August 9th, 1945, 11:01 am
Sixty-one years ago today, at 8:01 am. one plane dropped one bomb over Nagasaki, Japan. 43,000 people were immeadiately killed, with another 100,000 following them in the next few years as radiation sickness and other traumas killed them.
A new age in warfare was born.
(from my visit to Hiroshima, 1986)
Previous to this point, the 100 largest cities in Japan had been targeted for destruction. 1000 plane raids had all but destroyed Japan’s infrastructure. More than 100,000 people had been killed in the firebombing of Tokyo just a little while before, which caused square miles of the city to be incinerated.
One plane carrying one bomb had changed the equations of death and destruction for all time.
The political elite who had begun the war were relatively safe in both their bomb shelters and in their unwillingness to believe that for their country, the war was over and that to continue would risk the total destruction of their society.
On August 6th, 1945, the city of Hiroshima was destroyed with one bomb, carried by one airplane. Confusion in the leadership ensued.
On August 9th, further proof was delivered to them as a second atom bomb destroyed Nagasaki, a large city on the island of Kyushu. More than 70,000 people were killed the minute that bomb went off.
The future now seemed to be starkly clear to all.
A few days later, a voice few had heard before, the Emperor of Japan, told the people of Japan that "we must endure the unendurable" and announced an immeadiate cessation of the war.
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In the 61 years since, no other cities have been atom bombed. The new fear is this: That one man or woman, with one bomb wrapped around their body will kill everyone around them.
For those who are killed, it doesn’t make much difference how or even why they die.
The future is not clear now.
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We are the only country that has dropped the bomb on an inhabited city of innocents. We, of all people, should know better than maintain these weapons. Instead, we march around the world, rattling our sabres and being the biggest threat to world peace there has ever been. We then pre-emptively attack a sovreign country because we do not agree about its method of leadership – using false pretenses- and other countries now fear our willingness to do the same to them. They create these dirty weapons in fear and threaten to deply them on our allies. Those we choose to ally with take our lead to invade other countries. What have we done? We started it in 1945, this bearing of our might, and ushered in the age of foreign diplomacy through sabre-rattling and fear mongering. Japan now calls us a friend because to be our enemy is an uncertain existence. Soon, being our ally will only garner a country more enemies. I don’t like being a part of this.
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Wow, thank you for this. I completely forgot today was “August 9th” and not simply August 9th, time to go to work. 61 years, imagine that. I think I stopped computing years after 2000; makes everything seem “not to long ago.”
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I wish mankind had never developed the technology and “intelligence” to make these weapons of destruction. But it having been done, there is no going back to more innocent times. Perhaps humans have been killing other humans for thousands of years, but it never used to be that way. It is a sad thing, this “progress.” hugs, Weesprite
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I’m not really sure what to say. I just hope that you are doing okay over there, and that the weather in your part of the world is beautiful. Have fun.
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excellent. i’m glad you wrote this.
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Somber reflections…must have been powerful to be there. linette
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oof. intense. the ramifications are still felt today in so many ways, as much as we try to go on. I know I grew up thinking I’d see a nuclear war before I reached 30 and I just never planned to live and never planned to figure out what I’d do with my life. I wasnt going to even get the chance, I thought. My whole generation was deeply affected by the threat of nuclear war. we still are.
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