In 1944, at the height of the fighting on Tinian Island during World War II, schoolgirl Mitsuko Arakaki and her family resolved to die rather than be killed.
At the last moment, fear drove her to flee — an impulse that ultimately saved her family.
Having watched B-29 bombers take to the sky from Tinian, the same island from which the aircraft used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki departed, Arakaki, now 91, continues to emphasize the precious nature of peace.
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