WUNRN
Nagasaki, Japan – The Second Atomic Bomb Attack – Horrific Destruction – Women
WOMAN SUFFERING FOR SEVERE BURN WOUNDS FROM NAGASAKI ATOMIC BOMB ATTACK,
ATOMIC BOMB – NAGASAKI, JAPAN, WORLD WAR II
By of “Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War”
On August 9, 1945, the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Nagasaki,
situated on a long, narrow bay on Japan’s southernmost main island, Kyushu.
From the beginning, this attack was different than the atomic bombing of
Hiroshima three days earlier, yet the experiences of the two cities have been
fused in memory, to the point that we use the term “the bomb” to refer to both
events. The result has been to consign Nagasaki to the edge of oblivion.
Many Americans believe their government’s official narrative: that the two
bombs, dropped in close succession, led to Japan’s surrender. But it is now
well known that the surrender was prompted at least as much by the Soviet
Union’s decision to join the Allies in the war against Japan. Just 11 hours
before the Nagasaki bombing, 1.5 million Soviet troops crossed into the
Japanese puppet state in Manchuria, in northern China, and attacked the
depleted Japanese Army there on three fronts.
The United States expected the Soviet action, but the delivery of the
second atomic bomb was not dependent on the timing of the Soviet invasion,
Tokyo’s response, or even a specific order from President Harry S.
Truman. His sole directive had been to use nuclear
weapons on Japan “as made ready” — and on Aug. 8, the second bomb’s
assembly was complete.
The next morning — 30 minutes before the Nagasaki bombing — Japan’s Supreme
War Council convened to try yet again to find agreement on surrender terms.
Stalin’s declaration of war had ended any last hope of Soviet help in attaining
more favorable surrender terms.
Council members pressing for immediate surrender were gravely concerned
about lack of food and supplies for Japanese troops, the dire domestic
situation and the Hiroshima bombing. Militarists were willing to fight to the
death for the guaranteed preservation of Emperor Hirohito’s postwar
sovereignty. When news of the Nagasaki attack arrived, the deliberations
continued without further mention of it. That night, Hirohito broke the
deadlock and sanctioned surrender.
In the United States, Nagasaki was overshadowed by Hiroshima from the very
start. While the first atomic bombing gained headlines, the Nagasaki bombing
shared the day’s news with the Soviet advance. In a radio address on the
evening of Aug. 9, Truman outlined a political and economic framework for
postwar Europe. He referred to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima only once, but
did not mention Nagasaki.
About 74,000 people in Nagasaki died instantaneously or within five months
of the bombing. Only 150 were military personnel. Another 75,000 people were
injured, and these numbers do not count those who fell ill and died from
radiation-related conditions in the decades to come.
Initially, purple spots appeared on their bodies, their hair fell out, and
they developed high fevers, infections, and swollen and bleeding gums. Later,
cancer rates surged. The survivors, known as hibakusha, lived in constant fear
of illness and death.
The United States suppressed this part of the story. In the fall of 1945,
high-level American officials rebutted news reports of deaths from radiation
exposure. For years to come, the occupation authorities censored news accounts,
photographs, scientific research and personal testimonies about the attacks.
To counter growing criticism of the bombings, American leaders established
a narrative that the bombings had ended the war and saved up to 1 million
American lives by preventing an invasion of Japan. (These postwar casualty
estimates were far higher than pre-bomb calculations.) Most Americans accepted
this narrative.
Few Americans know much about Nagasaki. A center for trade in the late
1500s, it was the vanguard for the nation’s early modernization and the hub for
Catholic missionary outreach. When Japan officially banned Christianity in
1614, then closed its borders to outside contact from the 1630s to the late
1850s, Nagasaki alone was allowed to continue limited international trade,
providing the city’s growing population exposure to Asian and European arts,
science and literature. Nagasaki continued to thrive after Japan re-established
diplomatic relations with the West, becoming the third largest shipbuilding
city in the world. Christians who had long hidden their faith re-emerged, and
Nagasaki became the home of the largest Catholic church in East Asia. An
estimated 10,000 Catholics died in the 1945 bombing.
Sumiteru Taniguchi, 16, was delivering mail on
his bicycle in the northwestern corner of the city when the force of the
explosion hurled him into the air. Even from a mile away, the searing heat
instantly disintegrated his cotton shirt and burned the skin off his entire
back and one arm. Three months later, he was finally taken to a naval hospital
22 miles north of the city, where he lay on his stomach for more than three
years, begging the nurses to let him die. Later, after he had learned to sit, stand
and ultimately walk again, Mr. Taniguchi seethed in anger at what he believed
was the unnecessary nuclear devastation of his city and its people.
Over the past 70 years, Mr. Taniguchi and tens of thousands of other
hibakusha have navigated punishing injuries, late-onset radiation-related
illnesses, and haunting fears that they would pass on genetic disorders to
their children and grandchildren. Many never speak about their atomic bomb
experiences, even within their families. In a remarkable act of resilience,
however, Mr. Taniguchi and a small number of hibakusha made the very personal
choice, some as early as the mid-1950s, to speak publicly about their survival.
They do not tell their stories to promote Japan’s victimization, or to
minimize the attack on Pearl Harbor, or the suffering and deaths of Asian
civilians and Allied military personnel at the hands of brutal Japanese
soldiers. Rather, they speak to eliminate ignorance about the realities of
nuclear war and to eradicate nuclear stockpiles across the globe.
The official narrative remains the dominant opinion of most Americans. In that story, Nagasaki fades in memory; we should not let it. Our time to understand the survivors’ experience of nuclear war is running out. Only they can tell us what it was like, and their lives are coming to an end.