Why we bombed hiroshima and nagasaki

While many died without getting medical support, those who went to the city for help died from radioactive rain. But, Japan refused to do this unconditionally.

At the beginning of August, Japan made a "negotiated peace" offer to the Allied front but it was not accepted. Hiroshima was destroyed by the atomic bomb dropped on Aug. In a message on Aug. While the Americans announced that the death toll from the atomic bombings was ,, the Japanese said it was close to half a million. Survivors called "Hibakusha," suffer from cancer, disfigurement, and hard-to-treat diseases.

The Hibakushas, whose numbers have dwindled, deliver a message on giving up nuclear weapons at commemorations held every August. But even as Truman issued his statement, a second atomic attack was already in the works. According to an order drafted in late July by Lt. Leslie Groves of the U. Army Corps of Engineers, director of the Manhattan Project, the president had authorized the dropping of additional bombs on the Japanese cities of Kokura present-day Kitakyushu , Niigata and Nagasaki as soon as the weather permitted.

Still, the effect was devastating: close to 40, people were killed instantly, and a third of the city was destroyed. The atomic bomb mushroom cloud over Nagasaki seen from Koyagi-jima on August 9, According to Truman and others in his administration, the use of the atomic bomb was intended to cut the war in the Pacific short, avoiding a U.

It Kick-Started the Cold War. I lived in Sakamotomachi — m from the hypocenter — with my parents and eight siblings. As the war situation intensified, my three youngest sisters were sent off to the outskirts and my younger brother headed to Saga to serve in the military. I worked at the prefectural office. As of April of , our branch temporarily relocated to a local school campus 2.

On the morning of August 9, several friends and I went up to the rooftop to look out over the city after a brief air raid. As I peered up, I saw something long and thin fall from the sky. At that moment, the sky turned bright and my friends and I ducked into a nearby stairwell. After a while, when the commotion subsided, we headed to the park for safety.

Upon hearing that Sakamotoma- chi was inaccessible due to fires, I decided to stay with a friend in Oura. As I headed back home the next day, an acquaintance informed me that my parents were at an air raid shelter nearby. I headed over and found both of them suffering severe burns. They died, two days later. My older sister was killed by the initial blast, at home. My two younger sisters were injured heavily and died within a day of the bombing.

My other sister was found dead at the foyer of our house. There are countless tombstones all over Nagasaki with a name inscription but no ikotsu cremated bone remains. I take solace in the fact that all six members of my family have ikotsu and rest together peacefully.

At age 20, I was suddenly required to support my surviving family members. I have no recollection of how I put my younger sisters through school, who we relied on, how we survived. I am now 92 years old.

I pray everyday that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren spend their entire lives knowing only peace. I had been diagnosed with kakke vitamin deficiency a few days earlier and had taken the day off school to get a medical exam. As my mother and I were eating breakfast, I heard the deep rumble of engines overhead. Our ears were trained back then; I knew it was a B immediately. I stepped out into the field out front but saw no planes. Bewildered, I glanced to the northeast.

I saw a black dot in the sky. A gust of hot wind hit my face; I instantly closed my eyes and knelt down to the ground. As I tried to gain footing, another gust of wind lifted me up and I hit something hard. I do not remember what happened after that. When I finally came to, I was passed out in front of a bouka suisou stone water container used to extinguish fires back then.

Suddenly, I felt an intense burning sensation on my face and arms, and tried to dunk my body into the bouka suisou. The water made it worse. It burns! I drifted in and out of consciousness for the next few days. My face swelled up so badly that I could not open my eyes.

I was treated briefly at an air raid shelter and later at a hospital in Hatsukaichi, and was eventually brought home wrapped in bandages all over my body. I was unconscious for the next few days, fighting a high fever. I finally woke up to a stream of light filtering in through the bandages over my eyes and my mother sitting beside me, playing a lullaby on her harmonica. I was told that I had until about age 20 to live. Yet here I am seven decades later, aged All I want to do is forget, but the prominent keloid scar on my neck is a daily reminder of the atomic bomb.

We cannot continue to sacrifice precious lives to warfare. All I can do is pray — earnestly, relentlessly — for world peace. I, Hayasaki, have been deeply indebted to the Heiwasuishinkyokai for arranging this meeting, amongst many other things. You have traveled far from the US — how long and arduous your journey must have been. Seventy two years have passed since the bombing — alas, young people of this generation have forgotten the tragedies of war and many pay no mind to the Peace Bell of Nagasaki.

Perhaps this is for the better, an indication that the current generation revels in peace. Still, whenever I see people of my own generation join their hands before the Peace Bell, my thoughts go out to them. May the citizens of Nagasaki never forget the day when 74, people were instantaneously turned into dust. Currently, it seems Americans have a stronger desire for peace than us Japanese.

During the war, we were told that the greatest honor was to die for our country and be laid to rest at the Yasukuni Shrine.

We were told that we should not cry but rejoice when family members died in the war effort. We could not utter a single word of defiance to these cruel and merciless demands; we had no freedoms. In addition, the entire country was starving — not a single treat or needle to be seen at the department store. A young child may beg his mother for a snack but she could do nothing — can you imagine how tormenting that is to a mother? When I walked by, they moaned in agony. I heard a man in passing announce that giving water to the burn victims would kill them.

I was torn. I knew that these people had hours, if not minutes, to live. These burn victims — they were no longer of this world. I decided to look for a water source. Luckily, I found a futon nearby engulfed in flames. There were about 40 of them. I went back and forth, from the rice paddy to the railroad tracks. They drank the muddy water eagerly. Among them was my dear friend Yamada.

I placed my hand on his chest. His skin slid right off, exposing his flesh. I was mortified. I wrang the water over his mouth. Five minutes later, he was dead. I cannot help but think that I killed those burn victims.

Would many of them have lived? I think about this everyday. We cannot shatter this momentum of peace — it is priceless. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died under the insurmountable greed of the Japanese military elite class.

We cannot forget those young soldiers who silently longed for their parents, yearned for their wives and children as they passed away amidst the chaos of war. American soldiers have faced similar hardships. We must cherish peace, even if it leaves us poor.

The smile pales when peace is taken from us. Wars of today no longer yield winners and losers — we all become losers, as our habitats become inhabitable. We must remember that our happiness today is built upon the hopes and dreams of those that passed before us.

Japan is a phenomenal country — however, we must be cognizant of the fact that we waged war on the US, and received aid from them afterwards.

We must be cognizant of the pain that we inflicted upon our neighbors during the war. Fa- vors and good deeds are often forgotten, but trauma and misdeeds are passed on from one generation to the other — such is the way the world works.