil tankers for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. In the summer of 1945 he was in Hiroshima on a three-month business trip, and on the morning of 6 August that trip was ending. He and two colleagues were heading for the station when he realised he had left his hanko behind, the personal name seal Japanese workers use to sign documents, and he went back for it.

At 8:15 a.m., walking toward the docks, he was about 3 kilometres from where the bomb exploded. He later described seeing the plane and a flash in the sky before he was knocked down. The blast burned the upper left side of his body and ruptured his eardrums. He found his colleagues alive, spent the night in an air-raid shelter, and the next day took the train home to Nagasaki.

Nagasaki, 9 August 1945

Heavily bandaged, he went back to work. On the morning of 9 August he was telling his supervisor how a single bomb had destroyed an entire city when the second bomb exploded over Nagasaki. His office was again about 3 kilometres from the blast. This time he wasn't hurt by the explosion itself, but with his bandages ruined he ran a high fever and was sick for more than a week. His wife, Hisako, also survived the Nagasaki bombing.

The certificate

After the war Japan began certifying survivors as hibakusha, which entitles them to medical care and allowances. In 1957 Yamaguchi was certified as a survivor of Nagasaki. His papers said nothing about Hiroshima, and for decades he didn't ask them to. He was relatively healthy and wanted to put it behind him.

That changed late in his life. He wrote about his experiences, took part in a documentary, and spoke at the United Nations for the abolition of nuclear weapons. In January 2009 he applied to have his Hiroshima exposure recorded too, and on 24 March 2009 Nagasaki city officials confirmed it, making him the first person officially certified as surviving both bombings. The certificate didn't increase his compensation. He said he wanted the record to exist so it could "tell the younger generation the horrifying history of the atomic bombings" after he died. He died of stomach cancer on 4 January 2010, aged 93.

The catch

The makers of the 2006 documentary Twice Survived: The Doubly Atomic Bombed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki traced about 165 people who were caught in both bombings; Wikipedia puts the known number at "at least 160". When Yamaguchi was certified, the Nagasaki official who announced it said it was "possible that there are more people like him."

So the honest version is not "the only man to survive both atomic bombs." It's "the only man the government ever certified for both," and that happened because he asked, almost 64 years later, so the record would outlive him.

Verdict

One man, two bombs, one certificate: the rare story where the official record is the point.

Sources

• Associated Press, "Japanese man is a double A-bomb survivor," 24 March 2009 (via NBC News), quoting Nagasaki city official Toshiro Miyamoto and the Mainichi newspaper.
• Wikipedia, "Tsutomu Yamaguchi" and "Hibakusha" (accessed 1 November 2026), for his account of the hanko, the distances, the 1957 certification and his family.
• Twice Survived: The Doubly Atomic Bombed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, documentary directed by Hidetaka Inazuka, 2006.

The images in the video are AI-generated illustrations, not archival photographs.

SOURCES

1. Associated Press, "Japanese man is a double A-bomb survivor," 24 March 2009 (via NBC News), quoting Nagasaki city officials and the Mainichi newspaper.
2. "Tsutomu Yamaguchi" and "Hibakusha," Wikipedia (accessed 1 November 2026), for his account of the hanko, the distances and his 1957 Nagasaki certification.
3. Twice Survived: The Doubly Atomic Bombed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, documentary dir. Hidetaka Inazuka, 2006 (screened at the United Nations), source of the ~165 figure.

The images in this video are AI-generated illustrations, not archival photographs.

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