Terumi Tanaka was 13 when a U.S. warplane dropped a plutonium bomb on the city of Nagasaki, on Aug. 9, 1945.
Sitting at home with a book that morning, Tanaka knew instantly when his surroundings turned a blinding bright white that the massive boom was not one of the air raids he had gotten accustomed to in the waning days of World War II.
"I felt this was something terrible, so I ran downstairs and ducked, covered my ears and closed my eyes," Tanaka, 88, said. "And at that moment, I lost consciousness."