Advertisement
Published: August 17th 2012
Edit Blog Post
It was exactly how I envisioned a trip to Hiroshima would be. A feeling of sadness engulfed me as soon as I saw the Atomic bomb Dome, the only recognizable structure that was left standing during the nuclear attack.
The people and its city had long transformed itself as an ambassador of peace and fought relentlessly to end any nuclear testing and free the world of nuclear weapons. One wil be confronted with so many questions once you visited this place. In my case I already had lingering question even before I came to this place.
Why was Hiroshima bombed? Yes, Japan started World War II and so are the Nazis of Germany and Austria, right? I am Filipino, and the Pilippines too were a victim of this Japanese attempt for Asian dominance, but still I was trying to find a moral if not a winning military strategy to justify this action of pure evil to occur.
At the time the atomic bomb were dropped in not one but two cities, Japanese threat were already on a clear decline, so is there really a need for such action.
We went to the Hirsohima Atomic Bomb museum. Maybe
Atomic Bomb Dome
an important UH World Heritage Site, which is a symbol of nuclear devastation i could find my answers, maybe there is even a miniscule moral justification for this to occur. I wanted to see some sort of goodness amidst the obvious evil decision. Then there it was, a portion of the museum,
Why was Hiroshima bombed? Pumped up the volume of my elctronic guide and listened intently that something good will be said. To sum it up, this country should considered itself lucky cause, 13 cities were chosen originally, then they narrow it down to 4 choices, then finally the unlucky 2 cities, having the less Allied forces in it. No matter that these 2 cities had the most numbers of Koreans and Chinese prisoners and people forced to work under the threat of the Japanese. It was also mentioned that A-bomb scientists wanted to issue an advance warning, but no, the Amercian governmnet wanted to see its full effect of their newly acquired toy of mass destrcution. They wanted to show the American public, why this new scientific study cost almost 1.5 billion dollars. Sadly, that was all my trusted electronic guide had to say about why Hiroshima was bombed.
So instead of having answers, now I have more questions. Why
a European city with a Nazi stronghold wasn't even considered?
Maybe Asian, specifically its women and children, who mostly died on these attacks, were too worthless, compared to their European counterparts, that they are a fitting subject for a new developed tool for human destruction? Looking at it in an Asian context, its quite clear that we are not seen as the same standard as other race involved in the war. Japanese, pressumably seen by Westeners as being sub-humans, thus the standards,tolerance and sensitivity accorded to the Nazis, who by the way murdered millions of Jews, did not apply. Therefore, the way I see it is that the decision to bomb 2 cities and obliterate in the most painful way imaginable, the lives of thousands of people,is just and fair to the perpetrators of these inhumane initiative.
Unlucky were the survivors, they could only wish that like the others they just have died instantly. The A-bomb museum had photos and a wax depiction of people with burned skin loosely hanging from their bodies, sadly still alive, was already too much that we decided to skip the Victim Museum.
The Hiroshima Peace Park is serenely beautiful, despite
bearing witness to a lot of horrors. A river runs through the park. It was said that surivivors in desperate need for water all tried to get to the river, but found a dried up reservoir, that became their final stop as they pile up each other in search for water and meeting their final and very painful demise. More than 100,000 people died in Hirsohima alone.
This is a place no matter how sad it is, must be seen and visited by all. After a while it was hard to explain to my son what he was seeing, the death and destruction was so over powering even for a 5-year old. There was no sugar coating the horrors, I simply told him that there was a war,and they were fighting, thus the city got bombed, and that fighting is bad. Im sure those words were powerful enough for a member of a younger generation to learn early on that war is never good. 10,000 children under the age of 12 were lost in these attacks.
As the maxim goes, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
Advertisement
Tot: 0.143s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 14; qc: 77; dbt: 0.0758s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Alexander
non-member comment
Nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened after the European part of the war was finished, so it was not possible to use it against Nazi Germany. Reasons for bombing and the results are still quite a controversial topic that is argued both ways in and outside of Japan.