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A Downed Pilot Who Ran Away in a Stolen Enemy Plane and Other Historic Escapes

Khalid Elhassan September 13, 2020 28 min

A P=51 making a low level pass on a German airplane. Art Station

6. Hundreds Managed to Escape With Their Lives From Two Atomic Bombings

Radioactive plume from the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, as seen from 9.6 kilometers away. Pinterest

Tsutomu Yamaguchi’s experience of surviving two atomic bombings might have been quite extraordinary. As things turned it, however, while what had happened to him was rare, it was not unique.

Hundreds of people were atomically bombed in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although up to 200,000 people perished in the nuclear explosions and in their aftermaths, at least 200 survivors of the Hiroshima explosion had sought refuge in Nagasaki, only to face the same fate again, just a few days later.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.