In one moment, Hiroshima was dust

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As scary as that title sounds it doesn't even begin to tell of the horrors that happened at 08:15 on August the 6th, 1945.

Firstly, before I get on to my rant about the A Bomb, Hiroshima is a really nice place, the way the city has been transformed in the last 60 years is amazing, it's now a thriving metropolis and has a population of 1.1 million, more than 3 times than the population at the time of the bombing.

It's well planned, walkable and has loads of beautiful monuments that you'd expect to see in a city that was completely annihilated at the end of WWII. It's a young party city with loads of students and hundreds of bars. It was real expensive though, I guess they make a bit of money from the millions of tourists that come to the A-bomb memorial every year and we were paying nearly double what we had to in Tokyo for everything from drinks to a bed for a few nights.

It was well worth the visit though, even though it was 34 degrees and felt like 44 and we're light in the pocket for our next trip, to Osaka, but it was one of the most sobering places we'll ever see, the most horrific museum/memorial you can ever imagine, and has some of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet.

So where do I start with the A-Bomb? Most people know that an American bomber, a B52 called the "Enola Gay", dropped the first atomic bomb used on people, called "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima on August 6th 1945, but how did we get to that? How on earth did the Americans justify this? And why did none of the other allies try and stop them? These were the questions that I went in with and I got more answers than I bargained for.

I hope this doesn't sound like I've been brainwashed by a Japanese War Memorial, of course I didn't expect it to be the most impartial of story tellers but having been to the site and seen the amount of factual evidence displayed from UK, Russian, Japanese and even official American material I can certainly put the pieces together.

As you know we visited Pearl Harbour also and have seen a one eyed perspective on an actual historical event but as I had studied other views before I left I was able to make an educated decision on what I though were the chain of events, much the same as here, I must admit I didn't know as many of the facts about the A Bomb but I did know the basic details.

So how did we get to the decision to drop an Atomic Bomb that killed 140,000 innocent people, mostly women and children, as well as the 60,000 combatants that lived in Hiroshima?

It all started with Albert Einstein, well not quite but he was the person who wrote to President Roosevelt informing his that it was his understanding that Nazi Germany was using nuclear fusion to develop an Atomic Bomb, that they planned to use against the Allied Forces. This statement, along with the internal US Governments belief that the Germans and Russians were developing these weapons started the race to become the first country to complete the development of nuclear weapons.

There was never any evidence to support the fact that Russia or indeed Germany had started to develop, or even plan, nuclear weapons but once word got out that the Americans were developing these evil bombs the race began and other nations gave chase, Germany and Russia were developing their own weapons of mass destruction throughout the end of WWII.

Unbeknown to them a secret Alliance between the USA, UK and Canadian forces were working under the title of "The Manhattan Project" to complete the first Nuclear bomb and in early 1945 there were some 130,000 people at a cost of $2bn (US$) working on the bomb, that's over 20 BILLION DOLLARS in today's money and that had to be accounted for, the American people had to believe in this bomb, when they were told about it, after the fact of course, and the way it would be sold, "This bomb will end WWII". Scarily some Americans still believe that to this day, a means to and end and that, when will they learn..........

On July 16th 1945 the US completed the fist test of their nuclear warhead, a plutonium (H-bomb) codenamed "Trinity", near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The world had now entered the nuclear age, although they wouldn't know this until the day of the Hiroshima attack, and weren't even told of the Trinity test until a week after Hiroshima.

The test results was presented by now US President Harry Truman to the Allied Powers at the Postdam Conference from July 17th - August 2nd in Germany. Churchill was there, although he had been replaced as British PM by Clement Attlee who was also in attendance. Russian leader Joseph Stalin made up the group who would decide what do with this new found power of theirs.

The goals of the conference also included the establishment of post-war order, peace treaties issues, and countering the effects of war. Remember that this bomb has been developed to attack Nazi Germany but they had unconditionally surrendered some 2 months earlier. So what did they do now that they had nowhere to use the weapon, put it away for a rainy day? Don't be silly, remember Pearl Harbour? The Americans hadn't forgotten, let's use the bomb on Japan as they hadn't accepted the terms of surrender that the Allies had forced on them.

The Japanese were beaten by this time, their people new it although the country hadn't excepted it, the reason? They wanted to keep their Emperor status, something that the Postdam Declaration (offered to the Japanese on July 26th, 1945) forbade. So they rejected the offer to surrender, of which the last sentence read: "..... the alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction". Never a truer word was spoken.

Two weeks later, on August 6th 1945 the previously untested Atomic Bomb, with uranium 235 as its fissile source (as opposed to the plutonium of the H Bomb) was dropped over the city of Hiroshima, and exploded some 200 meters above the ground.

The rest, as they say, is history. 200,000 people died, most instantly, others lived with the intense pain of burning to death over a period of 3 days. Others died from the acid 'black rain' that followed. Of those who survived the immediate attack most died of radiation poisoning and cancer in the next 50 years, very few were lucky enough to flee and survive. The city block, 2 square miles, evaporated.　 92% of buildings within a 17 mile square radius were destroyed, the rest were 'just' damaged.

You can see the destruction from some of the photo's, the town plan before and after the attack, the pictures of the chaos in the street and the only building the managed to stay upright, in part anyway. That building is still standing to this day, albeit propped up, it's now called the A-Bomb Dome, a constant reminder that we should never forget what happened in this now dramatically rejuvenated city. There is also a watch that was found on a burnt body, so charred that it couldn't be identified, only the watch identified that body to his family.

Japan didn't know what had hit her, and before she had time to contemplate the second bomb, this time an H Bomb called "Fat Man", 1.8 times bigger than the "Little Boy" dropped on Nagasaki, killing 120,000 people instantly. The US Forces 'promised' there Japanese enemy that unless unconditional surrender was accepted then they would drop an atomic bomb on every one of their cities until they had wiped out the entire race.

US propaganda would like us to believe that this lead to the Japanese surrender, it did not. What did lead to the Japaneses surrender was the fact that Russia, who Japan had a neutrality agreement with, had declared war against her on August the 8th and invaded Manchuria with more than １million troops. One week after this event, on August 15th 1945 Japan surrendered to the Allied Forces, therefore bringing an end to the Burma campaign, the Sino-Japanese War, the Pacific War against the US and ultimately World War II.

What the bomb did to the city and people of Hiroshima was disgusting, I couldn't even begin to explain some of the pictures we saw, and don't even want to think about them again, unfortunately I can't get them out of my head. It was predicated that after the bomb nothing could live of grow in Hiroshima for 75 years, 15 years after the bomb the city was almost rebuilt, bigger, better and greener than before.

Now I know that the Japanese did some disgusting things themselves during the war and they have finally acknowledged that what they have done was wrong and are ashamed of their imperial past, and we weren't exactly great 'rulers' of our colonies either. What we need to remember though it that the Japanese people truly did believe that they were a higher form of being that was going to inherit the world, they though their Emperor was a god like creation and on the revelation that he was just like them thousands of the Japanese people committed hari-kuri. This doesn't make what they done right and they way they treated POW'S was disgusting. Remember also that it wasn't a bed of roses for the POW's that we captured.

What I'm trying to say is that they are showing remorse for their imperial past, the US led
Allies have never admitted that they were wrong to use nuclear weapons. Hiroshima has rebuilt itself and Japan is thriving once more, this time in peace with a little bit more dignity gained every day.

The ongoing problem of nuclear weapons still exists, thankfully the weapons were only ever used in war twice, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but there has been a number of close calls over the years, most recently in the Gulf in 1991.

There is supposedly 5 Nuclear Nations, (in order of the highest number of warheads) Russia, USA, China, France and the UK. Who knows why these countries are allowed to have them but nobody else is but in recent years, 1998, India and Pakistan have admitted to having the weapons, some sources say they have around 50 each. Everyone assumes that Israel has more than 200 nukes but they have never admitted possessing any. More worrying than that is it is now common belief that the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea) have Nuclear Weapons.

There is no study to show that Iraq has, or has ever had, Nuclear Weapons.

That should send shivers down your spine, at any moment there could be a Nuclear War, Russia is capable but unlikely to use them first, as is the UK. We all know that the French, cheese-eating-surrender-monkeys will run away at any given opportunity so they'll never use them but the rest, well you just never know. If China doesn't see sense over the Taiwan issue? If India and or Pakistan clash over Kashmir again? If Korea feels like it? If the Republicans are on course to lose the next Presidential election? If Israel decides to go back into Palestine? A time bomb, slowly ticking away until someone cracks first, and then..... well it won't pretty.

It was kind of fitting that we visited here on September 11th, an anniversary of a terrible terrorist attack, part of a "war on terror" as we' re lead to believe. Maybe one day August 6th will be remembered as an anniversary of the worst ever terrorist attack, but somehow I doubt it.

God bless America indeed.

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Photos

The A Bomb Dome
formerly the Industrial Promotions Hall

The day time stopped
08:15 on the 6th of August 1945. Charred remains of a victims watch

A mother tries to protect her children
from the blast of the Atomic Bomb

Hiroshima a minute before the blast
The target was the 'T' shaped bridge at the bottom of the picture.

Hiroshima a minute after the blast
Only a few building remain. The red pole, beside the white card to the right of the picture,is where the bomb exploded, 200m above the ground.

A picture of devastation
The day after the blast.

In the aftermath
30 minutes after the blast.

The A Bomb
An exact replica of the bomb that dropped on Hiroshima, only 1/10th of the bomb exploded.

Peace Memorial Park
With the A Bomb dome in the background.

Children's Peace Memorial
Thousand of pape cranes are folded each year in memory of Sadako who died of Leukima 10 years after the tragedy, aged 13.

The cenotaph
Includes the names of the 200,000 known fatalities

The Industrial Promotions Hall
Now known as the A Bomb Dome, a living memory of that horrible moment,

Comments

[Joe]

Operation Downfall
had the above operation been implemented, instead of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 2 million Japanese and 1 million Americans would have died. As illogical as it sounds, the bombing of these two cities saved lives. And perhaps we could take your swipes at America more seriously if you didn't hail from a land that has illegally invaded and partitioned more countries, whilst committing numerous acts of genocide on four continents, than any other nation in history.

[Lucas]

Come off it Joe! Surely you can't really believe that. Typical one-eyed American view. Stop wasting our time. I have not been to Hiroshima, but have been told that the monuments to this are amazing. Thanks for your photos and story.

[Stephen Paul]

Unfortunately Everything is Skewed
While unfortunately Joe is right, a more accurate statement about this whole situation is "History is written according to the who writes it." I find it odd you failed to mention the fire bombing raids on Tokyo that the Americans carried out, which killed just as many Japanese and destroyed just s much Japanese property as the Nuclear Weapons. Its interesting to see your comments because they obviously come fresh after reading the Japanese view of the war- Im not saying they are right or wrong. The American view of the way is vastly different. Most notably I saw 2 things from your post- #1- A downplaying of the Japanese War Machine, and #2- An idea that the Americans were foaming at the mouth to use this weapon on anyone so as not to waste money. #1- The Japanese military during the 20th century was the most ruthless and animalistic country to ever fight in a war. Read about what they did in the Phillipines, the 200,000 sex slaves (comfort women), Allied soldiers they captured and most importantly The Rape of Nanjing-killing 300,000 chinese civilians and POWs and raping at least 20,000 chinese women. The Japanese Government TO THIS DAY still denies and downplays this ever occoured! In fact I remember a recent Chinese boycott of Japanese products because the Japanese didn't even include the destruction of Nanjing in their school textbooks. They murdered millions of Chinese during the war in an attempt to take over Asia much in the same way Nazi Germany was attempting to take over Europe. To think the Japanese Army was afraid of anyone is naive. The Japanese didn't know the meaning of surrender and openly stated during the war they would fight until every last Japanese was dead, if thats what it took. Imagine that- an enemy who is killing millions of people, aspiring to take over every nation in asia and openly refusing to surrender until they are killed. After the Nuclear Bombs were dropped, Emperor Hirohito even OVERRULED his militarist advisors... the last thing the advisors wanted to do was surrender. They never would have surrendered to any country including Russia. Ultimately the US would have had to invade Japan which was to be defended from occupation by 2.3 million troops, another four million Army and Navy employees and a newly created armed militia numbering 25 million- all sworn to fight to the death and never to surrender. The bombs saved untold hundreds of thousands more Japanese and Americans-perhaps millions-from becoming casualties of pre-invasion bombing and shelling, followed by two invasions and forcible occupation. All of this being said- Revisionist History exists in both the USA and Japan. But to portray the Japanese as excused because they were deluded under their godly emperor and the USA as foaming at the mouth dogs looking to cash in on their Nuclear Investments is ridiculous.