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Hiroshimas Anniversary of the Worlds First A Bomb
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Editor's Note: This entry is not 100% factually verified. Its a retelling of things I have seen and read, at museums, by A bomb survivor accounts and by net. Please don't take things written here as solid, 100% accurate 'truth'.
The 6th August 2007 is a day I will never forget. It seems to me now to be a day like a series of photo slides, startlingly raw, details sharply ingrained in words and pictures of others, emotionally alive. It was my priveledge to be in Hiroshima for the people's 62nd anniversary of the dropping of the worlds first ever atomic bomb. Its a day I think I will remember for the rest of my life.
The morning of 6th August 2007, I woke up late and ran to the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshimas centre. It was just after 8am. I was glad I'd made the effort - the atomic bomb had been released from bomber Enora Gay and exploded at 8:15 Japanese time, 580 meters above land, 62 years earlier. I knew something special would happen at 8:15am and I didn't want to miss it.
US scientists had been working on this bomb for 3 years prior to its completion and after a successful test in April 1945, in which a small amount of uranium had been exploded, giving far stronger, more devastating results than expected, delighted scientists confirmed it was ready to use. The A bomb was never planned for Germany. Germany had folded at this point, with Hitler committing suicide on 30th April 1945, and Germany as a country admitting defeat around 8th May, 1945. The Japanese, though, guided by the what was then seen as divine power of the Emperor, and the strong military shogunates that effectively had the real control of the country themselves, were not giving in, no matter what the circumstances. No matter what the casualty, no matter how high the odds stacked against them. Citizens were told to fight, fight, fight to the death: it was better to die honourably for the Emperor and Japan than surrender. It was more honourable to die than be captured too. There were rumours (I don't know how true) that if the foreign devils caught them, they would do unspeakable things to their captives, especially women and children. In 1945 the Allies had occupied parts of Japan, but citizens were committing suicide rather than be captured. Mothers would jump off sea cliffs dragging their reluctant children with them to certain death. And in these people's defence, they thought that they were saving their children from a worse evil. Maybe they were - its said that history is written by the victors, that a unbiased account is non-existent.
Everyone in Japan was taught these lessons about the foreign devils, people who thought differently were effectively outcast from society, derided and often physically abused by their neighbours. If they opposed the war, they opposed the Emperor, and the Emperor was the God of Japan, so they were seen as traitors of the worst kind.
Men as young as 15 were taught to be kamakase pilots, if they refused, their families and loved ones would be taunted and bullied, possibly hurt, as well as the individual themselves likely ending up in jail and beaten.
Back to the scientists and the Allied troops. US President Harry S. Truman, who had taken over from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's sudden death and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sat down and discussed where and how to use this strategic new device. The scientists, having completed their goal, unfortunately weren't given much power any more. One of the main scientists, SkXXXXn who had written to Albert Einstein years earlier, asking him to write in person to the President of the US to convince him of the worth of spending more time researching nuclear power, now wrote to the President advising him that it would be unfair to drop the bomb without warning the town citizens it would be used against. Apparently, this letter was ignored.
Four potential bombsites had been narrowed down for the first dropping site, and finally Hiroshima was chosen. A number of factors influenced this: it didn't have any Allied Prisoner of War (POW) camps; the natural topography of the area would intensify the effects of the atomic bomb and it wouldn't cause as massive civilian devastation as a bomb dropped in Tokyo or Kyoto would.
In order to record how powerful the bomb was, planes were told to stop bombing Hiroshima in prior months. And to make sure things went smoothly and according to plan, pilots had been practising how to drop the dummy atomic bombs called `pumpkins` all over Japan, as the atomic bomb was a different weight and shape to what they had been used to carrying. The pilots were familiarising themselves with the short-listed cities, as at that time, the final two destinations had not been named.
I get confused at two conflicting pieces of information I've heard. I've heard that the Allies sent the Emperor correspondence warning him that they had a new bomb that would cause decimation on a new, unheard of level and that he had until a certain time to surrender. I think I read that in Hiroshima's A Bomb Musuem. Later, in Nagasaki, I think I remember reading the exact opposite - that there had been no warning. I need to do some research about this fact.
The day before the A bomb anniversary ceremony, on 5th August, I had been looking around the Peace Musuem exhibit and picked up a manga book about the atomic bomb. Surprised that a cartoon was in the official musuem, as in England, I was bought up to understand that comics are a funny medium to keep children amused, not an appropriate way to discuss such a serious event, I started reading.
Hiroshima local and A bomb survivor Kenji Nakazawa, traumatised about his experiences of the second world war wrote a series of manga books about life for the average Japanese citzen during the war, before, during and after the atomic bomb attack. There are currently 10 books, featuring a hero called Barefooted Gen. Gen is a little boy and it is based on the (male) authors own experiences. It is a fascinating, dark, raw insight into Japanese life and the different things that happened among the citizens themselves at this time period. I strongly encourage anyone who is interested in history to get a copy of at least one of these books, they are truly gripping reads.
Back to 2007 and the Peace Day memorial. At roughly 8:12am, an orchestra started playing a very moving, dark piece which featured a bell harshly clanging every couple of seconds, an apt piece as it was in effect a countdown to 8:15am. The music was compelling, painfully sad but strangely beautiful at the same time. It made my heart race and goosebumps appear all over my body. I couldn:t move my eyes from my watch. Several other people were staring, fixated at theirs too. Finally, it was 8:15. I felt tears in my eyes. The orchestra music swelled at 8:15 and 30 seconds. I couldn:t help looking at the sky, almost expecting another bomb. A VIP started talking and soon a flock of maybe 100 doves were released, beating their strong wings, flying together up into the sky. It was the start of a day I'll never forget.
When the world`s first ever atomic bomb exploded 580m above Hiroshima, it killed 200,000 people instantaneously. In the Peace Park Musuem there is a section of wall with a shadow on it. The person sitting here left only a shadow on the rock behind. There is no evidence left to identify who they were - what age, what sex, whose family they belonged to. A CBD was decimated in less than a second. Can you imagine that? When I'm relaxed, like at this very moment I am sitting here typing, it takes more than a second just to breathe in. So, in less than a full breathe, less than a whole inhalation, Hiroshima:s city centre just disappeared into rubble. Can you imagine anything so terrible? And there are literally hundreds, possibly thousands of this stuff around the word today, at this same instant? Armed and ready to go. Britains, if you are sitting here thinking, `oh, thank goodness Britain doesn:t do things like that,` like I used to think, did you know we have approximately 160 warheads in the UK at this moment in time? Can you imagine how many countries that could totally annihilate? With weapons that strong, what chance would any opposition have? This is really, really dangerous stuff we:re dealing with here. Its only when I saw photos of what a decimated city looks like, or when I listened to an atomic bomb survivor talking about people so hurt that you can't tell what sex they are, or clearly see who`s alive and who`s dead, that this message hits home.
So 200,000 is a huge figure. But it didn't stop there - countless thousands more people suffered from what was called A bomb plague. They began losing hair, blood spots appeared over their faces and they died. Or they developed luekemia or another form of cancer and died. Doctors at the time tried giving patients vitamin A shots - the skin around the holes where the needle had been inserted started rotting away and the patients died. The author of Barefoot Gen talked about how he went to collect the remains of his mother.... only to realise that there weren't any, radiation chemicals had eaten away her bones.
There were a series of VIPs at the Peace ceremony, including addresses from the Prime Minister of Japan, the Governor of Hiroshima and the Secretary General of the United Nations. At the time, I didn:t know who they were and as they mainly spoke in Japanese I couldn:t understand what they were saying. I think it was the Secretary General of the UN that ended up speaking in English, thanking us for visiting Hiroshima and explaining that the people of Hiroshima welcomed visitors so that they could learn about the atrociaties of atomic weapons and become dedicated, like them, to achieving world peace and nuclear disarmourment. There was free water, he explained, to remember the burning thirst that people had suffered on 6th August 1945. Many survivors recollect the constant begging for water. The cruelest thing is that if you give someone who is severely burnt a lot of water, their internal organs burst and they die - this is not a commonly known fact and many people died inadvertantly by not being aware of this, either trying to clench their thirst themselves or giving water to others in an effort to help them.
Many atomic bomb survivors developed keloids after being exposed to the atomic bomb, some as late as 15 years after the explosion. Keloids are abnormal skin growths that look like huge welds. Sometimes, keloids have rendered people unable to move properly, as they have joined necks to shoulders or formed a band between upper and lower arm, preventing full use of the limb. Keloids are unsightly and survivors with them were outcast from society in Japan, and unlikely to marry. Especially the women.
The day before, I had been deeply excited when I saw posters advertising an opportunity to hear an account of the dropping of the A bomb from an atomic bomb survivor. There was no way I'd miss it, it was a chance to see and hear a living piece of history. It was amazing that the individual was strong enough to speak out for a start - they would have seen things that would have chilled the blood and disturbed their sleep for years. I was impressed that people had decided to speak up and slightly alarmed that it would prove too much of an emotional strain and that they would have to stop, upset and disturbed. I worried for these people I didn't yet know. I hoped they were ready for this. After all, they were sharing their worst nightmares and they were doing it on the anniversary of the very day it had happened.
Meeting Keiko Ogura, an Atomic Bomb Survivor and Founder of Hiroshima Interpreter's for Peace (my recollection of the talk, it is not recorded fact and I am going to send this to Keiko for comment after I have finished).
Keiko Ogura is one of a now relatively few small number of hibakusha - the Japanese term for an atomic bomb survivor. She is petit, perhaps around the five foot mark, with jet black hair, low cheekbones and very deep, sparkling eyes. She has seen things that still haunt her today, but she has decided not to deny her experiences and hide from them: she has decided to speak out about what she saw and experienced that fateful day, dedicating her life to promoting world peace, tirelessly and purposefully. And she has travelled around the world to do it. On 6th August 2007 she is 70 years old, but when you look at her, you'd never know it.
She looked at her small audience - newcomers had been given a choice to listen to one of five atomic bomb survivors stories, so that each survivor had a small group and didn't have to use a microphone. This was to make the whole thing a much more intimate experience, Keiko explained. An American TV crew were there making a documentary and they filmed throughout the hour.
'People look at me and they expect me to have keloids, or some sort of scars,' Keiko began. Mentally, I agreed - I had been expecting to see some outward signs, or to see her in a wheelchair. 'But I don't. You see, when the A Bomb was dropped, I was at home in my parents house, two kilometers from the hypocentre. My dad had forbidden me from going to school that day. I remember being upset - all my friends were at school and I wanted to see them. He told me he had a funny feeling today - and that I was not allowed to go to school. I cried and sobbed, because I was only 8 years old, but he wouldn't let me go. So I went outside to play nearby the house.'
'I remember suddenly being thrown forwards onto the ground by several meters, and there was a big wind. My parents house was quite a way out of the city, so I ran back. People were coming away from the city and they came to our house for shelter. They were bleeding and you couldn't tell if they were men or women. They kept saying, 'water, water, please give me water.' We had tatami mats in our house and they were full of people lying on them. The mats were soaked in blood. The people were in pain and they kept calling to me, 'little girl, little girl, please give me water.' I went to the well in our garden and I got them water so that they could drink. But I didn't know until my dad told me that night not to give them water. You see, if you give people with lots of burns water it kills them,' she paused. 'For years I've carried this overwhelming sense of guilt, that I killed the people I was trying to save. I spoke to this expert once and he explained it to me - apparently, the water makes the insides swell up and burst. For years, even now, I get nightmares about these people.'
'When I walked past, people would grab hold of my ankles, it was very scary, remember, I was only a little girl. And they were always asking me for water. I remember looking at Hiroshima and seeing it in flames, bright red. The city was on fire and people were all leaving it.'
'People kept dying, at the house and Keiko's father would try to find wood and materials to burn the bodies with. But everyone else was doing the same and it was not easy. He would take away bodies every day to cremate them.'
'Are you angry with Westerners today?' someone asked from the audience. Keiko reflected on this. 'At the time, I was furious with the Allies for doing this to us. The doctors came and they couldn't cure the keloids. And we were like, 'you dropped this bomb on us without being able to cure the aftereffects?' But now, I am striving for peace.
One time I went to America to talk about my experiences, maybe twenty years ago when I was fifty. To my surprise, someone from the audience asked me if I was told that the Atomic Bomb was dropped on us to save all the Japanese from killing themselves? As a favour. I was speechless. I couldn't believe he was saying these things. And everyone else in the audience was agreeing with him. I got very angry, and I said to him, 'actually, the first atomic bomb was made of uranium. The second one was dropped four days later and made of plutonium. It was made of a different material and Japan was not given a chance to surrender before the second one was dropped so that the American scientists could carry out their experiment on us. If they had been doing Japan a favour why did they use different bombs and not give us any chance to surrender?' The audience didn't like that,' Keiko told us. 'They didn't say anything. I didn't get any thank yous at the end of that talk.'
I couldn't believe that people had the insensitivity to talk to an atomic bomb survivor like that. Hasn't she been through enough? I commented that it was brave of her to come forward and share such upsetting, personal memories with other people, especially Westerners. Keiko replied that many of the hibakusha don't talk to their children about the atomic bomb. There is an unspoken fear that many of the hibakusha share - have they been affected by the radiation somehow? In Japan, people from other cities are warned by their parents never to marry any second generation children from Hiroshima, in case they are diseased and have deformed children. Years pass, and people who think they have gotten away without scars suddenly develop cancer or keloids. There is such an large, unknown information vacuum where atomic bomb affects are concerned, and it understandably continues to frighten people. When Keiko was pregnant, she was worried during her pregnancy that her babies wouldn't be born properly. Fortunately, they are all fine. 'But I tell you things I don't tell my own children,' she said to me with sad pain in her eyes. 'Because I don't want to worry them.'
But to return to the present: Keiko is strong, and well, and is doing something positive to prevent future nuclear war in the future. Let us learn from her and others experiences.
Readings of A Bomb Acccounts
Tomo and I were so moved by Keiko's account, we decided to go to another event in the afternoon, where people read out translations of A bomb childrens poems for us. One of the ladies grandfather had been killed by the atomic bomb and this was her way of promoting peace, a way of honouring her grandfather.
We learned that Jikadon is the name the Hibakusha gave to the A Bomb. Jika = light and Don = roaring. Together, they describe what people experienced when the A Bomb dropped and the unknown word is quite common in firsthand accounts of the atomic bomb survivors.
Tomo told me that his grandmother, who is Japanese, was given a bamboo stick and told to fight the British and American devils to the death if they invaded. She'd tied a kitchen knife to the end of her pole - she must have been terrified. His grandfather was lined up to be a kamakazi pilot. But now Tomo lives in England? I asked. `Oh, after the war ended, no-one gave a damn about stuff like that.`
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| 86. | Hiroshimas Anniversary of the Worlds First A Bomb - Hiroshima, Japan Aug 06, 2007 (  4 ) |
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