What could be manlier than a 15 kiloton blast? How about a 21 kiloton blast. But what’s manlier than a 15 kiloton and a 21 kiloton blast combined? Tsutomu Yamaguchi.

In 1945 Yamaguchi was an engineer working for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. On August 6, he rode a tram to Hiroshima on a business trip. As he was stepping off the tram, the “Little Boy” exploded about 3 km away. Yamaguchi was temporarily blinded, deafened in the left ear and suffered burns on the top half of his body.

Yamaguchi was heavily bandaged, went completely bald and had to spend the night in an air raid shelter. The next day, determined to catch a train home, he walked through the contaminated area. The city was full of “walking dead,” who’s skin he described as being like “a giant glove” hanging from the victims. Estimates of deaths from the blast and subsequent burns and radiation poisoning are up to 200,000. Yamaguchi returned home later that day, to Nagasaki.

Two days later, Yamaguchi was describing the experience to his boss when, once again 3 km away, the “Fat Man” exploded. Up to 75,000 people were estimated to have died. Among the victims of the bomb and resulting contamination was Yamaguchi’s wife, who was exposed to black rain and died of cancer years later. One of his three children also died of cancer and the other too have suffered illness as a result.

Yamaguchi, now 93, is also battling cancer, but because of his manliness, it still hasn’t been able to kill him. On March 24, 2009, the Japanese government certified him as the only person known to have survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

UPDATE:
Yamaguchi died Jan 4 as a result of stomach cancer. The world has lost one of its most manly men and he will be missed.
http://www.maninstitute.com/?p=1320