Nagasaki Remembers

By the year 1945 Nagasaki had been subjected to five different waves of conventional aerial bombing by United States air forces. Air raids had sounded a few days before each of these attacks as American airplanes flew over the city. These airplanes were not dropping bombs, however, they were dropping leaflets.

In the Nagasaki Bomb Museum we saw the charred, framed remains of such a leaflet. It displays the face of a clock with the hands set to 11:55 pm. By each of the the numbers around the clock-face are depictions of islands that had already fallen to the allies—Iwo Jima, Tarawa, Tinian, Okinawa, and so on. At the 12 o’clock midnight position there appears a tiny map of Japan. The message is: “Time is running out. You’re next. Evacuate.” The text on the leaflet urges civilians to stop aiding the Japanese war effort and to leave the city. Such leaflets were routinely dropped on all primary U. S. bombing targets a day or two before an attack.

Unfortunately these leaflets had become all too common in Nagasaki, so the people ignored them. Nagasaki’s factories and shipyards had been bombed repeatedly, but they were still operating. Besides, civilians disillusioned by the war dared not resist the overwhelming power of the military government. The number of dissenters was growing, but everyone had to go along whether they wanted to or not. The leaflets had little effect.

About 8 am on Thursday August 9, 1945 Major Charles W. Sweeney lifted off his B-29 bomber from the runway on Tinian Island. The aircraft carried the new secret weapon of the allies, one 10,800-pound bomb nicknamed “Fat Man.” Major Sweeney’s primary target was the large industrial city of Kokura. Upon arriving there, bad weather prevented the bombardier from identifying his target. At the same time his B-29 started receiving anti-aircraft fire. Major Sweeney decided to deliver the bomb to their secondary target, Nagasaki.

When the B-29 arrived clouds obscured Nagasaki as well. As the airplane approached the downtown area, Captain Kermit Beahan, the bombardier, looked for his target, a bridge over the Uragami River. Through a momentary break in the clouds, he caught a glimpse of the city’s stadium, which he knew to be near the bridge, and he pulled a lever, dropping his payload. At 11:02 am a plutonium bomb with the explosive power of 21 million tons of TNT detonated 1,650 feet over downtown Nagasaki, instantly killing approximately 64,000 civilians.

We visited the Nagasaki Bombing Museum and the nearby Peace Park. A group of schoolchildren stood at attention during a ceremony to honor the dead. We heard a testimony from a survivor who was 3 years old at the time of the blast. Like the museum in Hiroshima, the one here does not attempt to blame or exonerate either side. The Japanese themselves are aware of the atrocities their government committed in China, Manchuria and in the Second World War. Like Americans, they are divided about whether the atom bombs were a necessary evil. The museum’s presentation does not argue the point. It seeks simply to depict the physical facts related to the bombing. The entrance to the museum holds an inscription summarizing its position: “May the atomic bomb that fell here be the last nuclear weapon ever to be used.”Read more