
Hiroshima (1946) - Tomte
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima
======
jdpedrie
I just finished reading American Caesar[0], a great biography of Douglas
MacArthur. I highly recommend it as the story of a fascinating and brilliant
man who is too little remembered today. I especially enjoyed and respected
MacArthur's place in the rebuilding of Japan; his almost absolute power gave
him space to override the more vengeful elements within the United States to
implement an extremely conciliatory post-war settlement. I don't think it's
unfair to call him the founder of the modern Japanese nation, both in terms of
governance and political economy. Though not covered in the book, the
distinctions between MacArthur's Japan and Weimar Germany are especially
stark, and it is sobering to consider what may have happened had the Japanese
fallen into the malaise which in Germany gave rise to the Stabbed In The Back
myth[1].

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/American-Caesar-Douglas-
MacArthur-188...](https://www.amazon.com/American-Caesar-Douglas-
MacArthur-1880/dp/0316024740)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-
back_myth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth)

------
nihonde
This is one of the all time greatest examples of non-fiction writing. It’s
strange and a little disappointing to see people debating the morality and
merits of warfare in the shadow of this epic achievement of long-form story
telling. The point of this story is to make the experience human, but many
comments here revert to the kind of academic finger-wagging that is a
prerequisite for bringing out the worst in civilizations.

~~~
kbutler
Yes, "the point of this story is to make the experience human", so that we can
feel and discuss "the morality and merits of warfare".

Discussion of the writing itself, divorced from the actual substance, would be
"academic finger-wagging".

~~~
chrissam
Your argument boils down to "everything is political". I understand that some
people think this -- but I don't.

I believe the goal of this writing is to convey to the reader the scale of the
bombings and some fraction of their effects on the populace. A secondary aim
is to evoke emotion in the reader. I think that's it, I don't see a political
aim.

It's facile to say "war is immoral". Inasmuch as anything is immoral, war
certainly is. But it's unclear to me how we ought to apply that axiom because
it's unclear to me that the world would be better off today if the US hadn't
entered the war, or the atomic bombs hadn't been dropped, or if the Allied
policy had been something other than pursuit of unconditional surrender.

~~~
Recurecur
> It's facile to say "war is immoral". Inasmuch as anything is immoral, war
> certainly is. But it's unclear to me how we ought to apply that axiom
> because it's unclear to me that the world would be better off today if the
> US hadn't entered the war, or the atomic bombs hadn't been dropped, or if
> the Allied policy had been something other than pursuit of unconditional
> surrender.

Nuclear weapons would have been developed whether or not the US developed
them. Thankfully, it _was_ the US, and not Germany or Japan - either of those
countries would have used them indiscriminately.

Since the development of nuclear weapons, they have been the greatest force
for peace in world history. We had two horrific world wars in the space of
just 25 years. Now, we're almost 75 years past 1945 without one.

Fingers crossed that sanity prevails and the major powers continue to be
dissuaded by MAD.

------
shubhamjain
This is a phenomenal mini-book. John Heresy does a superb job portraying the
horror of the Bomb. What surprised me most how many citizens didn't feel that
its use was inhuman.

"As for the use of the bomb, she would say, “It was war and we had to expect
it.” "

"Others were of the opinion that in total war, as carried on in Japan, there
was no difference between civilians and soldiers, and that the bomb itself was
an effective force tending to end the bloodshed, warning Japan to surrender
and thus to avoid total destruction. It seems logical that he who supports
total war in principle cannot complain of a war against civilians."

~~~
zeroname
> What surprised me most how many citizens didn't feel that its use was
> inhuman.

It's all about context. At that point in history, the Japanese forces had
already murdered millions of non-Japanese. Furthermore, firebombing campaigns
on Japan caused way more civilian casualties than the atomic bombs. The
Japanese leadership was ready to sacrifice millions in a possible ground
invasion. Fortunately, the war stopped at "only" two atomic bombs, there were
more to come...

~~~
rtpg
> The Japanese leadership was ready to sacrifice millions in a possible ground
> invasion

This point in particular comes up a lot , but there is scant actual evidence
for it. By this point in the war, the constant firebombing had destroyed any
sort of infrastructure allowing for such a strong defense. Contemporary US
military estimates of a ground invasion get nowhere near those casualty
numbers

~~~
zeroname
> This point in particular comes up a lot , but there is scant actual evidence
> for it.

There is scant evidence for this (honest question)?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Operation_K...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Operation_Ketsug%C5%8D)

> Contemporary US military estimates of a ground invasion get nowhere near
> those casualty numbers

That's pretty irrelevant, because hindsight is 20/20\. Given the conduct of
Japanese in the war, it wouldn't have seemed implausible at the time. The
soviets sacrificed millions of their people to repel the Nazis.

------
peterwwillis
If you find yourself in Western Japan, I highly recommend taking a train to
Hiroshima to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
([http://hpmmuseum.jp/?lang=eng](http://hpmmuseum.jp/?lang=eng)). The only
other place I've been that has struck me as poignantly was the Pulitzer Prize
Photographs Gallery in DC's Newseum, but of course you can't compare them.

Sounds weird, but if you come out of it really emotionally affected, go get
some chocolate from their cafe and take a break. Helps your body recover.

~~~
mschuetz
Defenitely going there next year. Will be in Osaka and Hiroshima seems like a
mandatory visit because of its enormous historic significance.

~~~
pmarreck
Just came back from a two-week Japan trip a few weeks ago. Osaka was awesome
and we’re sad we only booked one day there (on recommendation, but we’re
nightlife people and the travel agent clearly did not cater to our tastes!).
Dotonbori blew my mind.

We didn’t do Hiroshima and now I also regret that.

The people and country are beautiful and the legacy of WW2 makes me very sad.

~~~
WillPostForFood
How can you disentangle the people, the country, and the legacy of WWII?
Without the war Japan today might be an unpleasant fascist totalitarian power
ruling over most of Asia. It is hard to reconcile the Japan of today with
imperial Japan and the war crimes in Korea, China, and the Philippines.

~~~
pmarreck
I guess I'm not trying to disentangle them? The past should be recognized, but
there is a limit to how much accountability we can hold peoples and countries
to now

------
evo_9
The three things that surprised me most when I visited Hiroshima back in the
early 2000's.

1: No sitting US President has ever visited the city; only one previous
president had been there (Sorry I can't recall if that was Ford or Carter). 2:
The center or 'target' of the drop was a hospital and most of its steel
structure remained intact. 3: Nature seemed fine; trees were normal, birds
were flying, and of course plenty of cats just hanging about (which is a thing
anywhere you go in Japan it seems).

~~~
casual_slacker
They were air-detonated, I believe 200 meters above ground level, so the
damage was less than the maximum potential of the bombs.

Nagasaki is more solemn, the ground zero area has rubble visible in a glass
display area, and ruins of a brick pillar covered with scorch marks from the
historic Urakami Christian Church

~~~
petermcneeley
air detonation is for max damage. "The air burst is.. to allow the shockwave
of the fission or fusion driven explosion to bounce off the ground and back
into itself, creating a shockwave that is more forceful than one from a
detonation at ground level."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_burst](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_burst)

~~~
olliej
I assume the original commenter meant maximum specific damage - essentially
the air detonation causes a bunch of shockwave structure (pre cursor waves I
think?) that result in much increased overall damage over a much larger area
at the cost of a reduction in direct damage at the point of detonation
(essentially vaporising basically just a few buildings/block vs functionally
demolishing an entire city). There’s a documentary called (iirc) “trinity and
beyond” that covers a lot of this a at least to the level of understanding of
a non-physicist like me :)

------
dsfyu404ed
>all the buildings round about had fallen down except the Jesuits’ mission
house, which had long before been braced and double-braced by a priest named
Gropper, who was terrified of earthquakes;

I wonder if Mr. Gropper survived the war to know that the building survived
(the blast) and his actions were not in vain.

------
dang
Discussed in 2016:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11750331](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11750331)

------
justicezyx
I think this is an early piece of reporting that portraits Japan as victim.

I find this video more convincing, because most things produced by Asian
people condemning Japanese war crime during wwii is usually not well received:
[https://youtu.be/lnAC-Y9p_sY](https://youtu.be/lnAC-Y9p_sY)

This is not necessarily propaganda. But the author sure forget who caused this
tragedy and who should be held responsible. They only saw the human tragedy
suffered by people in Hiroshima. And trying to depict a scenarios that the
suffering is general human tragedy.

Of course, it’s not. It’s a tragedy of normal citizens fell for the war
propaganda, and willingly start and continue an atrocious war crime against
Asian and other peiceful living people.

~~~
equalunique
Forgetting Japan's bloody past as an imperialist power in SE Asia is
convenient when Americans are dazzled by the novelties of samurai warriors,
sushi, jujitsu, anime, zen, etc.

~~~
justicezyx
Not sure why this is down voted.

Japanese culture before wwii in general is on the more brutal and inhuman side
on the world culture spectrum.

The romanticized Japanese scenarios in American pop culture is pretty much a
product of the entertainment industry, as this op states.

------
RichardCA
The movie "Grave of the Fireflies" is a depiction of the incendiary bombing of
Kobe and its aftermath.

After watching it, I found myself challenged to explain why the bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki are considered worse.

It's here if you haven't seen it yet.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vldWhL5JQxg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vldWhL5JQxg)

------
keiferski
I happened to pick up _Manhattan Project: The Birth of the Atomic Bomb in the
Words of Its Creators, Eyewitnesses, and Historians_ in a thrift store (in
Warsaw, of all places) a few months back, and I highly recommend it. The
nuance of the situation in 1945 seems to have been entirely lost today in
2018.

Whether justified or not, there were a lot of "reasons" for the use of the
bomb that have been forgotten or are not adequately understood today. Just for
starters:

\- Many of the Manhattan Project scientists were motivated to build the bomb
before the Nazis. Indeed, this seems to be one of the single biggest reasons
for participation in the project. When it finally came out that the Germans
were far behind and posed no real threat, a significant number of scientists
quit entirely.

\- The Soviets were on the brink of invading Japan and one of the "reasons"
for the use of the atomic weapons was as a show of force / deterrent against
the Soviets, in anticipation of the upcoming Cold War.

\- The timeline was longer than I had known. Little Boy was dropped on August
6. Fat Man was dropped 3 days later, the same day that the Soviets declared
war on Japan. The Japanese didn't surrender until August 15, six days later.
The book mentioned that many historians think the Japanese were motivated to
surrender more by the Soviet threat of invasion than by the atomic bombings.

In any case, it's a fascinating story that I think any technically-minded
person would enjoy reading.

~~~
gandhium
> The Soviets were on the brink of invading Japan and one of the "reasons" for
> the use of the atomic weapons was as a show of force / deterrent against the
> Soviets

Soviet invasion of Japan was discussed in detail on Yalta conference. Don't
you think it was a little too late to deter Soviets by bombing Japan?

> The book mentioned that many historians think the Japanese were motivated to
> surrender more by the Soviet threat of invasion than by the atomic bombings.

Japanese emperor mentioned both of them when he addressed the nation. I wonder
why those historians wasn't aware of that.

------
malinens
page on firefox becomes blank while scrolling

~~~
auiya
Use reader view, much nicer that way.

------
sungju1203
they deserved for what they have done.

------
cdmckay
I don’t get it: why doesn’t the USA get more flak for being the only country
that has used nukes on people?

This is a horrific crime against humanity that this happened not once, but
twice. Two bombs that killed ~250,000 people.

The USA should be building monuments as a reminder of how they should never
let it happen again. Instead, they are taught that it was necessary to end the
war.

~~~
icelancer
> Instead, they are taught that it was necessary to end the war.

That is not what we are taught.

What we are taught is that it was a terrible evil that was judged to be the
better option of two evils. This is still potentially not true, and in
hindsight with knowledge that the Japanese were not nearly as stubborn as we
thought they were, it looks terrible. But these are luxuries afforded to
people with the Internet and decades of time to analyze the situation that
President Truman did not have.

Only idiots in America think that it was necessary to end the war. Quit
knocking down strawmen.

~~~
sydd
> But these are luxuries afforded to people with the Internet and decades of
> time to analyze the situation that President Truman did not have.

This is a bit like forgiving Nazis because they did not have the internet to
read about Jews that they are not so evil.

~~~
ReptileMan
No - it was use nukes or waste 250000 to 500000 US lives (and possibly allow
Stalin to occupy half of japan) to make them surrender.

~~~
sydd
According to the official U.S. standpoint. According to others Japan was
already on the verge of collapse - supply chains broken, morale very low and
all their allies were surrendering.

Its very much possible the Japan would have surrendered a few months later
anyway if the US does keeps up the sea blockade and does a few more normal
bombing runs.

NOTHING justifies killing 200.000 civilians, its a war crime.

~~~
ReptileMan
I doubt that they would have surrendered in couple of months in a way that
would have not exposed Americans to risk of losing their lives.

------
chunsj
And current Japan is trying to rebuild their Army.

------
utam0k
I'm a student in Japan. The story of Hiroshima is before I was born, but I
hear it often.

Speaking of nuclear we had nuclear meltdown in Fukushima a while ago.

~~~
asutekku
Where are you studying? I’m on an exchange in Hirodai.

~~~
utam0k
I am in Shimane prefecture above Hiroshima. Because it is near, I often go to
Hiroshima. I have been to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

