Opinion | The Last Survivors of an Atomic Bomb Have a Story to Tell
Opinion | The Last Survivors of an Atomic Bomb Have a Story to Tell
On the anniversaries of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we must listen to the few who can still speak to the horror nuclear weapons can inflict.
The bombs killed an estimated 200,000 men, women and children and maimed countless more. In Hiroshima 50,000 of the city’s 76,000 buildings were completely destroyed. In Nagasaki nearly all homes within a mile and a half of the blast were wiped out. In both cities the bombs wrecked hospitals and schools. Urban infrastructure collapsed.
Americans didn’t dwell on the devastation. Here the bombings were hailed as necessary and heroic acts that brought the war to an end. In the days immediately after the nuclear blasts, the polling firm Gallup found that 85 percent of Americans approved of the decision to drop atomic bombs over Japan. Even decades later the narrative of military might — and American sacrifice — continued to reign.
For the 50th anniversary of the war’s end, the Smithsonian buckled to pressure from veterans and their families and scaled back a planned exhibition that would have offered a more nuanced portrait of the conflict, including questioning the morality of the bomb. The Senate even passed a resolution calling the Smithsonian exhibition “revisionist and offensive” and declared it must “avoid impugning the memory of those who gave their lives for freedom
Was it really veterans or some group pretending to represent their interests?
according to this, the groups that protested were not just the air force association and american legion (which both lobby on behalf of veterans), but also individual WWII veterans from around the country.
as the grandchild of a (now deceased) nagasaki survivor, i have heard this rhetoric from not just veterans, but their children and grandchildren as well. in my experience interacting with them (irl, not online), i have never heard a single one criticize the atomic bombs, ever. that's just my experience, though.
it's certainly an interesting moral question.
The theory is that dropping the bombs would've brought the quickest end to the war with the least amount of lives lost. Whether that holds true or not is a hard question to answer, from what little research i've done, the japanese empire at the time was in quite the odd position, kamikaze being notable for obvious reasons. (we also did a lot of clean work after the fact IIRC, so it's not like we just left them out to dry)
i've dug a little into the sino-chinese, and tangentially sino-russo war which were earlier escapades of the japanese. They were pretty ruthless to the chinese. Empire conquesting is about as completely as you can describe it. Similar to germany, but without the bad part.
There was of course, pearl harbor, which is probably the worst attack the US has faced outside of war.
another interesting thought is the soviet military tactic of throwing human lives at the problem until it goes away, especially under stalin. the USSR itself actually tried to redefine genocide at some point to exclude your own population. (and of course modern day russia as well)
i don't personally see very much mention of the soviets tactics in regards to just throwing lives at problems, but that's another story. Regardless, the bombings of japan are something to think about in a respectful manner, as many many people died over the course of the bombings.
PS: weird fun fact, the guy that developed the fujita scale (ted fujita, i know, shocking right) was actually supposed to be in the bombing target, however due to weather the location was changed and he ended up surviving the bombings. It's kind of weirdly poetic, that the guy who didn't get bombed by the US due to weather, classified the scale used to determine the severity of tornado damage.