Nagasaki
Forty eight years ago today,
Nagasaki was devastated by an atom bomb. The blast levelled 4.7 square
kilometers in the heart of the city, killing an estimated 40,000 persons
and injuring a roughly equal number.
The world does not remember
the bombing of Nagasaki as much as it remembers the bombing of Hiroshima,
which took place three days earlier.
Yet, Nagasaki represents
a far greater tragedy than Hiroshima because Nagasaki need not have been
bombed. Nagasaki was not the primary target (Kokura was), but bad weather
prevented the bomber crew from finding Kokura, so they bombed Nagasaki
instead.
Moreover, it is not clear
that a second atom bomb should have been dropped at all. Here, one can
only speculate. One can surmise that the Japanese government, given a little
more time, might have surrendered after seeing the full dimensions of the
Hiroshima tragedy.
On the other hand, one can
also argue that many Japanese leaders, especially those in the military,
were not prepared for an unconditional surrender.
President Harry Truman of
the United States justified the dropping of the atom bombs by arguing that
the bomb ended the war more quickly. He estimated that 500,000 American
lives would be lost if the United States invaded Japan. Gen. Douglas MacArthur
estimated an invasion of Japan would cost more than a million American
casualties.
These estimates are probably
reasonable. American military planners, unaware of the secret of the atom
bomb, had thought in terms of more months of fighting. The plans called
for the invasion of Kyushu with 767,000 Alllied troops on Nov. 1, 1945.
The purpose of this invasion would be to secure the airfields to cover
the main assault on Honshu, which was scheduled for March 1, 1946. With
the surrender of Germany, it was possible to transfer 30 divisions from
Europe to the Pacific.
These invading forces would
be opposed by 2,350,000 Japanese regulars, 250,000 garrison troops and
about 32 million civilian militiamen. Because the Japanese would be defending
their own soil, they were expected to fight with zangyaku-sei -- the brutal
and savage spirit with which they had fought at Okinawa. There, over 110,000
Japanese and more than 12,000 Americans had been killed in action.
All these estimates were
rendered academic by the bomb.
The day after the bomb fell
on Nagasaki, the Japanese government substantially agreed to the demand
of unconditional surrender that the Allies had enunciated at Potsdam. Emperor
Hirohito ordered an end to all hostilities at 4 p.m., Aug. 15, Tokyo time,
telling his people that they must ``endure the unendurable and suffer the
insufferable.''
As Edwin Reischauer observed,
the Japan's leaders had expected to win the war through the superiority
of the people's will power -- and the people had responded with every ounce
of will they possessed, until they had been spiritually drained. Not just
the cities, but even the hearts of the people had been burned out.
For some time, neither Hiroshima
nor Nagasaki tried to rebuild. The damage was just too massive. It was
not until 1949 that the people in these two cities, with some prodding
from the legislature, started to rebuild. In due time, the two cities recovered
their prosperity -- but the people still remember.
Every year since 1947, the
citizens of both cities have held ceremonies to mourn and honor those who
were sacrificed in the bombings and to call for the elemination of nuclear
weapons. The cry is ``Never again!'' In Nagasaki, however, one might add,
``It need not have happened.''