Although Tetsuko McKenzie now lives in Melbourne, she still bears the scars from the horror of August 6, 1945. At only 16 years old, she saw the world’s first nuclear bomb hit Hiroshima. On that fateful day, she was just walking with a friend to the movies. Then, without warning, an unparalleled explosion shattered their world and changed her life as well.
When the bomb finally went off, McKenzie remembers a white flash that consumed her entire field of vision. “I was standing on a railway platform when suddenly a strong white light flashed into my eyes,” she said. In that moment, she said that she couldn’t help but glance over to her friend and say, “What is that?” The reality sunk in fast. They were informed by way of radio broadcasts that an atomic bomb had dropped on Hiroshima.
The aftermath of the explosion was devastating. Now, with no alternative options, McKenzie and her friend would have to scrap all of their plans for the day. Some of the migrants even tried to take a train into the city, but police stopped them from doing so. After we got our first glimpse of the cloud, we continued on the same train towards The City, but that train was halted by police and escorted off the tracks. We had to walk quite a distance home, it would take several hours,” McKenzie remembered.
Kure, east of Hiroshima, was home to her family, who worried she had been killed in the explosion. They could barely conceive of some of the horrors that had actually occurred within the city walls. When McKenzie got home, her family couldn’t believe that their daughter had not only fought and survived so long, but come home.
Life in Japan during and post WWII was filled with devastation. McKenzie went through a lot of trauma, like being forced to do hard labor under the threat of violence. “She suffered harsh treatment and was forced to do all the dirty work around the house,” she said. Even through these challenges, she found solace in the relationship she cultivated with Ray McKenzie. He was a member of the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces and had been an Australian soldier.
The couple quickly developed a bond. “I thought to myself, ‘Oh, he is good looking.’ And he was very good-looking,” McKenzie said fondly. They wed in 1952 and, realising their immediate future would no longer be in surviving thru Melbourne. Tetsuko would go on to become one of over 650 Japanese war brides who settled in Australia after the war.
In Melbourne, McKenzie learned typing and secured a position with the Victorian health department, marking a new chapter in her life. That was only the beginning of her challenges. “Life was very hard at first, in this unknown place,” she reflected on her early days in Australia.
Since Ray McKenzie, Jr. succumbed to a heart attack 18 years ago, Tetsuko has had to face life on her own terms. She did not waver in her desire to honor what came before. She plans to visit Hiroshima next year and tour the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum to deepen her understanding of the atomic bomb’s impact.
Looking back at her own experiences and what we can learn from history, Tetsuko urged the necessity of remembrance. “We must never forget what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet countries keep making weapons to destroy people,” she stated. Her memories of WWII expose her inner struggles among an irreconcilable contrast of thankfulness for tranquility and grief for great sacrifice. “When I heard that World War Two had ended, I was very happy, but at the same time, so many people had lost their lives. And what was it all for?”
As Tetsuko McKenzie’s transformative journey from Hiroshima to Melbourne demonstrates, resilience and hope can take root even after unimaginable loss. Her story is a testament and a powerful reminder of the human cost of war. It underscores the paramount importance of promoting peace in our ever-complicated world.
