I’m sure many of you (maybe most of you) have read Supersoling’s diary Thank you Damnit Janet and Madman in the Marketplace. It’s a passionate, well written piece, which calls out Booman and me and the other front pagers for not taking notice of the anniversary of the first use of atomic weapons against Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Another day that will live in infamy for many of us here.
I’m not angry at Supersoling for what he wrote. He is right. Neither I, nor BooMan, wrote a front page story about the Hiroshima bombing. For me, however, my failure to note the anniversary of the Hiroshima A-Bomb attack on the front page of BT wasn’t because I was unaware of the date.
Far from it.
(cont.)
Most of you probably do not know that my wife is Nisei, or a second generation Japanese American, the first generation being her two parents who moved to New York City after the war in the mid-1950’s. As you can imagine, I’ve had many discussions over the years about the war between Japan and America, especially regarding the effect it had on ordinary Japanese civilians.
Indeed, my wife’s mother survived the first firebombing attack on Tokyo begun by Curtis LeMay, commander of the American Bomber Forces in the Pacific. The tales she tells about those experiences are harrowing, shocking and even surreal. Hearing her describe watching as people became human torches, seeing all the burnt and charred bodies of both the living and the dead, and the utter devastation of one of the great cities of the world, I always find myself at a loss for words. It’s impossible for me to imagine such things, even though she is a captivating storyteller.
So, each year, my wife and I take note of the atomic bombings that were inflicted on Japan. But one in particular matters more to my wife than the other. That was the second bombing, the one everyone slights, the one whose anniversary falls today on August 9th. The bombing of Nagasaki.
You might well ask why she is more concerned with remembering the second atomic attack, rather than the first. Hiroshima, after all, is more well known, and its people suffered far more casualties than the people of Nagasaki, who were fortunate that “their bomb” was aimed poorly and fell far from the center of the city. But she does, and I’ll tell you why.
It’s because Nagasaki was the second bombing. After Hiroshima, she always tells me, the Americans knew what the bomb would do to people. They knew the devastation that it had caused. But they couldn’t wait for the Japanese government to consider the effects of that first bomb. So, even as the Emperor prepared to meet with his highest government officials to consider surrender, news came to Japan’s Supreme Council that Nagasaki had also been bombed with an atomic weapon.
My wife is convinced that the sacrifice of the people of Nagasaki was a useless gesture. Japan was ready to surrender after Hiroshima. Russia had just entered the war, and was slaughtering Japan’s army in Manchuria. The Emperor was already inclined to accede to the terms of the Allies in her view. In her mind Nagasaki was the greater horror, and the greater tragedy. I tend to agree with her.
Nagasaki did not cause Japan to end the war. Hiroshima and the Soviet attack were well on their way to accomplishing that fact. Nor did the terror of the atomic bomb add anything to that discussion. Far more people had already died, and more cities had been laid waste, by LeMay’s unprecedented fire bombing raids on the cities of Japan. The Japanese people had already been more than adequately terrorized.
As for the Russians, they were well aware we had the atomic bomb, and after Hiroshima they certainly got the message that we would use it, even against defenseless civilian populations. One more atomic attack wasn’t likely to change their calculus regarding American intentions and capabilities when it came to nuclear warfare. I know that many may disagree, but my wife and I feel that Nagasaki was a greater crime than Hiroshima, a senseless, vindictive gesture by President Truman, who was so anxious to end the war against Japan that he couldn’t wait even a few more days to see what the Japanese government would do in response to events.
So, in our family, the atomic bombing of Nagasaki is the one we remember each year. Today is the anniversary of that event. Normally, we remember the date with a moment of silence and prayer, but this time, in light of Supersoling’s diary, I thought it appropriate to write about it here, on the BT front page.
Let me make myself clear. I am not angry with Supersoling for what he wrote. Nuclear warfare is a terrible thing, and it is even more terrible that there are those in our government who wish to employ nuclear weapons again against Iranian targets. That would be a crime beyond imagining if they do so, no matter how small the yields of those weapons, no matter the nomenclature of “tactical nukes” which they employ to make them seem less harmful, less dangerous, less horrifying.
Supersoling is right. We do need to remember the dates of these atrocities. The Holocaust. The fire bombings of Hamburg and Dresden. The Khmer Rouge killings in Cambodia. LeMay’s firebombing campaign against Japan. Rwanda. Darfur. And the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Today is the anniversary of the dropping of the “Fat Man” plutonium based atomic bomb on the people of Nagasaki. Please take a moment out of your day and meditate or pray that such an event will never happen again, that somewhere in the hearts of people across the globe the desire for peace and non-violence will grow so stronger than the forces of hate, violence and war.
Thank you.
Anniversary of the Bombing of Nagasaki
