15th November 2009

Following a lovely first evening in Hiroshima, featuring our first taste of delicious okonomiyaki and a trip to the ‘Dreamination’ light sculpture festival on Peace Boulevard, we were still gushing about what a delight Hiroshima is as we walked through Peace Memorial Park – all fountains, polished granite and forgiveness – and up to the A-Bomb Dome. The Dome was one of the only buildings left standing by the Atomic Bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima at 8.15am on August 6, 1945. Although it was gutted by the bomb and subsequent fires, most of the structure still stands and is preserved by the city of Hiroshima and UNESCO as it looked immediately after the blast, including the debris collected around the base of the building. As upsetting as this sight is, the music wafting over from some flautists performing across the river did something to take the edge off.

While we were at the Dome we were approached by a woman (we later learned that her name was Machiko Yamaoka) who wanted to give us a free tour. Her mother, she explained, was a hibakusha (A-bomb survivor) and had recently gotten sick. As she was no longer well enough to tell her own story, Michiko felt that it was now her responsibility to make people aware of Hiroshima’s past and the importance of the city’s quest to eliminate all of the world’s nuclear weapons.  And so our tour of the other, less peaceful, less happy-smiley Hiroshima began.

Michiko’s mother had been outside the city when the bomb exploded but her sister was not so lucky so she rushed into the city to find her. It took her a week to track her down and take her home, where she soon died. While she was combing the streets, she saw exactly what hell looks like and Michiko’s bedtime stories seem to have been anything but the norm as a result. As painful as it was, her mother felt the importance of teaching her children about the horrors of war.

She told her about people wandering the streets, their skin literally melting off as they walked. Other people, burned beyond recognition and parched with thirst, went in search of water – jumping into the river and water tanks, only to send their bodies into immediate and fatal shock, leaving every source of water strewn with decaying bodies. One woman was walking around with her baby still strapped to her back. She had not yet noticed that her child, black with soot, had already perished.

On our tour of the city, Michiko showed us the hospital that was at the epicenter of the blast and the shop where one lucky man had wandered down to the basement for papers and, protected by a wall of steel and water, had emerged to find every building for blocks completely flattened. She also showed us the graveyard nearby which had survived although the marble headstones had little holes punched in them – in three seconds the immense heat of the blast (6,000 degrees Celsius) had done what takes 20 seconds with a blowtorch in a workshop.

Dazed and more than a little grateful to our obliging tour guide, we headed for the Peace Memorial Museum, wondering how the picture could get any bleaker. But it did. After a strange entrance building outlining, in ridiculous detail, Japan’s entire military history, we got to the main exhibition space. Here there were various items on display, from baby clothes to bits of skin and warped roof tiles, each of which was attached to a placard outlining its origin. Walking from one to one it was pretty difficult not to give up all hope for the future of humanity and sit on the floor crying. This tricycle was one particularly upsetting example:

The placard said:

Shinuchi Tetsuntani (then 3 years 11 months old) loved to ride his tricycle. That morning, he was riding in front of his house when, in a sudden flash, he and his tricycle were badly burned. He died that night. His father felt that he was too young to be buried in a lonely grave away from home and, thinking that he could still play with the tricycle, he buried Shinichi with the tricycle in the backyard.

Children’s Peace Memorial

The most upsetting element of the Peace Memorial Park for many however, is the one memorial with a face – the Children’s Peace Memorial.

This memorial was built for Sadako Sasaki who was 2 years old when Hiroshima was bombed. Although she was in Hiroshima at the time of the blast, it seemed that Sadako had escaped with only surface wounds and so she lived a normal childhood, excelling at athletics and gathering a big gang of friends in elementary school. Ten years later however, Sadako became ill and was diagnosed with leukemia as a result of her exposure to such massive quantities of radiation.

She was hospitalized and while there she saw all the origami paper cranes that were sent to patients as omens of good luck. She heard somewhere that folding 1,000 paper cranes could make a wish come true and became convinced that this was the answer to her plight.

Although she managed to reach, and far surpass, her target, Sadako soon after. At her funerals her family handed out a lot of the cranes she had folded to guests – some of them were large and some were so small that she had used a needle point to fold them. Every one, however, had been folded with care and imbued with her fervent wish to live.

News of Sadako’s tragic death and her cranes spread around Japan and touched something in the public consciousness. Schools petitioned for a monument honouring her and all the children killed by the bomb. Eventually, with the help of people across the world, they raised enough money to build their own. Meanwhile, in a more personal tribute, kids started folding their own paper cranes and sending them to Hiroshima, a practice that still exists today. Millions of these cranes, pasted into pictures and hung in long strings, now make up the Children’s Peace Memorial in Peace Memorial Park.

More pictures of Hiroshima are available in the gallery.

Enola Gay en el Museo Nacional del Aire y el Espacio, EE.U. (Click a la foto para ver más grande) Foto: Wikipedia

Era una hermosa mañana la del 6 de agosto de 1945, el cielo estaba despejado…los habitantes de Hiroshima estaban quitado de bulla y distraído, mientras que de las islas Mariana despegaba un avión B-29 con un niñito a bordo…Aquel pequeño niño presentaba un aspecto de bomba alargada de color verde oliva y chata, con alerones cuadrados de los cuales sobresalían sensores de radar y barométricos. Pesaba unas cuatro toneladas y lo sentaron en primera clase en el  avión con unos ganchos especiales para que no molestara a los otros tripulantes o fuese a caerse.

Little Boy (pequeño niño) era un bomba de diseño sin probar el día del lanzamiento.

Su niñero William Sterling Parsons. Tenía la misión de colocar los saquitos de pólvora convencional para el cañón, armarla eléctricamente, comprobarla y quitar los obturadores de seguridad colocar unos obturadores rojos y sustituir los verdes…Todo esto se hizo en pleno vuelo.

El Enola Gay  derivado del nombre de la madre del piloto coronel Paul Tibbest. Así, bautizaron a uno de los 15 bombarderos B-29 modificados para lanzar las bombas atómicas.

Esta foto fue tomada el 23 de octubre, 2004. Los pilotos retirados de la Fuerza Aérea de los EE.UU. Brig. General Paul W. Tibbetts, centro, el ayudante encargado de lanzar la bomba Morris R. Jeppson, izquierda, y el navegante Theodore Van Kirk, derecha.

A la 8:15 fue arrojada la primera bomba y en instantes más de 100.000 personas murieron en el acto, otros miles murieron horas más tarde fruto de la radiación liberada.

Enola gay,
Tendrías que haberte quedado ayer en casa
oh, oh, no puede describirse el sentimiento y la forma en que mentiste.

Esos juegos a los que juegas,
algún día terminarán en lágrimas
oh, oh, enola gay,
no deberían acabar así.

Cuando el avión se retiraba, se oyó una voz que decía: “Dios mío, ¿qué hemos hecho?” era la voz de Bob Carón, artillero de cola del Enola.

Crédito: Dama de Viento

The year 1945 was momentous in an almost unprecedented way. The dates referenced above are not the only events of major significance, but they will suffice for now. April 12 is one of those days that  people would always  remember where they were when they heard the news. President Roosevelt  was dead. The only man to be elected to 4 terms; he was just beginning his 13th year in office when he succumbed to a  stroke and died in Warm Springs, Ga at the age of 63. His death elevated a virtually unknown  man to the Presidency at one of the nation’s most critical junctures. WW II, at least in Europe was drawing to an end but the Pacific theater, another story indeed.

Harry Truman was neither  a Dick Cheney or Joe Biden in terms of power or influence. He was Roosevelt’s 3rd veep  and was not what you would call highly influential or knowledgeable and in fact had only occupied the office for 82 days. Thus he was not really aware of the feverish efforts underway to develop the atomic bomb.

Apparently he came up to speed very quickly since his decision to launch the Enola Gay with the first bomb came less than 3 months after he took office. The decision was made even though it  was by no means universally lauded and was opposed by some 70+ scientists.

I would like to draw  a comparison to the situation in which Mr Truman found himself and  the ongoing process about what should be our next step in Afghanistan. I read excerpts frm  a Eugene Robinson column today that lauded the reasoned approach the President is taking versus the “ready, firm, aim” approach of George Bush. He of course makes the typical comments about  this as  well as Iraq being George Bush’s doing.

I have had the nagging thought for some time about Truman’ s position. It was not his war that he was tasked with completing and it might have been easy or expedient politically to not blame Roosevelt, but  to give either him or his policies part of the “credit” for his controversial decision. I don’t think that he did so. Remember the buck stops here?

My point, which I am not making as well as I would like is not to say the President’s reasoned approach is  all that bad. But, given the fact that this  war was frequently referenced in the campaign, it is not conducive to fall back on the Bush’s war approach.

When he took office, WWII became Truman’s war. We could always the question, if Roosevelt had lived would he have dropped the bomb or bombs?  But it remains a specious question. For good or bad, Afghanistan is Obama’s  war ( hopefully his main adviser is not John  Kerry) and history will doubtless allocate to him the credit if he succeeds.

This i shameless plagiarize from a like-minded brother.  Provocative thoughts on war and hell and violence and non-violence, from a Catholic priest on Tinian who blessed epic violence and now offers his thoughts.  I wish i had seen this in time to post on the recent Hiroshima anniversary, as this man has much more to contribute than i did.   Read before commenting…

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This is from Father George Zabelka who in 1945 blessed the dropping of bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Before you begin reading, read this: If you do not read every word of this note- Do. Not. Comment. No skimmers deciding what I need to know before hearing me out. Period.

“These are good words by the way. If the length of this troubles you, I feel sorry for you. Hopefully you’re not the kind that reads John 3:16 once a week instead of reading through entire sections of scripture. You should learn to read. Take the time to look over this and let a brother in Christ (Zabelka) convict you.”- Cody Sandidge

The destruction of civilians in war was always forbidden by the Church, and if a soldier came to me and asked if he could put a bullet through a child’s head, I would have told him, absolutely not. That would be mortally sinful. But in 1945 Tinian Island was the largest airfield in the world. Three planes a minute could take off from it around the clock. Many of these planes went to Japan with the express purpose of killing not one child or one civilian but of slaughtering hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of children and civilians – and I said nothing. As a Catholic chaplain I watched as the Boxcar, piloted by a good Irish Catholic pilot, dropped the bomb on Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, the center of Catholicism in Japan.

I never preached a single sermon against killing civilians to the men who were doing it. I was brainwashed! It never entered my mind to protest publicly the consequences of these massive air raids. I was told it was necessary – told openly by the military and told implicitly by my Church’s leadership. (To the best of my knowledge no American cardinals or bishops were opposing these mass air raids. Silence in such matters is a stamp of approval.) I worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., during the Civil Rights struggle in Flint, Michigan. His example and his words of nonviolent action, choosing love instead of hate, truth instead of lies, and nonviolence instead of violence stirred me deeply. This brought me face to face with pacifism – active nonviolent resistance to evil. I recall his words after he was jailed in Montgomery, and this blew my mind. He said, “Blood may flow in the streets of Montgomery before we gain our freedom, but it must be our blood that flows, and not that of the white man. We must not harm a single hair on the head of our white brothers.” I struggled. I argued. But yes, there it was in the Sermon on the Mount, very clear: “Love your enemies. Return good for evil.” I went through a crisis of faith. Either accept what Christ said, as unpassable and silly as it may seem, or deny him completely.

For the last 1700 years the Church has not only been making war respectable: it has been inducing people to believe it is an honorable profession, an honorable Christian profession. This is not true. We have been brainwashed. This is a lie. War is now, always has been, and always will be bad, bad news. I was there. I saw real war. Those who have seen real war will bear me out. I assure you, it is not of Christ. It is not Christ’s way. There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. There is no way to train people for real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. The morality of the balance of terrorism is a morality that Christ never taught. The ethics of mass butchery cannot be found in the teachings of Jesus. In Just War ethics, Jesus Christ, who is supposed to be all in the Christian life, is irrelevant. He might as well never have existed. In Just War ethics, no appeal is made to him or his teaching, because no appeal can be made to him or his teaching, for neither he nor his teaching gives standards for Christians to follow in order to determine what level of slaughter is acceptable.

So the world is watching today. Ethical hairsplitting over the morality of various types of instruments and structures of mass slaughter is not what the world needs from the Church, although it is what the world has come to expect from the followers of Christ. What the world needs is a grouping of Christians that will stand up and pay up with Jesus Christ. What the world needs is Christians who, in language that the simplest soul could understand, will proclaim: the follower of Christ cannot participate in mass slaughter. He or she must love as Christ loved, live as Christ lived, and, if necessary, die as Christ died, loving ones enemies.

For the 300 years immediately following Jesus’ resurrection, the Church universally saw Christ and his teaching as nonviolent. Remember that the Church taught this ethic in the face of at least three serious attempts by the state to liquidate her. It was subject to horrendous and ongoing torture and death. If ever there was an occasion for justified retaliation and defensive slaughter, whether in form of a just war or a just revolution, this was it. The economic and political elite of the Roman state and their military had turned the citizens of the state against Christians and were embarked on a murderous public policy of exterminating the Christian community. Yet the Church, in the face of the heinous crimes committed against her members, insisted without reservation that when Christ disarmed Peter he disarmed all Christians.

Christians continued to believe that Christ was, to use the words of an ancient liturgy, their fortress, their refuge, and their strength, and that if Christ was all they needed for security and defense, then Christ was all they should have. Indeed, this was a new security ethic. Christians understood that if they would only follow Christ and his teaching, they couldn’t fail. When opportunities were given for Christians to appease the state by joining the fighting Roman army, these opportunities were rejected, because the early Church saw a complete and an obvious incompatibility between loving as Christ loved and killing. It was Christ, not Mars, who gave security and peace.

Today the world is on the brink of ruin because the Church refuses to be the Church, because we Christians have been deceiving ourselves and the non-Christian world about the truth of Christ. There is no way to follow Christ, to love as Christ loved, and simultaneously to kill other people. It is a lie to say that the spirit that moves the trigger of a flamethrower is the Holy Spirit. It is a lie to say that learning to kill is learning to be Christ-like. It is a lie to say that learning
to drive a bayonet into the heart of another is motivated from having put on the mind of Christ. Militarized Christianity is a lie. It is radically out of conformity with the teaching, life, and spirit of Jesus.

Now, brothers and sisters, on the anniversary of this terrible atrocity carried out by Christians, I must be the first to say that I made a terrible mistake. I was had by the father of lies. I participated in the big ecumenical lie of the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox churches. I wore the uniform. I was part of the system. When I said Mass over there I put on those beautiful vestments over my uniform. (When Father Dave Becker left the Trident submarine base in 1982 and resigned as Catholic chaplain there, he said, “Every time I went to Mass in my uniform and put the vestments on over my uniform, I couldn’t help but think of the words of Christ applying to me: Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.”)

As an Air Force chaplain I painted a machine gun in the loving hands of the nonviolent Jesus, and then handed this perverse picture to the world as truth. I sang “Praise the Lord” and passed the ammunition. As Catholic chaplain for the 509th Composite Group, I was the final channel that communicated this fraudulent image of Christ to the crews of the Enola Gay and the Boxcar.

All I can say today is that I was wrong. Christ would not be the instrument to unleash such horror on his people. Therefore no follower of Christ can legitimately unleash the horror of war on God’s people. Excuses and self-justifying explanations are without merit. All I can say is: I was wrong! But, if this is all I can say, this I must do, feeble as it is. For to do otherwise would be to bypass the first and absolutely essential step in the process of repentance and reconciliation: admission of error, admission of guilt. There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. I was there, and I was wrong.

Yes, war is Hell, and Christ did not come to justify the creation of Hell on earth by his disciples. The justification of war may be compatible with some religions and philosophies, but it is not compatible with the nonviolent teaching of Jesus. I was wrong. And to those of whatever nationality or religion who have been hurt because I fell under the influence of the father of lies, I say with my whole heart and soul I am sorry. I beg forgiveness. I asked forgiveness from the Hibakushas (the Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings) in Japan last year, in a pilgrimage that I made with a group from Tokyo to Hiroshima. I fell on my face there at the peace shrine after offering flowers, and I prayed for forgiveness – for myself, for my country, for my Church. Both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This year in Toronto, I again asked forgiveness from the Hibakushas present. I asked forgiveness, and they asked
forgiveness for Pearl Harbor and some of the horrible deeds of the Japanese military, and there were some, and I knew of them. We embraced. We cried. Tears flowed. That is the first step of reconciliation – admission of guilt and forgiveness. Pray to God that others will find this way to peace.

All religions have taught brotherhood. All people want peace. It is only the governments and war departments that promote war and slaughter. So today again I call upon people to make their voices heard. We can no longer just leave this to our leaders, both political and religious. They will move when we make them move. They represent us. Let us tell them that they must think and act for the safety and security of all the people in our world, not just for the safety and security of one country. All countries are interdependent. We all need one another. It is no longer possible for individual countries to think only of themselves. We can all live together as brothers and sisters or we are doomed to die together as fools in a world holocaust.

Each one of us becomes responsible for the crime of war by cooperating in its preparation and in its execution. This includes the military. This includes the making of weapons. And it includes paying for the weapons. There’s no question about that. We’ve got to realize we all become responsible. Silence, doing nothing, can be one of the greatest sins.

The bombing of Nagasaki means even more to me than the bombing of Hiroshima. By August 9, 1945, we knew what that bomb would do, but we still dropped it. We knew that agonies and sufferings would ensue, and we also knew – at least our leaders knew – that it was not necessary. The Japanese were already defeated. They were already suing for peace. But we insisted on unconditional surrender, and this is even against the Just War theory. Once the enemy is defeated, once the enemy is not able to hurt you, you must make peace.

Militarized Christianity is a lie. It is radically out of conformity with the teaching, life, and spirit of Jesus. As a Catholic chaplain I watched as the Boxcar, piloted by a good Irish Catholic pilot, dropped the bomb on Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, the center of Catholicism in Japan. I knew that St. Francis Xavier, centuries before, had brought the Catholic faith to Japan. I knew that schools, churches, and religious orders were annihilated. And yet I said nothing. Thank God that I’m able to stand here today and speak out against war, all war. The prophets of the Old Testament spoke out against all false gods of gold, silver, and metal. Today we are worshiping the gods of metal, the bomb. We are putting our trust in physical power, militarism, and nationalism. The bomb, not God, is our security and our strength. The prophets of the Old Testament said simply: Do not put your trust in chariots and weapons, but put your trust in God. Their message was simple, and so is mine.

We must all become prophets. I really mean that. We must all do something for peace. We must stop this insanity of worshiping the gods of metal. We must take a stand against evil and idolatry. This is our destiny at the most critical time of human history. But it’s also the greatest opportunity ever offered to any group of people in the history of our world – to save our world from complete annihilation.

Cage Fighters

This story caught my eye, not just because it’s heart-warming to hear of a drunken asshole getting humiliated, but also because the words ‘cage fighter’ jumped out at me.

What is it with cage fighters at the moment? I feel as if I hear about cage fighters a lot. Maybe I’m naive, but I had no idea that fighting in a cage has become such a popular activity.

I’ve seen it on tv a few times, and it’s impossible not to comment that after a couple of punches, cage fights end up on the mat, with a lot of crotch-sniffing and general substitution of violence for sex.

I think cage fighting would be better if they got rid of the macho dudes. It should be skinny intellectual guys! Fighters must be over six foot and under 11 stone! The loser’s the first guy to get his glasses broked and his book ripped up! I reckon I could be king of the ring.

TGI Friday’s WHAT?

I went to TGI Friday’s last night, or, as I named it after finishing one of their main courses, TGI Over. It’s the cage fighter’s cuisine of choice. Poached salmon and mint tea are not options.

I would advise caution towards any restaurant with laminated menus. You start to wonder about certain types of people who frequent such places. All the evidence suggests a lot of them need to be protected from themselves before they’ve even ordered a starter.

You ask yourself, ‘why is this menu laminated?’
Well, so you can rinse it under the tap. Rinse it of what, though? Also, you don’t get papercuts from laminated menus. A laminated menu is a limited liability menu.

I had the pork ribs with cold fries and cold onion rings. The ribs were ok, but the sauce? I’m not sure of the exact recipe, but this is close: take a full bottle of vinegar, empty half of it into your eye, then fill up the bottle with a bag of sugar and a tablespoon of bourbon. Stir in the collected fingernail dirt of a thousand tramps, leave it somewhere warm for a couple of days, then absolutely saturate your meat with it. Make sure the meat has absorbed so much of your sticky brew that even an internationally respected food critic couldn’t tell what type of animal your meat used to be.

Look, I’m not saying it didn’t taste good: it did. But as soon as it was sitting in my stomach, I couldn’t wait for it to get the hell out of my digestive system before it could do any permanent damage. I think I know how the pilot of the Enola Gay felt before the big drop. I feel like I ought to write my guts a note of apology on rice paper and send it down there with some steamed fish and vegetables.

That’s not to say I didn’t have a good time.

In a World….

I think the guy behind the new Dixon’s slogan – ‘The last place you want to go’ either had a nervous breakdown or a moment of clarity. It is absolutely true: Dixon’s IS the last place you’d want to go. Maybe he’s also worked on the new Gervais movie, the one that looks so awful you feel like you might give up on life forever if you saw it.

As ever, it’s the tagline that kills me: ‘In a world where everyone tells the truth, he just invented the lie!’

I mean, the concept makes me cringe enough as it is, but the lack of imagination in the ad copy! Someone got paid for that! Someone thought it was a job well done! How many fucking movies are going to be sold as ‘in a world where [parameter], one man just [parameter]!’?

It makes me think creativity only exists to be stifled. If your movie can’t be pitched using the above template, forget about it.

Here’s a few more I think we’ll see come out of Hollywood soon:

• In a world where people defecate from holes in their neck, he just bought a cashmere scarf!
• In a world where everyone’s hyper-sensitive to pain but also annoying, he just invented a remote-control cattle-prod!
• In a world where most people look, sound and act like Simon Cowell, one visionary high court judge is selling immunity from prosecution!
• In a world where everyone’s a little too dry, he just got damp!
• In a world where everyone has a camera, he just became a highly skilled but completely unnecessary draughtsman!

Any more for any more?

A preview of something I’ll be slowly writing over however long it takes for me to write it. The first chapter, in full:-

*

It was a sight of such strange beauty. It was a beast that seemed like it would be cranky if you were to anger it. I stood a good twenty yards back from it’s wingspan as the painter tailored to the finishing touches on it’s nose, and I could tell that even he was a little nervous to be so close.

This was the instrument that would sing the requiem of this war. We had already dealt with Hitler and Germany; toppled an empire, and yet we flew to the other side of the world to fight another. The war in the Pacific had been fought for as long as the fight in Europe, and somehow we had seen fit to become involved in both. Although the politics of the war had long become tiresome for me, as I took in what lay before me I felt the weight of the entire war on my shoulders.

This would end the fight. This would bring our soldiers home. This would ensure the growth of America despite the crumbling of these world powers, and above all it would give us all peace and quiet. When the painter began the task of descending from perch to reveal it’s new name I swelled with pride.

‘Enola Gay’.

If anyone was to be the symbolic bringer of peace to this country it would be my mother. Although it was not an easy decision, I had decided to take over as pilot. Mostly – it was a pride thing. I had chosen this particular plane for the job, and as such I nurtured her and helped her grow – modified specially to fit her fateful cargo. I knew eventually that I would have to force my hand and take over as pilot at some stage, but it took some time to come to terms with what that would mean for me. As much good this plane will bring to the world, I knew many of innocent lives will eventually die by my hand. I had heard the scientists talk of just how destructive this bomb was going to be, but I had tried hard to not take in numbers or even adjectives. I was still unsure if I wanted to be the one to do this.

Besides, Japan still had time to heed our warnings and surrender. If what I had been told was true, it was in their best interest to call it all off. They now had less than a day…

It was at this thought that my trance was disturbed by an irritated voice behind me.

‘You’re taking over, aren’t you?’

It was Robert Lewis. I had taken over his command of the plane, but we both knew it had been coming for quite some time. He’s got a mighty short temper and I’ve avoided talking with him fearing interrogation of my future intentions. I knew I couldn’t just strip him of his captaincy, after all he had been the first to fly her, and I couldn’t be one to get in between a man and his plane.

‘We’ll pilot her together, she is far too wild for me to handle on my own.’ I grinned, extending my right hand in front of him as I threw my left over his shoulder.

‘Don’t worry, I’ve had plenty of experience handling your mother before, we’ll be fine.’ he returned with a cheeky grin and accepted my handshake. I squeezed his hand as hard I could and laughed. That bastard.

‘They say this is going to be the end of the war…’ Robert reinforced as we stood side by side admiring the plane once again.

‘You know, even after the countless amounts of times that sentence has been said to me, and every time there is something else that we didn’t account for…’ I said as I took off my hat and scratched through my hair.

‘I think this is going to account for everything.’

Robert chuckled a little and nodded his head.

‘God, I hope you’re right. You know they called it Little Boy?’

I shot out a laugh of disbelief. The most destructive piece of weaponry every created in history is going to be called Little Boy. I guess the guys behind the bigger desks will stop at nothing to make this war family-friendly and inspiring.

‘And with that, I think I need a drink’, I sighed heavily, eventually met with an agreeing grunt from Robert. This was to be expected; if he had not come and found me here, I’m sure I would have found him at the bar.

Traversing the base felt odd now that the Enola Gay was completely ready for her mission. The unveiling of the name was the final mark of perfection after countless bombing runs, preparative tests and hours of maintenance. Tomorrow, the first atomic bomb in the history of mankind would be dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The most swirling, surreal sense of guilt slid it’s way through the joints of my bones and slithered up to the hairs on the back of my neck as I envisaged what I was going to be responsible for. It was a burden which Robert and I dragged behind as we walked. The other NCO’s and officers almost appeared to give us a wide birth as we moved through the areas of the base. I looked to the sky as we approached the entrance of the Officer’s Club and noticed a small patch of charcoal cloud drag itself over the sun half-heartedly and disperse. I looked away and shook my head a little, opening the door for Robert.

In here, you wouldn’t think there was a war going on. You also wouldn’t think that it was still day-time. It was easy to be anywhere you wanted to be in here. The base itself was an exemplification of America’s child-like attention seeking. We had taken over the entire island of Tinian in the North Marianan Islands, not far from Japan. Of course, we built the world’s largest airfield to date – complete with a base that resembled the city of Manhattan.

So, naturally, it was easiest to imagine I was in Broadway here, especially seeing as though the Officer’s Club was placed in the god-damn middle of it. It was obvious that this kind of morale-boosting had worked for our personnel, there were plenty of men huddled in groups along the polished wooden bar. Most impressive was the way in which it was lined with golden taps of various brews from around the world. If the invasion of Europe can be accountable for one thing, it was the expanding of the men’s taste for exotic beer and lager. Although this was no NCO-hangout, most good men were officers anyway due to the fact that we had to move men through the ranks often due to our casualty rate. And even if some men were not officers, they would be good enough men to be allowed privileged access to the Officer’s Club. We had all grown tired of the rules and besides, we were in Broadway.

Robert followed me as I made a path through the drunken men. The odd officer every now and then would wobbly salute us as we pass, the more intoxicated would slap us on the back and cheer. News seemed like it had travelled fast around the base and the mood in here reflected that. There were men sculling beers and cheering, others singing one of the many war chants that the companies had become more than familiar with. The smiles didn’t seem to rub off on neither me or Robert. The path I had formed throughout the room had snaked it’s way to a table in the back, two men slumped over it, almost defeated.

The table, like the rest in the room, were incredibly large, hand-carved and wooden, circular to build glimpses of the Knights of Olde. Robert and I took our seats and rested the drinks that we had been gifted with on our journey, and with the addition of ours, it made four untouched beers at ease in the centre. The men had hardly acknowledged our existence.

‘How long do we have left now? Do either of you know?’ Robert asked after a moment or two, while I kept myself occupied with a puddle of spilt beer on the table.

The man closest to Robert simply shot him a deathly glare. His name was George Marquardt, and he was to be piloting another B-29 to be used in tomorrow’s mission. Less destructive intentions than mine, his was to scientifically photograph the explosion for documentation’s sake. The very involvement of such a plane made the whole thing seem like a science experiment, and I wasn’t sure who was piloting the worse plane.

‘We are meant to drop it at exactly oh-eight-fifteen. Whatever it is now, ’til then, is how long we have.’ Charles Sweeney, the man closest to me replied eventually, his eyes not leaving the rim of his glass’.. or I guess, that’s how long they have.’ He, like the rest of us, was piloting a B-29 in tomorrow’s mission. His plane’s task was to measure the blast radius; a weapon of this magnitude has never been dropped on a human population before, as such the effects are interesting to some as they are grim. It was clear that Sweeney himself did not share the same fascination as some of the crew on his plane.

‘We can’t held ourselves accountable for this. There’s no point blaming ourselves for what our military is planning to do.’ Robert said defiantly, being the first to take an extended sip from his glass.

‘That doesn’t help. I know all that. They’re all going to die by our hand. No matter which way you look at it or try to convince yourself that there is another person pulling the strings.’ Sweeney argued, furrowing his brow yet still keeping focus on his virgin beer.

I sighed. It was true. My heart began to beat a little faster as I realised that Sweeney and Marquadt whilst were both clearly distraught over their future, I was relatively at ease. It beat a little bit faster still as my mind landed on the notion that I was the one to actually drop the bomb, not any of my three companions, and yet, I did not feel enough to ramble such negative banter. Perhaps I was simply not as easy to fall into such wallows of depressive thought, or maybe my reality had not grown enough in weight to topple me.

So I began to drink. Robert of course was already on his second and third by the time I had finished my first. It took Sweeney a little longer to come around, I’m not sure why he held out so long – my intentions were to forget and I’d assume he would want to as well. Marquadt was a little bit more social than the rest of us, instead choosing to do reconnaissance work with the rest of the Club, returning to touch base with us and relay information. Apparently it was Happy Hour until oh-eight-hundred tomorrow…

As the afternoon became the evening our empty glasses began to clutter the table. Marquadt had found himself in a position where it was difficult to walk, so his scouting missions had to be delayed until further notice. He had taken rest mostly on the table, taking a third of it for himself and his slain foamy comrades. Robert, on the other hand, had been quiet for most of the night since Sweeney had shot him down. It occurred to me that perhaps Robert had not thought this whole thing through. He was a man that was very much attuned with the glory of war, and although his personality may be mistaken for a hero-like arrogance it was merely that he thoroughly enjoyed being an enlisted man. He had a much less decorated resume than myself or Sweeney, yet he was perhaps more proud to be part of the service than the rest of us combined. Yet, until he had heard the bitter words from Sweeney he seemed completely un-phased by the entire situation.

Robert suddenly stood, sliding his chair back which caused a shaky screech across the wooden floorboards. He picked up his glass, raised it above his head and broke his silence with a deafening shout.

‘A-TTEN-TION!’ he boomed, slurring the end a little bit more than a regular officer.

The clutter of voices that had grown to a continuous rabble began to slowly die to a deep buzz. Unsatisfied, he began spouting a series of drunken insults related to several of the men’s mothers and slowly the room was captivated by the drunken antics of Robert Lewis once again.

‘Okay, now this is serious. This is important, now listen up,’ he hiccuped, addressing his army of drunkards.

‘I’m sure you’re all aware by now, but tomorrow, the war ends. Well… it could end before then but I guess if those dirty Jap bastards had wanted to surrender they would have friggin’ done it by now!’ he yelled, heaving with laughter at the end. He was of course met with a response of roaring laughter and the odd cheer.

Robert raised his hand and whispers shot up from around the room that muffled any stray voices. ‘Now, a lot of our men have died for this war. On this side of the world and the other. Tomorrow will mark the beginning of our avenging of those dead, and justice will be served.’ He proclaimed, and I could do nothing but stare with the rest of the room.

‘We did not choose our fate that has been laid before us. We are not responsible for what the Empire of Japan has done, but we will be the one’s to punish them. They have not and will not stop, and for the will of all that is good and holy we must enforce what is right. Let us not be held accountable for the dead which may lay tomorrow, but be remembered as the one’s who stood against the very face of human evil.’

His words hung in the air, resonating and wobbling as the men reflected on what was said. After a moment, raucous yelling began as cheers went up and drinks went down, yet I stood still. I could not put the evil on the face of the civilians in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was a strike on innocents. It was a message to Japan, sent by destroying two of their main cities in such a vicious way that has not been known before. By delivering that message, I was delivering death to possibly hundreds of thousands of people and causing immense suffering. No amount of alcohol could kill the nagging feeling that was tugging at my soul. I could feel the power of what loomed over me levering it, coercing it to twist and flip inside the very fabric of my existence.

Robert Lewis had it wrong. We were not standing against human evil, merely nobody had the power to stand up to us.

Back to America during World War II is my choice, you want o know why?
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/1730304/time_travel_what_time_in_history_would.html

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Scorre lentamente la lista di possibili scelte. Belle incasellate, riposte e riconoscibili.

Martedì ti svegli e non sai cosa fare, prendi lo scopettino e passi la polvere. Così a tempo perso. Tanto è un bel po’ di tempo che passi ore perdendo tempo. Il tempo si perde e basta, a prescindere. Il tempo è l’unica cosa che nella vita una persona perde a prescindere. Te ne fai una ragione e continui a passar la polvere. Sporco ostinato? Passi uno straccio. Alla fine ti rendi pure conto che far pulizie rende pure produttiva una giornata immersa nella noia. Certo sei pure mezzo rincoglionito dalla serata di bagordi di ieri. Sei lì, immerso nei tuoi trip mentali quando un merlo entra dalla finestra del salotto e SBAM! Si schianta contro l’anta a vetro della libreria. Giace riverso per una frazione di secondo sul pavimento e poi, come attraversato da una scossa, si rianima e prende a svolazzare.

Ecco un bell’esempio di perdita di tempo: cercare l’uscita. Ma cosa cacchio ci  sarà entrato a fare il merlo nella mia stanza? Cosa cavolo avrà pensando mentre inseguiva la sua eventuale preda… Forse era solo sovrappensiero e nella calura estiva, povero piccolo batuffolo di piume elasticamente disposte, è stato colpito da un colpo di calore. No, è poco plausibile. Forse è lo smog. Alla tele dicono che in questi giorni ci sono pure alte concentrazioni di ozono… avrà avuto uno svarione.

Rincoglionito. Per la stanza, senza una meta, sbatte le ali in eseguendo virate circolari. Spaesato. Si ferma, sotto il tavolo. Non lo inseguo, lo osservo. Cinguetta, cerca contatto? Chiede delucidazioni in merito? Forse mi chiede da che parte è l’uscita. Non importa, m’avvicino. Lui è pietrificato. Non si sente a suo agio. Cerco uno straccio, un tovagliolo. Sicuramente non si lascerà prendere a mani nude.

In realtà non è sempre vero, molto spesso gli animali selvatici una volta in contatto con quel nulla aggressivo che osservano in città (più che selvatici sarebbe meglio parlar di animali urbani) hanno due possibili reazioni: la fuga, dettata dal puro istinto di sopravvivenza oppure l’accettazione della dura realtà. Detta così sembra una massima estremizzazione ma in realtà si tratta di annientamento. Darwin e la sua teoria ha e ha avuto in passato pletore di sostenitori/oppositori.

Ma in fondo, chi se ne frega dei seguaci e degli oppositori! E’ solo un merlo…

Dicevo accettazione: la bestiola decide di annientarsi e al massimo opporsi solo se stimolata negativamente; generalmente reagisce al dolore, non alle fauci fameliche di un gatto che se la vuol pappare ed è pur giusto che sia così altrimenti tutta quella storia della catena alimentare eccetera eccetera potrebbe risolversi con una bella guerra tra, facciamo, merli contro gatti oppure pesci piccoli contro pesci grandi. Al massimo massimo tenterà di scappare. Insomma qui bisogna far qualcosa, altrimenti il rischio è che si instauri una forma politica con le relative noie, tribune elettorali e comparsate da Vespa. La questione poi è diversa: devo finire di fare i mestieri. In fondo, oggi, in casa mia comando io. Altro che portoni bianchi, comizi elettorali, onorevoli leoni e onorevolissime gazzelle in televisione a esprimere la loro campagna elettorale.

 Pletho di tutti questi bei pensieri mi muovo piano verso il tavolo, lo straccio è già pronto appeso alla parete. Ora io mi aspetterei da un merlo umanoide noiosi discorsi sul “checcazzo-vuoi-da-me-tu-non-sai-chi-sono-io”. Menomale che merli così esistono solo dopo le tre del mattino nei peggiori bar di Busto Garolfo. Un attimo di concentrazione, siamo seri: lo scopettino, le pulizie, la polvere. Puoi anche essere il merlo-di-dio ma c’ho da fare, sai, noi uomini per mangiare paghiamo e non è mica come la tua di vita e ti basta beccare in giro che, intanto, la leptospirosi non sai neanche che cosa sia. Beato te!

Con calma prendo lo straccio appeso alla parete dietro di me, muovo lentamente il braccio destro sotto la mia spalla destra. Non appoggio lo scopettino perché il merlo potrebbe spostarsi. Perché abbandonare lo scettro, simbolo del mio immenso potere, proprio oggi che sono produttivo e faccio le pulizie? Non se ne parla proprio! In questa postura da ninja contorto cerco con le dita lo straccio. lo afferro col medio e l’anulare. Tiro e non si stacca allora prima sollevo e poi lo scosto, con una semi-rotazione del polso faccio presa. Che bello avere il pollice opponibile! Lo straccio ora mi è in pugno. Lo porto lentamente sul mio petto, lo stendo lentamente tenendolo con l’indice e pollice della mano destra (che nel frattempo detiene il potere-scopetta) e con l’indice e il pollice della sinistra.

Lo osservo, lui mi guarda coi suoi due occhietti color terra con aria interrogativa o così pare. In fondo è la prima volta che entra in un appartamento in modo così inappropriato. Forse si, forse è un merlo voyeur. No. Un merlo kamikaze! Ma chi può saperlo. Tanto ora, lui non lo sa’, lo acchiappo e lo libero sul terrazzo. Sicuramente niente briciole o semini, non ne ho. Eh no eh… la polvere!

Lui è li, a meno di un metro da me, sotto il tavolo e non è nemmeno difficile da raggiungere. Ok, ci siamo… socchiudo un attimo gli occhi e inspiro lentamente l’aria. Lo osservo, lui muove un attimo la testolina. Si starà pur chiedendo che cacchio stia per fare quell’enormità umana goffa davanti a lui.

Lo osservo attentamente e nella mia mente conto fino a tre.

Uno.

Ora mi abbasserò velocemente e gli sarò addosso, mi devo infilare tomo tomo e cacchio cacchio sotto il tavolo. Potrei anche solo buttare lo straccio ma so’ che non sarà efficace. No. Per niente.

Due.

Inspiro velocemente. A noi due merlo! Lo vedi il mio scopettino? E di quello che ti devi spaventare! Tu non sai che io so che non sai chi sono e che cosa voglio, hai solo una vaga idea di quello che sto per fare.

Tre.

Mi tuffo.

Ed eccomi li, che fletto leggermente le ginocchia in avanti. Evvai! Nessuna esitazione, spalanco gli occhi e prendo mentalmente la mira e mi tuffo. Un breve salto. Senza esitare. Mi spingo in avanti con la forza dei polpacci che si trasmette velocemente ai glutei e poi alle spalle. Un moto continuo. Gli sono sopra, ora non lo vedo più. Abbasso velocemente lo straccio, manco fosse “Little Boy” ed io l’Enola Gay che sgancia la prima bomba atomica sulla città di Hiroshima. Piego le ginocchia in modo da atterrare e osservo velocemente. Beccato. No, non l’ho schiacciato per fortuna. Lo scopettino è ancora in mano ma ora fa’ da blocco per lo straccio e sotto il fagotto una massa si muove, si dimena. Blocco i lati e mano mano chiudo lo straccio.

- E’ ora di svolazzare altrove mister merlo! Esclamo vittorioso.

Mi alzo, lui non si muove neanche più. lo cerco con la punta delle dita per capire se è ancora vivo o meno. No no, lui c’è lo sento. Sento il suo cuoricino battere a mille e i suoi polmoni contrarsi ed espandersi velocemente. Piccolino lui. grande e bastardo io. Uff… non mi ci devo affezionare troppo! Lo scopettino è li, sotto il tavolo che mi ricorda che per oggi ho delle priorità.

Mi alzo e mi dirigo verso la porta-finestra in alluminio anodizzato del salotto e la apro. Aria fresca, sole, luce, radiazioni benevole. Prima di tutto rigiro velocemente il fagotto, e creo una apertura, guardo dentro. I suoi occhietti mi fissano ansanti, ora è nervoso, ha trovato l’uscita ma dall’altra parte ci sono ancora io che lo spavento.

- Calmati, ancora un attimo che ti prendo e ti faccio andar via.

Si muove e cerca l’uscita al che io metto la mano dentro per afferrarlo. Le sue piume sono lisce come la seta e il suo corpicino caldo e pulsante. Le zampette sono squamose come sembravano alla vista. si agita e si dimena. L’ho preso e lo tengo fermo nel mio pugno, senza stringere troppo. Lo osservo e così fa’ anche lui. Per un attimo è come se ci fossimo presentati e salutati. Un attimo nel quale all’infuori della logica simbolica dei nostri ruoli e delle nostre esistenze ci fossimo solo io e lui, come davanti a una tazza di thè. Al pomeriggio. Non c’è tempo per tazze, teiere, o samovar. E’ ora di andare: anche lui se ne è ricordato e ora s’ è accorto che intorno a lui c’è il mondo e che io non voglio mangiarmelo. allora inizia a dimenarsi nuovamente con la testolina cerca una via d’uscita. Non ti preoccupare.

Faccio due passi sul terrazzo e m’accorgo dei sacchi della spazzatura pieni. Ma-porca-eva-cristologica-meretrice. Lo scopettino. Allungo il braccio e lo lascio andare. Fà un volo, si ferma un attimo sulla ringhiera, si gira e mi guarda come a dire “Ma guarda te sto matto con la scopetta” e vola via. Cristo la polvere!

Rientro, torno al tavolo e cerco la scopetta. Si riparte.

I’ve come up with a couple of Character concepts over the last few weeks that have given me a definite itch that needed scratched. Thanks to UGO’s Hero Machine that itch has been somewhat sated.

Below are three character concepts I’ve crystalised thanks to this. Hopefully, come Monday night (8pm BST) I’ll get to start actually making them

Ayer, 6 de Agosto, se cumplieron 64 años del bombardeo atómico sobre Hiroshima, Japón , que junto al ataque al puerto de Nagasaki, marcaron para siempre la historia moderna. Para recordarlo, The Big Picture nos muestra su colección de imágenes del suceso.

Ver imágenes

boston.com/bigpicture

Hiroshima (August 6, 1945)

In the early morning hours of August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber named Enola Gay took off from the island of Tinian and headed north by northwest toward Japan. The bomber’s primary target was the city of Hiroshima, located on the deltas of southwestern Honshu Island facing the Inland Sea. Hiroshima had a civilian population of almost 300,000 and was an important military center, containing about 43,000 soldiers.

The bomber, piloted by the commander of the 509th Composite Group, Colonel Paul Tibbets, flew at low altitude on automatic pilot before climbing to 31,000 feet as it neared the target area. At approximately 8:15 a.m. Hiroshima time the Enola Gay released “Little Boy,” its 9,700-pound uranium bomb, over the city. Tibbets immediately dove away to avoid the anticipated shock wave. Forty-three seconds later, a huge explosion lit the morning sky as Little Boy detonated 1,900 feet above the city, directly over a parade field where soldiers of the Japanese Second Army were doing calisthenics. Though already eleven and a half miles away, the Enola Gay was rocked by the blast. At first, Tibbets thought he was taking flak. After a second shock wave (reflected from the ground) hit the plane, the crew looked back at Hiroshima. “The city was hidden by that awful cloud . . . boiling up, mushrooming, terrible and incredibly tall,” Tibbets recalled. The yield of the explosion was later estimated at 15 kilotons (the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT).

On the ground moments before the blast it was a calm and sunny Monday morning. An air raid alert from earlier that morning had been called off after only a solitary aircraft was seen (the weather plane), and by 8:15 the city was alive with activity — soldiers doing their morning calisthenics, commuters on foot or on bicycles, groups of women and children working outside to clear firebreaks. Those closest to the explosion died instantly, their bodies turned to black char. Nearby birds burst into flames in mid-air, and dry, combustible materials such as paper instantly ignited as far away as 6,400 feet from ground zero. The white light acted as a giant flashbulb, burning the dark patterns of clothing onto skin (right) and the shadows of bodies onto walls. Survivors outdoors close to the blast generally describe a literally blinding light combined with a sudden and overwhelming wave of heat. (The effects of radiation are usually not immediately apparent.) The blast wave followed almost instantly for those close-in, often knocking them from their feet. Those that were indoors were usually spared the flash burns, but flying glass from broken windows filled most rooms, and all but the very strongest structures collapsed. One boy was blown through the windows of his house and across the street as the house collapsed behind him. Within minutes 9 out of 10 people half a mile or less from ground zero were dead.

People farther from the point of detonation experienced first the flash and heat, followed seconds later by a deafening boom and the blast wave. Nearly every structure within one mile of ground zero was destroyed, and almost every building within three miles was damaged. Less than 10 percent of the buildings in the city survived without any damage, and the blast wave shattered glass in suburbs twelve miles away. The most common first reaction of those that were indoors even miles from ground zero was that their building had just suffered a direct hit by a bomb. Small ad hoc rescue parties soon began to operate, but roughly half of the city’s population was dead or injured. In those areas most seriously affected virtually no one escaped serious injury. The numerous small fires that erupted simultaneously all around the city soon merged into one large firestorm, creating extremely strong winds that blew towards the center of the fire. The firestorm eventually engulfed 4.4 square miles of the city, killing anyone who had not escaped in the first minutes after the attack. One postwar study of the victims of Hiroshima found that less than 4.5 percent of survivors suffered leg fractures. Such injuries were not uncommon; it was just that most who could not walk were engulfed by the firestorm.

Hiroshima mourns atomic bomb anniversary

Some 50,000 people gathered Thursday at the peace park in Hiroshima to mourn the 64th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city by U.S. forces during the World War II.

Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba delivered a peace declaration, calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons by 2020.

“The hibakusha still suffer a hell that continues,” said Akiba.

“The Japanese government should support hibakusha, including those who were victims of black rain and those who live overseas,” he said.

It was reported Wednesday that the Japanese government aims to come to an agreement with all atomic bomb survivors who have sued the government for financial support to help them pay medical bills for illnesses related to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Akiba also said “The year 2020 is important as we want to enter a world without nuclear weapons with as many hibakusha as possible. We call on the world to join forces with us to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020.”

Referring to the movements such as the environmentalists, Akibasaid, “Global democracy that respects the will of the world and respects the power of the people has begun to grow.”

“We have the power. We have the responsibility. We are the Obamajority. And we can abolish nuclear weapons. Yes we can,” said the mayor.

On Wednesday, Akiba urged the people around the world to join the city’s efforts to abolish nuclear weapons in response to U.S. President Barack Obama’ s appeal for a world free of nuclear weapons.

During the 50-minute memorial ceremony, a moment of silence was observed at 8:15 a.m., the time the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima 64 years ago, killing nearly 100,000 people in a blink.

Also present at the ceremony was Prime Minister Taro Aso, who vowed to adhere to Japan’s three antinuclear principles and called for an end to nuclear weapons.

In a speech following that of Akiba, Aso said,” Japan will maintain its three non-nuclear pledges of not possessing, not producing and not allowing nuclear weapons.”

“The government will continue to do all it can to help survivors of the atomic bombings,” he said.

The U.S. bombing of Hiroshima, which took place on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, led to the deaths of an estimated 140,000 people toward the end of World War II.

On Aug. 9, a second nuclear bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, and six days later, Japan surrendered. In the years since the war, many people have developed diseases that are considered to be related to exposure to radiation created by the bombs.

See also:
Japan commemorates Hiroshima anniversary
Korean A-bomb survivors mark Hiroshima anniversary
Today Marks 64th Anniversary of the World’s First Atomic Bomb Attack, Local Vet Reflects
World War II Veterans remember the bombing of Hiroshima
Poll: Use of atomic bombs in WWII OK
The Hiroshima Rorschach Test
Hiroshima anniversary time to renew commitment to disarm – top UN officials

/and those who believe the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were cruel, unnecessary, or didn’t save lives on both sides, might want to read up on Operation Downfall

Hiroshima

Back in the day on August 6th, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb named “Little Boy” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. In the last phases of World War II, the devastating blast from the B-29 bomber known as the “Enola Gay” killed an estimated 140,000 people, the grand majority of which were civilians. Many in Hiroshima died instantly while tens of thousands more succumbed to radiation poising in the following years. The massive death wrought by the first usage of atomic weaponry in human history was rationalized under the context that it saved lives by hastening Japan’s surrender. However, historian Howard Zinn has argued against the notion citing General Eisenhower and Admiral Leary in making the case that Japan was on the verge of surrendering and that the bombing was unnecessary.

Sixty-four years later, however, a majority of people in the United States remained unconvinced by the Zinn Master’s work. According to a new poll, sixty-one percent still contend that the bombing was “the right thing to do.”

Today is the 64th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is, possibly now more than ever, a controversial subject. Warren Kozak of the Wall Street Journal sums it up nicely:

At the time of the event, 85% of the American public favored dropping the atomic bombs, according to a Gallup poll (10% disapproved). Over the years, that attitude has changed. By 2005, Gallup found only 57% of Americans thought the bomb was necessary, while 38% disapproved. Most of those polled were born after the event.

In August 1945, much of the world was exhausted after six long years of total war and tens of millions of deaths. Most people that summer didn’t quite understand the implications of Hiroshima. All they knew was that the atomic bomb was some sort of new, extremely powerful device that was the result of a top-secret project. It was a demonstration of the amazing technical superiority of the United States—not unlike the moon landing 24 years later.

But even before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, doubts about its use surfaced within the group of physicists who created it. Albert Einstein, who first brought the atomic bomb to FDR’s attention, along with Leo Szilard, who was instrumental in building it, were both opposed to using it against Japanese civilians.

As time has passed, the army of doubters has grown. These critics argue that Japan was all but defeated by August 1945 and the bombs were unnecessary. The incendiary bombing campaign had already destroyed most of Japan’s cities, they say, and the mining of the inland waterway brought its war production down to practically nothing. Its citizens were undernourished and there was practically no fuel or any other raw material left in the country. Japan, according to this school of thought, was a spent nation just waiting for the best possible deal from the Allies. Much of this is true.

On the other side, those who believe the bombing was necessary point out that unlike Nazi Germany, which collapsed during its final days, the Japanese fought more ferociously as the Americans drew closer to the mainland. Almost all were willing to die for their emperor, having demonstrated this in each island invasion leading up to what would have been the largest amphibious landing of all time. Americans were growing weary of the death telegrams that came by the hundreds and thousands to cities and towns across the country. Gen. George C. Marshall, the Army chief of staff, worried that Americans would not be able to sustain their commitment to the war if the invasion of Japan proved to be a long, costly battle.

The Japanese were banking on this as well. At the time that the bombs were dropped, battle-hardened G.I.s were being rotated from Europe back to the U.S. and then sent on to staging areas in the Pacific. The first wave of the invasion under the command of Gen. Douglas MacArthur was scheduled to land in November 1945, with a second wave in March 1946. Hospitals were being quickly built in the Mariana Islands to accommodate the thousands of expected wounded. What Americans eventually found in Japan after the surrender more than proved that Japan was preparing to repel the invasion, not just with its military but with civilian suicide squads as well.

I will be the first to admit that I am not a historian, so I will not attempt to offer  historically-based arguments in support of dropping the bomb. For me, as always, it is a question of the individual. The pertinent question is: which nation had violated the rights of the other? The number of lives lost by either side with either course of action (meaning: whether or not the atomic bomb had been dropped) is largely irrelevant. The germane fact to be considered is which side bore moral responsibility for the war. A government’s primary purpose is to protect its citizens from force. Any government, operating within its proper role, must never place the life of any foreigner above the life of one of its citizens – with “citizens” absolutely including military personnel.

The fact of the matter is that governments do not arise out of thin air, they are (most often) a product of the philosophical premises held and actions taken by the population of that government’s nation. So using “innocent” to describe civilians of an enemy country, is oftentimes a mischaracterization. To be sure, even the most committed enemy must certainly possess some truly innocent civilians, and it is abhorrent that these civilians should suffer at the hands of American forces for crimes they did not commit. However, our government must still place a higher value on American lives than the lives of these innocent civilians – and in doing so, America will not have acted immorally. The moral responsibility for the death of innocent civilians lies with the aggressor nation. Japan, without provocation, threatened the lives of American citizens. It was morally imperative for the U.S. Government to use whatever means necessary to end that threat. Any innocent Japanese deaths that resulted, were the moral responsibility of the Japanese government and complicit citizens – so says the law of causality.

A few years ago, responding to the Iraq War and the “Just War Theory” of self-defense, Dr. Yaron Brook published an article on war and morality. This article forms the basis of what I have written above. Below is an excerpt from Dr. Brook’s summary:

The civilian population of an aggressor nation is not some separate entity unrelated to its government. An act of war is the act of a nation—an interconnected political, cultural, economic, and geographical unity. Whenever a nation initiates aggression against us, including by supporting anti-American terrorist groups and militant causes, it has forfeited its right to exist, and we have a right to do whatever is necessary to end the threat it poses.Given that a nation’s civilian population is a crucial, physically and spiritually indispensable part of its initiation of force—of its violation of the rights of a victim nation—it is a morally legitimate target of the retaliation of a victim nation. Any alleged imperative to spare noncombatants as such is unjust and deadly.

That said, if it is possible to isolate innocent individuals—such as dissidents, freedom fighters, and children—without military cost, they should not be killed; it is unjust and against one’s rational self-interest to senselessly kill the innocent; it is good to have more rational, pro-America people in the world. Rational, selfish soldiers do not desire mindless destruction of anyone, let alone innocents; they are willing to kill only because they desire freedom and realize that it requires using force against those who initiate force. Insofar as the innocents cannot be isolated in the achievement of our military objectives, however, sparing their lives means sacrificing our own; and although the loss of their lives is unfortunate, we should kill them without hesitation.

Many will undoubtedly find this viewpoint to be extremely harsh. For any readers who do, I encourage a full reading of Dr. Brook’s article. You will find that this rational egoist view of war arises out of a commitment to reason and to individual rights, not unnecessary malice towards one’s enemies.

Man has an innate right to his own life, when another individual violates that right, that aggressor forfeits his own right to life. As Ayn Rand said “Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent.”

Author’s note: I do not endorse the entirety of Objectivist thought as I am a person of faith and believe in a higher authority. I find common ground with Objectivists because I do not believe that such a higher authority exists in the form of any earthly government, and therefore will never sacrifice my life or reason to any temporal power.

Poznasz naród po śmiechu jego. Ta stara prawda zdaje się opierać zjawisku globalizacji, bowiem po dziś dzień inaczej śmieją się Włosi, inaczej Islandczycy; polskie żarty dotykają odmiennej tematyki niż niemieckie; inne są dowcipy w Rosji, inne w Stanach Zjednoczonych. Amerykańskie poczucie humoru jest zresztą bardzo specyficzne, opiera się bowiem przede wszystkim na procesach fizjologicznych, nałogach i seksie. Żadnego abstraktu, żadnego głębszego dna, bo i po co? Śmiech dla debili jest wszak najlepszym towarem eksportowym – co roku w święta połowa polskich rodzin zarykuje się ze śmiechu przed Kevinem samym w domu, a internet zalewają tanie kreskówki produkowane chałupniczo na modłę amerykańską. Kupa, kurwa, chuj, seks, bekanie, pierdzenie, sraka, mam okres, gazowanie Żydów, defloracja, boki zrywać!

A wiecie ile dzięki powyższym słowom będę miał nadprogramowych wizyt na blogu?

Ale nie o tym miałem pisać. Dzięki Bogu, polska kultura masowa nie została jeszcze zalana wulgarnym dowcipem na taką skalę, jak ma to miejsce w Stanach. Tam nawet poważne z pozoru dzieła nie mogą się obyć bez paru fizjologicznych odgłosów, bądź krótkiej gadki o fajnych dupach. Przykładem niech będzie nakręcony w 1986 Salvador Oliviera Stone’a – jeden z lepszych filmów kiepskiego twórcy. I jeden z najbrutalniejszych obrazów świata: główni bohaterowie, amerykański reportażysta i fotograf, chodzą po ciałach zamordowanych dzieci; na ekranie widać gwałcone, a następnie mordowane w bestialski sposób kobiety; kamera pokazuje wszystko, co tylko najokrutniejszego mogło zdarzyć się na wojnie w tym zakątku świata. A wszystko to przerywane jest rozmowami bohaterów o fajnych dupeczkach, odlocie po trawce, czy po prostu typowym amerykańskim FUCK.

Prowokacja? Jeśli tak, to nadzwyczaj udana. Widziałem ten film podczas zeszłorocznego krakowskiego festiwalu OFF Camera. Słowo wstępne przed projekcją wygłosić miał sam Petr Zelenka, tak więc sala była pełna. Jakież było moje zdziwienie, gdy w scenie następującej po bestialskim mordzie grupy dzieci, jeden z amerykanów rzucał kiepski tekst o własnej żonie… a widzowie się śmiali! Pomijając poziom żartu, było to najzwyczajniej w świecie szokujące.

Kadr z filmu “Salvador” Oliviera Stone’a. Za chwilę bohaterowie zaczną rozmawiać o dupeczkach.

Nieprzypadkowo ów tekst powstał właśnie dzisiaj. Sześćdziesiąt cztery lata temu dowodzony przez Paula Tibbetsa samolot B-29 Enola Gay, nazwany na cześć matki pilota, zrzucił na Hiroszimę bombę atomową nazwanę pieszczotliwie Little Boy (Mały chłopczyk). Cóż za wyrafinowanie! Niemcy nazywali swoją śmiercionośną broń wojskowymi kryptonimami zaczerpniętymi nierzadko ze świata zwierząt, największą na świecie bombę atomową Rosjanie nazwali Iwan Wielki. Tymczasem Amerykanie w kilka sekund uśmiercili ponad sto tysięcy ludzi za pomocą małego chłopczyka! Słodkie.

Jeżeli byłyby takie same okoliczności – tak, psiakrew, zrobiłbym to znowu! Śpię spokojnie każdej nocy.

Kapitan Paul Tibbets

Uśmiechnięta załoga Enola Gay – przed chwilą zrównali z ziemią sporych rozmiarów miasto.

W ramach epilogu: ciężko mi obiektywnie ocenić opisywany film Stone’a, bo do dnia dzisiejszego nie jestem pewien, czy nie jest to jedna wielka prowokacja. Jeśli tak, to ukłony dla reżysera, cóż jednak w takim wypadku twierdzić o widzach?

Człowiek, który zniszczył Hiroszimę, do ostatnich swych dni nie żałował podjęcia misji. Co więcej, w 1976 roku z dumą podjął się rekonstrukcji swej najważniejszej misji podczas lotniczego show w Harlingen w Teksasie. Japonia była oburzona, a rząd Stanów Zjednoczonych musiał wystosować oficjalną notę przepraszającą.

Bo Japońce nie mają poczucia humoru.

Un sentito ricordo in onore di tutte tutte le vittime dell’idiozia umana !!!

6/8/9

Today, Parishioners,

is Hiroshima Day.

August 6th 1945

From Wikipedia:
After six months of intense fire-bombing of 67 other Japanese cities, followed by an ultimatum which was ignored by the Shōwa regime, the nuclear weapon “Little Boy” was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6, 1945, followed on August 9 by the detonation of the “Fat Man” nuclear bomb over Nagasaki. These are to date the only attacks with nuclear weapons in the history of warfare.

The bombs killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945, roughly half on the days of the bombings. Amongst these, 15–20% died from injuries or the combined effects of flash burns, trauma, and radiation burns, compounded by illness, malnutrition and radiation sickness. Since then, more have died from leukemia (231 observed) and solid cancers (334 observed) attributed to exposure to radiation released by the bombs. In both cities, the majority of the dead were civilians.

On May 10–11, 1945 The Target Committee at Los Alamos, led by J. Robert Oppenheimer, recommended Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and the arsenal at Kokura as possible targets. The target selection was subject to the following criteria:
• The target was larger than three miles in diameter and was an important target in a large urban area.
• The blast would create effective damage.
• The target was unlikely to be attacked by August 1945. “Any small and strictly military objective should be located in a much larger area subject to blast damage in order to avoid undue risks of the weapon being lost due to bad placing of the bomb.”

These cities were largely untouched during the nightly bombing raids and the Army Air Force agreed to leave them off the target list so accurate assessment of the weapon could be made. Hiroshima was described as “an important army depot and port of embarkation in the middle of an urban industrial area. It is a good radar target and it is such a size that a large part of the city could be extensively damaged. There are adjacent hills which are likely to produce a focussing effect which would considerably increase the blast damage. Due to rivers it is not a good incendiary target.”

The radius of total destruction was about one mile (1.6 km), with resulting fires across 4.4 square miles (11 km2). Americans estimated that 4.7 square miles (12 km2) of the city were destroyed. Japanese officials determined that 69% of Hiroshima’s buildings were destroyed and another 6–7% damaged.
70,000 – 80,000 people, or some 30% of the population of Hiroshima were killed immediately, and another 70,000 injured.

I worked in the Hiroshima University Hospital for one year

These are tears

.

.

. . .

Blessings,

Le Rev Dr

It was 64 years ago today: the Allies dropped a nuclear bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in efforts to force Japan into surrender. The bomb was dropped by the Enola Gay at 8:15 in the morning, just as schoolchildren were arriving at school and businessmen were walking to work. About 80,000 people were killed instantly (about 30% of the city’s population at the time), and in the bomb’s aftermath many thousands more would perish.

I read a great article today entitled “Remembering Hiroshima Rightly.” The author wisely points out that, amid all the political talk of nuclear weapon proliferation and the rightness or wrongness of the decision to drop the bomb, we should mostly just remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki “as two events involving massive suffering and loss of life, situated within the vast tapestry of suffering and death that was World War II.”

In our world of desensitized violence, partisan bickering and over-mediated orgies of commoditized discourse, we so often forget to remember: People died. People are dying. We should all agree on and share in the necessary mourning of humanity lost.

Two years ago, I was in Hiroshima. It was a short stop during a long trip to Japan, but it was one of the most meaningful travel experiences I’ve ever had.

The city is modern now, and bustling, full of life and food and promise. But on the day I was there, it was cloudy and rainy, suitably morose. My friends and I walked around the various memorials in the “Peace Park,” under the “52 Gates of Peace,” and in the vast museum that stands not too far from ground zero of the bomb. It was fascinating, draining, heartbreaking, hopeful, and wet (raining the whole time).

At one point an elderly Japanese woman came up to me in one of the garden areas, and tugged at my shirt.

“American?” she asked. I nodded, wondering if she was going to slap me or spit on me or something.

Instead she took my hand and clasped it in hers.

“Thank you for coming here,” she said. “Thank you seeing this.”

She smiled at me and left it at that, and I wondered what in the world that exchange meant. It was already weird enough being there, as an American, two generations removed from the Americans who made the decision to drop the bomb. It was weird that I was from Kansas City, the hometown of Harry Truman, the man who said yes to dropping the bomb.

But mostly it was just a reminder that I was alive. I was a survivor just like this old Japanese woman. I was born in a place that didn’t get bombed and I’ve thus far avoided mortal calamity. And it’s not because of anything that I’ve done. It’s just by the grace of God. In a world as unfathomable and unforgiving as this one, that’s one bit of understandable comfort that I cling to.

AUGUST 6th, 1945, WAS THE DAY THAT COL. PAUL TIBBETS FLEW THE ENOLA GAY TO HIROSHIMA  

I was 14 years old, a doorman at the Bradley theater in downtown Columbus, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and  three days later, when one was dropped on Nagasaki.  I don’t remember where I first learned about it,  but I do have recollections of the screaming headlines in the Columbus Ledger and Enquirer newspapers.  I don’t think I fully grasped the lasting effects of those blasts at the time,  just that I, like everyone else I knew, was glad that the U.S. had the weapon and not the other side. 

Atomic bomb mushroom cloud over Nagasaki, Japan, August 9th, 1945 (Photograph by the U.S. Army Air Force)

I do remember exactly where I was and what happened six days after the Nagasaki bomb was dropped, because that was when Japan surrendered,  ending the most destructive war in history.  I was on duty at the Bradley.  It was the only time I ever recall that a feature film was stopped for an announcement.  A slide came up on the screen saying that the theater was going to broadcast a bulletin from WRBL.  The projectionist connected the sound system to the radio station and we heard the announcement that Japan had surrendered and the war was over.  People cheered, of course,  then left.  The theater became virtually empty.

We could hear the mill whistles blowing and horns honking on Broadway outside the theater.  Though on duty, we just couldn’t stand it any longer,  and went out on the street to see what was happening.  Cars were circling Broadway bumper to bumper,  horns blaring away,  and the sidewalks were full of excited smiling people, and, though Columbus had no skyscrapers from which to throw confetti,  people adjusted by tearing strips off of newspapers and tossing them in the air.  The sidewalk was littered with paper.

I knew of no one at the time who said we should not have dropped the bomb.  It ended the war, and that was justification enough. Our servicemen and women would be coming home.  Besides, after four years of anti-Japanese propaganda in movies,  radio programs, magazines and newspapers,  most people had no love at all for the Japanese.  It wasn’t until later when we saw newsreels in theaters of the human suffering, mainly civilians, including children, that we started to comprehend the moral dilemma of the event.  Still, as President Truman had said,  dropping the bombs ended the war and saved possibly a million American lives and millions of Japanese lives that would have been lost in an invasion of Japan. Estimates of the time it would take to win the war without dropping the bombs ran from six months to two years. 

Col. Paul Tibbets waving from the Enola Gay, 1945 (Photo by the U.S. Army Air Force)

Once, when Colonel Paul Tibbets,  the pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima,  came through Columbus to see some old friends in the 1980’s, he gave me an exclusive interview, which aired on WTVM.  I had to promise not to reveal the location of the interview  because  Tibbets did not like for people to know his whereabouts since he could attract anti-nuclear bomb demonstrators.  

Once the interview started,  he told me, if I remember correctly,  that the crew had been told it had a special bomb on the plane, but only he, his co-pliot,  and the scientist aboard the plane who came along to arm the bomb in flight, knew what kind of bomb it was.  The rest of the crew didn’t know until they saw the mushroom cloud.  

How did he live with the knowledge of knowing the bomb killed about 140,000 people, most of them civilians?  He said that he was doing his job, and that he agreed with President Truman that it would end the war and save many more lives. 

Tibbets achieved the rank of Brigadier General before he retired in 1959.  He died in 2007.

Though there has been great proliferation of nuclear bombs in too many countries for comfort,  none has been used in war since the United States dropped them to end World War Two.  So far,  even the nationalistic fanatics have not dared use one.   The balance of nuclear terror has held.  Nobody would win in a nuclear exchange;  the world, we are told, would become uninhabitable.   The danger, however, is still very much with us.

DALAM pertemuan di Gedung Putih tanggal 18 Juni 1945, Kepala Staf AD Jenderal George C Marshall mendesak agar Jepang diserbu untuk mengakhiri perang, dan Presiden Harry S Truman juga memberikan persetujuan. Namun, meski mendukung invasi, Marshall juga menyadari kemungkinan jatuhnya korban tentara AS dalam jumlah besar, diperkirakan 69.000 orang dari kekuatan penyerbuan sebesar 190.000.

Dengan latar belakang seperti itu, pertanyaan yang jelas bisa dikemukakan adalah: ”Perlukah sebenarnya invasi ke Jepang, bahkan dengan tanpa penggunaan Bom-A pun?”

Jadi, apa alternatif untuk memaksa Jepang menyerah, tetapi tanpa invasi? Satu ide yang juga disinggung dalam sidang Gedung Putih tanggal 18 Juni 1945 adalah sekitar hasil Proyek Manhattan, yang menyebut bahwa dua bom atom bisa diperoleh untuk penggunaan operasional pada akhir Juli.

Mengantisipasi penggunaan senjata revolusioner ini, Angkatan Udara AS pun mempersiapkan pesawat dan perlengkapan lain yang dibutuhkan. Grup Komposit 509 telah diaktifkan sejak Desember 1944 di bawah komando Kolonel Paul W Tibbets Jr, di mana di dalamnya ada Skuadron Pengebom 393 yang diperkuat dengan pengebom jarak jauh B-29 Superfortress, satu-satunya pesawat Amerika yang cukup besar untuk mengangkut Bom-A pertama.

Awak skuadron ini telah berlatih di Wendover, Utah, dan pada bulan April dan Mei 1945 dipindahkan ke North Field di Pulau Tinian di Kepulauan Mariana.

Baik dalam penerbangan latihan maupun familiarisasi ke Jepang, Grup 509 telah menjatuhkan bom bercat oranye berisi 10.000 pon (sekitar 4,5 ton) TNT, yang dari segi bentuk menyerupai Bom-A Fat Man.

Komite Sasaran pada Proyek Manhattan memberi pilihan kota-kota Jepang yang akan menjadi sasaran Bom-A pertama, yakni Kokura, Hiroshima, Niigata, dan Kyoto. Akan tetapi, Menteri Perang AS Henry L Stimson melarang dilakukannya serangan terhadap Kyoto mengingat kebudayaannya yang antik sehingga kemudian dipilih kota lain.

Seiring dengan itu, berita tentang kemajuan pembuatan Bom-A terus mengalir, termasuk ke Presiden Truman. Ringkas kata, Bom-A telah siap digunakan. Sebagian besar Uranium-235 yang dibutuhkan untuk bom Little Boy diangkut dengan kapal penjelajah Indianapolis ke Tinian pada tanggal 26 Juli. Pada tanggal 2 Agustus muncul perintah operasi top secret Misi Pengeboman Khusus dengan Hiroshima sebagai sasaran primer, Kokura sasaran sekunder, dan Nagasaki sasaran tersier.

Kembali kepada misi pengeboman, misi ini harus merupakan pengeboman visual, mengandalkan pada pengamatan mata langsung, sehingga sebelumnya harus dilakukan penerbangan observasi oleh pesawat cuaca yang juga dari jenis B-29.

Pada Minggu sore, 5 Agustus, ada pemberitahuan bahwa cuaca di atas Jepang mulai cerah dan kondisi Senin pagi akan cerah untuk melaksanakan serangan siang hari secara visual. Dari sejak itu, tampaknya hitung mundur misi telah dilakukan. Awak mendapat brifing terakhir dan semuanya telah disiapkan untuk tinggal landas pra-fajar.

Waktu yang ditetapkan (Jam-J), Senin, 6 Agustus 1945, telah datang. Kolonel Tibbets membawa Enola Gay ke landasan pacu North Field dan dengan suara mesin menderu, pengebom ini tinggal landas pada pukul 02.45. Saat tinggal landas, berat kotor Enola Gay mencapai 65 ton, 8 ton di atas berat pengebom normal B-29, dan itu sebagian karena bom Little Boy sendiri beratnya sekitar empat ton.

Ketika pesawat yang terbang pada ketinggian 31.600 kaki diarahkan ke kota sasaran ini pada pukul 08.06, persiapan untuk menjatuhkan bom Little Boy yang misterius itu pun semakin intens. Semua tampak tegang dan tidak ada yang berbicara, kecuali awak pengebom (bombardier) kepada pilot. Pilot juga hanya menjawab ringkas, ”Roger.”

Tiba-tiba, suara ”Bom telah meluncur (Bomb away)!” terdengar di inter. Bom Little Boy diarahkan ke jembatan di dekat pusat kota.

Begitu bom meluncur, seketika itu juga pesawat membelok tajam. Prosedur ini telah dipraktikkan berkali-kali sebelumnya. Dengan setiap detik berlalu, ketegangan pun meningkat. Apa yang akan terjadi? Apakah senjata baru yang aneh ini akan bekerja? Jawaban yang ditunggu pun sesaat kemudian muncul.

Tepatnya 17 detik setelah pukul 08.15 pagi itu, satu kilatan sinar berwarna putih kebiruan yang murni membutakan karena terangnya dan sangat kuat membelah langit. Itu diikuti dengan tebaran panas yang luar biasa, ledakan bak ribuan petir, dan akhirnya dentuman yang mengguncangkan bumi, diikuti dengan awan debu dan puing yang bergolak membubung hingga ketinggian sekitar 50.000 kaki.

Itulah saat terjadinya apa yang oleh warga Hiroshima yang selamat disebut dengan pikadon, dari ”pika” (kilat), diikuti dengan ”don” (geledek). Bom meledak pada ketinggian di bawah 2.000 kaki atau sekitar 600 meter.

Saat itulah semua orang yang berada di dalam pesawat menyadari bahwa mereka tengah menyaksikan digunakannya senjata baru yang mengerikan, yang bisa dengan mudah mengakhiri perang. Enola Gay lalu terbang memutari Hiroshima yang pasti telah hancur, lalu mulai menjauh. Saat mereka telah berada sejauh 300 kilometer pun, awan cendawan di atas sasaran masih terlihat.

Mereka telah menyaksikan debut senjata atom. Senjata yang kemudian diketahui berkekuatan 17.000 ton TNT itu diperkirakan telah membinasakan wilayah seluas sekitar 11 kilometer persegi dari pusat ledakan (langsung di bawah ledakan bom).

Sekitar 60.000 dari 90.000 bangunan di dalam area 23 kilometer persegi hancur atau rusak berat. Hanya sedikit saja penduduk yang bisa berlindung di tempat perlindungan, dan angka korban tewas yang sebenarnya di Hiroshima tak akan pernah diketahui.

Pihak Jepang berikutnya mencantumkan nama 61.443 orang yang dipastikan tewas di tugu peringatan yang didirikan di pusat ledakan. Tiga hari kemudian, AS melakukan pengeboman terhadap kota Nagasaki pada tanggal 9 Agustus 1945.

Kontroversi Bom Atom

Sejarah memang telah terukir, tetapi kontroversi mengenai penjatuhan bom atom ke Hiroshima dan Nagasaki terus berlangsung hingga lama sesudah Perang Dunia II berakhir. Pertanyaan mendasar yang acap dimunculkan tentu saja, ”Perlukah sebenarnya Jepang dibom atom?”

Dr Taro Takemi, yang pernah menjabat sebagai Presiden Himpunan Dokter Jepang, misalnya, satu kali menyebutkan bahwa penggunaan Bom-A Amerika untuk mengakhiri Perang Dunia II ”bisa jadi justru menyelamatkan Jepang”.

Menjelang berakhirnya perang, ia menulis, ”Pihak militer telah membawa Jepang ke tingkat di mana kalau tidak menang, tidak akan menyerah.”

Padahal, menurut keyakinan Dr Takemi, Jepang pasti akan kalah dan banyak orang akan menderita bila Bom-A tidak dijatuhkan.

Bila orang meninjau bahwa Jepang akan mengorbankan seluruh bangsa seandainya tak ada serangan Bom-A, bom itu bisa dianggap sebagai penyelamat Jepang.

Mantan Duta Besar AS untuk Jepang (1961-1966) Edwin O Reischauer dan salah seorang ahli Jepang terkemuka mengatakan, ia ragu sebagian besar rakyat Jepang setuju dengan apa yang dikemukakan oleh Dr Takemi.

Ia sendiri berpandangan bahwa penggunaan Bom-A merupakan satu kesalahan pada saat itu, tetapi ia sudah berubah pendapat (karena alasan yang sama dengan Dr Takemi).

Seperti dikatakan oleh saksi uji peledakan Trinity, Bom-A sungguh mengerikan sehingga yang bisa ia pikirkan hanyalah implikasi moral bila bom itu digunakan dalam peperangan. Tapi, juga ada yang mengatakan, bukankah bangsa Jepang sendiri yang mengundang digunakannya bom itu. Kalau mereka tak melakukan serangan ke Pearl Harbor, tidak akan ada serangan Bom-A ke Hiroshima dan Nagasaki.