Why Hiroshima Is Now More Important Than Ever

Over the last few days I have been watching a number of documentaries about the US bombing of the Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in 1945. I would recommend watching these to anyone with even a passing interest in history, warfare, or indeed, America’s current foreign policies.

These were absolutely extraordinary events that are without parallel in any other conflict in history. The bombs were intended to deal a massive blow to Japan, thereby ending the conflict with the US in one fell swoop. And that they did; Japan surrendered just six days after the bombings (though many would argue that the brutality of the attack was at least in partial response for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour four years earlier). The US argument was that many more lives were saved by ending the war so quickly than would have been if it had played out in standard theatres of conflict. However, the fact remains that the bomb was for all intents and purposes an utterly indiscriminate attack, and one that targeted innocent civilians: men, women and children.

The Hiroshima bomb exploded over the center of the city. The Nagasaki bomb, over a Catholic area in the suburbs. In both cases, the devastation was unthinkable. At Ground Zero, the heat generated was ten times hotter than that of the Sun. Air was forced away from the explosion, creating winds of 620 mph. Anyone remotely close to the explosion was vaporized instantly. Many who witnessed from farther away had their eyes burned out of their sockets (and many of those people survived). People’s skin was “shredded and hanging off their bodies”, according to witnesses.

This is a re-enactment of the impact of the Hiroshima bomb, from the BBC documentary, “Hiroshima”.

“People with no arms, no legs, their intestines spilling out. Brains spilling out of their crushed skulls…black, carbonized bodies. People in unimaginable states.” Corpses, skeletons and limbs littered the streets. Particularly awful for the survivors was simply the physical pain of the burns from the blast; any exposed skin was scorched horribly, often leaving mortal wounds or lifelong scars.

There was virtually nothing left of these two huge cities. They had been razed to the ground by the atom, decimating their populations.

140,000 were murdered at Hiroshima. 70,000 at Nagasaki.

160,000 more people later died from radiation poisoning, the effects of which were not well known to doctors at the time (many physicians considered it a “mystery fever”, and had no idea how to treat patients succumbing to the horrendous results of exposure to high levels of radiation).

Aside from the human destruction wreaked by the bomb, there were far more terrible possibilities associated with the Manhattan Project (the military project which developed the weapon). There was, for example, a slim chances that the fission reaction would initiate a fusion reaction in nitrogen present in the air, causing a chain reaction that would “ignite the atmosphere” of Earth and destroy the planet. Not only that, but there was also a chance that the bomb could actually cause a crack the crust of the Earth, with unknown consequences.

With all this in mind, it’s interesting to consider how modern culture looks back on these events – which changed the world, and might even have ended it . It seems to me, at least, that their significance is downplayed. For example, people are a lot more generally aware of Auschwitz, Pearl Harbour and 9/11 than they are of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I understand that the geographical and chronological distance plays a big part, but I don’t think that’s the whole story, either.

American foreign policy has reached a point where they feel totally justified in stepping into any country they consider a threat, deposing the problematic ruler and imposing their democratic mores upon the population. This policy must be supported by popular opinion; otherwise the resulting low morale can seep into the military itself. Vietnam was a great example of this effect; protesters across America and the world constantly demanded that the US pull their troops out.

Celebrities like Jane Fonda even went to Vietnam, putting on shows in which they would deride the stupidity of American militarism. Anti-war papers and pamphlets were left in barracks and dropped on cities. And it worked. Direct disobedience, court-marshals and AWOLs became the order of the day. Many GIs became so disillusioned with their seemingly pointless war that towards the end of the conflict, American soldiers were refusing to leave their bunkers altogether. The US army tried to save face by carpet-bombing the region instead.

However, the relatively free media which fed the public at the time is now part of a vastly different informational landscape. War is now portrayed by television channels as a form of entertainment, like sports or drama. Hi-octane, flashy graphics bookend the reports. The information itself is sanitized; we almost never see actual deaths or horrible injuries. We are presented with weapons of war (and all their “stats”) as if they were anything but killing machines. Even the vernacular of conflict is changed; snipers are now “sharpshooters”. Bombings are now “surgical strikes”. Innocent people killed and maimed are now “collateral damage”. All of this is to minimize the viewer’s association between war and actual human suffering. If people actually thought one begat the other, we may even question the usually flimsy premises of war altogether..

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Here is a clip from the film “Militainment Inc”, a film which examines the link between the military and the media. 

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… all of which brings me back to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I think that it is essential that people not simply associate these names with “the events that ended the war”. The fact is that the level of human suffering inflicted upon these people was unimaginable. The military took the most elemental, devastating force known to man and dropped it on two cities filled with innocent people. Not only that, but they had planned to drop even more:

“The United States expected to have another atomic bomb ready for use in the third week of August, with three more in September and a further three in October.^” (Wikipedia)

As terrible as 9/11 was, it was nowhere near the utter humanitarian catastrophe that began when America bombed Japan, and that lasted not for one day but for decades, generations. I have a feeling that it will always be remembered with more solemnity and respect than the dropping of the Atomic bombs ever were, at least in Western media. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (in which 370,000 were killed) are still seen as little more than a necessary means to an end, whereas the destruction of the Twin Towers (in which less than 3,000 were killed) was an “unprovoked” terrorist attack that demanded a brutal response – one that began years ago in Afghanistan and continues to this day in Iraq.

In his address to the nation on September 11th 2001, Bush said: “Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America.” It harks back to what Roosevelt said after Pearl Harbour: “A date which will live in infamy…. (but) The American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.”

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The question is, where do you draw the line between terrorism and “righteous might”?

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Further Viewing:

Documentary – Days That Shook The World: Hiroshima

The Vietnam anti-war movement is detailed in a great documentary, “Sir No Sir”, available to watch here: