The Enola Gay had just dropped the first wartime atomic bomb on Hiroshima - about a mile from where Kim was standing. Kim assumed the aircraft was a reconnaissance plane, but seconds later, a yellow-white light flashed and dissipated, plunging the morning into utter darkness. From Clark magazine, spring 2021Īs the group gathered for hand-to-hand combat exercises, a B-29 jet flew across the sky, leaving a white vapor trail in its wake. Born in Japanese- occupied Seoul, Korea, in 1924, Kim had been drafted into the Japanese military at age 20 and was stationed alongside 50 cadets at Okayama Prefecture. ’95, awoke for training with his military regiment in Hiroshima, Japan. It was a clear August morning in 1945 when Kim Chung-yum, M.A. ’95, stands with a portrait of former South Korean President Park Chung Hee at the opening of the Park Chung Hee Memorial-Library in 2012.
