70 years today the first atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima, creating a vision hell we should be thankful few of us can properly imagine. 70 years ago today, somewhere between 70,000 and 140,000 people were killed by the most terrifying weapon mankind has ever made. On the 15th of this month it will be 70 years to the day since the second atomic bomb was dropped in Nagasaki, where anywhere between 40,000 and 80,000 people were killed. The lucky victims were instantly disintegrated, and the unlucky ones survived the initial blast only to die lost in the rubble, or died in agony days-months-years later due to the radiation poisoning. The testimonies of the survivors, their stories, are heart-breaking, enough to make you cry. If no one has heard those stories, you should. They are incredible, and horrifying. Hopefully we'll never see another Hiroshima or Nagasaki again. I thought it would be nice to have something to honour the memories of the dead.
I once read an article where those who survived were so burnt by the intense heat that they were heavily deformed. They even had pictures of some of the survivors and...it was bad. Really bad. It pains me to forget the title, but I discovered a book in my library years ago about young girl who contracted cancer from the radiation and died. Even while her friends and family worked to make 1,000 paper cranes as per the legend. It was a Young Adult book written from the girl's perspective. At the back of the book were written letters to the author from all over the world, especially from the US. They all agreed how horrifying and tragic this was. Here's hoping we never see another atomic bomb fall anywhere.
It's really horrific. And especially so, when you read the internal documents and records of how the decision to drop the damn things was made. It was very cold-blooded. Talk about Pandora's Box.
I remember hearing once that Hiroshima picked because someone who picked the possible targets went there on their honeymoon. If that's true that's really twisted.
Well conceived and well said, Lemex. It's inspiring to see the beauty that's risen again from Hiroshima's destruction: a bittersweet testament to the resilience of its people. It's a city that will always live with the shadows of its past: quite literally those of innocent people, burnt in place by the blast as they went about their business. I expect that the piles of paper cranes in the memorial parks are as well-stocked as ever. A travesty that various world leaders continually fail to give due respect to the horror of nuclear warfare. @Link the Writer - that might be Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes? It is a very moving book.
Urban legend. Hiroshima was selected as one of five targets because it was a military embarkation port and also an industrial center that was the site of a major military headquarters. It also met several other criteria set by the operations panel assigned with target selection. The other possible primary targets selected were Kokura, Yokohama, Niigata and Kyoto (later replaced by Nagasaki). Nagasaki was hit as the backup target because Kokura was cloudy that day. Both those cities were the backup targets for Hiroshima. Anyway, first time last time we hope. But I doubt it. Inevitability is against us. It just takes one dumbass in one of the nuclear nations.
That's it. That's the book. I think it's easy to forget that in a war, civilians suffer. We spend too much time focusing on the governments of nations who so hate each other they're willing to send their sons out to kill each other, but we forget the civilians. They suffer, doubly so because there's no way they can defend themselves. Those poor civilians were absolutely screwed in every which way. Not sure if this is urban legend, but I read somewhere that the guy who dropped the bombs said he'd do it again in a heartbeat if asked. @Selbbin - You and me both. *knocks on wood* Let's hope all nations can do their part to avoid something like this from ever happening again.
Anyone ever read Hiroshima by John Hersey? It's a collection of true reflections on the bombing. If that book doesn't horrify you, you aren't human.
I sob like an infant when I read about horrors done on innocent, defenseless civilians. This is chiefly why I avoid World War II because it was the war that showed us just how low humanity can sink.
Actually, I think it's just the most famous. Through all of human history the brutality is unbelievable, and even a rudamentary dig into the depths of historical depravity demonstrates that WW2 is not unique or worse. All it can lay claim to is being the biggest war. All the horror inflicted on civilians has happened since warfare began.
I did some digging and found what you may have heard about a honeymoon, and it was the reason Nagasaki was hit. Kyoto was an original target, but Henry L. Stimson, the Secretary of War at the time, had known and admired Kyoto ever since his honeymoon there several decades earlier, and personally asked Truman to remove it from the target list. It was replaced by Nagasaki. Sorry for the history lesson, not meaning to take away from the thread.
It still suggests a lot about the decision making, picking the targets. 'Don't nuke that city because I happen to like it'.
Yeah. :/ It was either “I like the city, don't blow it up” or “Eliminate it for its military bases.” Some even speculate it was because the decision-makers didn't want to risk the USSR (who was, IIRC, gearing up for a fight with the Japanese) extending its sphere of influence on Japan. Basically, the Cold War started in the last months of World War II, and these was the first, devastating, shots. On two cities full of people who had no idea what was going to happen. Once again it shows that no matter the decisions, civilians will feel the full brunt of it.
That's partially it. They didn't want the Russians drawn to the Pacific. They also didn't want to risk a landing. Truman was very concerned that the public would lynch him if they found out he risked a landing with war weary troops and potentially a million casualties when they had Atomic bombs gathering dust.
Maybe that should have happened during the Cold War. Get officials from the nuclear branches of the US and USSR's militaries to every city in the opposing nations, and ensure they have lovely times.
Maybe they did and that's why nothing happened. All the spies they sent to each other kept reporting 'not here, the people are lovely!'
Kyoto was also a religious centre, and it was felt in some circles that if Kyoto was bombed, it would harden the Japanese into fighting to the last man.
The Holocaust, and Operation Barbarossa, and the Rape of Nanking, and the rapes committed by allied forces when they occupied Germany, and violence against Soviet prisoners, and violence against German ones, and the atomic bombings, and the bombing of Dresden— the last two might have been necessary evils, at least where the nukes were concerned, but damn. After World War I and the Armenian Genocide, one might have thought they'd witnessed all that humanity was capable of. They would have been wrong.
