How should we remember The Bomb [of Hiroshima]?
Claim: We should remember the bomb as a victimization of Japan.
Evidence:
1)"...It killed civilians indiscriminately... an economic blockade and conventional bombing would convince Japan to surrender [instead of an atomic bomb]".
"[President Truman's] advisers had warned him to expect massive casualties".
Source: American History Textbook, American Vision, pg. 615
2)"All I can remember was a pale lightening flash for two or three seconds. Then I collapsed... It was awful, awful. The smoke was coming in from somewhere above the debris. Sandy dust was flying around".
"...I was trying to find someone who were still alive... [my friends] skull was cracked open, his flesh was dangling out from his head. He had only one eye left, and it was looking right at me.... I was in pain, too".
"At the river bank... the water was dead people. I had to push the bodies aside to drink the muddy water".
Source: When he was thirteen years old, Yoshitaka Kawamoto was in the classroom at Zakoba-cho, 0.8 km away from the hypo-center. He tells visitors from all over the world what the atomic bomb did to the people of Hiroshima and woks at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
3) "The mixing of enormous amounts of airborne irradiated materials combined with heat and thermal currents from the firestorms led to rainfall in both cities within 30-40 minutes of the bombings. As the fallout particles were mixed with carbon residue from citywide fires, the result was the awesome—and injurious—'black rain.' This 'black rain' reached ground level as sticky, dark, dangerously radioactive water. It not only stained skin, clothing, and buildings, but also was ingested by breathing and by consumption of contaminated food or water, causing radiation poisoning."
Source: http://atomicbombmuseum.org/3_radioactivity.shtml
Reasoning:
It is obvious that the bomb on Hiroshima did horrendous damage and was severely destructive to everyone around (and even far away) from the hypo-center. Even though the U.S.'s aim was mostly for Japans army/military, uncounted numbers of innocent civilians tragically died with them. In addition to the bomb on Hiroshima, the U.S. dropped a bomb on Nagasaki because U.S.'s plan failed after Hiroshima. Originally, U.S. thought that Japan would surrender after Hiroshima, but they didn't. Innocent lives were violently ripped away in Hiroshima and now Nagasaki. These lives could have been spared, had the U.S. not dropped the inhumane bombs. With the many immediate casualties that occurred within seconds after the explosions, people who didn't get killed right away were left to suffer in torment due to radioactive poisoning. The U.S. knew there was going to be radioactivity after the bombs, but to what extent, they did not know. This gigantic amount of radioactivity also tainted the land, the air, the environment, the water, and many more things. One thing that seems as though it should have been told in the Bible was the 'black rain'. This radioactive rain was made black by ash and smoke which were sucked up after the rising of the mushroom cloud. Mixed with cool humid air, the affected water fell back down on the city. Because people were so parched after the bomb, and couldn't find a sufficient source of water, many people drank the falling radioactive rain. Some short-term and long-term affects of being exposed to such radioactivity resulted in hair loss, damage to organs, damage to bone marrow, damage to blood, internal bleeding, damage to the nervous system, infertility, impaired vision, cancer, death, convulsions, vomiting, etc.... just to name a few. It was not smart nor fair to drop bombs on the Japanese- human beings for Christ's sake- when the U.S. did not know the affects of this new detrimental atomic bomb. Why did the U.S. fight war with war/ fight fire with fire? Where was the peace involved in all of this?
Claim: We should remember the bomb as a victimization of Japan.
Evidence:
1)"...It killed civilians indiscriminately... an economic blockade and conventional bombing would convince Japan to surrender [instead of an atomic bomb]".
"[President Truman's] advisers had warned him to expect massive casualties".
Source: American History Textbook, American Vision, pg. 615
2)"All I can remember was a pale lightening flash for two or three seconds. Then I collapsed... It was awful, awful. The smoke was coming in from somewhere above the debris. Sandy dust was flying around".
"...I was trying to find someone who were still alive... [my friends] skull was cracked open, his flesh was dangling out from his head. He had only one eye left, and it was looking right at me.... I was in pain, too".
"At the river bank... the water was dead people. I had to push the bodies aside to drink the muddy water".
Source: When he was thirteen years old, Yoshitaka Kawamoto was in the classroom at Zakoba-cho, 0.8 km away from the hypo-center. He tells visitors from all over the world what the atomic bomb did to the people of Hiroshima and woks at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
3) "The mixing of enormous amounts of airborne irradiated materials combined with heat and thermal currents from the firestorms led to rainfall in both cities within 30-40 minutes of the bombings. As the fallout particles were mixed with carbon residue from citywide fires, the result was the awesome—and injurious—'black rain.' This 'black rain' reached ground level as sticky, dark, dangerously radioactive water. It not only stained skin, clothing, and buildings, but also was ingested by breathing and by consumption of contaminated food or water, causing radiation poisoning."
Source: http://atomicbombmuseum.org/3_radioactivity.shtml
Reasoning:
It is obvious that the bomb on Hiroshima did horrendous damage and was severely destructive to everyone around (and even far away) from the hypo-center. Even though the U.S.'s aim was mostly for Japans army/military, uncounted numbers of innocent civilians tragically died with them. In addition to the bomb on Hiroshima, the U.S. dropped a bomb on Nagasaki because U.S.'s plan failed after Hiroshima. Originally, U.S. thought that Japan would surrender after Hiroshima, but they didn't. Innocent lives were violently ripped away in Hiroshima and now Nagasaki. These lives could have been spared, had the U.S. not dropped the inhumane bombs. With the many immediate casualties that occurred within seconds after the explosions, people who didn't get killed right away were left to suffer in torment due to radioactive poisoning. The U.S. knew there was going to be radioactivity after the bombs, but to what extent, they did not know. This gigantic amount of radioactivity also tainted the land, the air, the environment, the water, and many more things. One thing that seems as though it should have been told in the Bible was the 'black rain'. This radioactive rain was made black by ash and smoke which were sucked up after the rising of the mushroom cloud. Mixed with cool humid air, the affected water fell back down on the city. Because people were so parched after the bomb, and couldn't find a sufficient source of water, many people drank the falling radioactive rain. Some short-term and long-term affects of being exposed to such radioactivity resulted in hair loss, damage to organs, damage to bone marrow, damage to blood, internal bleeding, damage to the nervous system, infertility, impaired vision, cancer, death, convulsions, vomiting, etc.... just to name a few. It was not smart nor fair to drop bombs on the Japanese- human beings for Christ's sake- when the U.S. did not know the affects of this new detrimental atomic bomb. Why did the U.S. fight war with war/ fight fire with fire? Where was the peace involved in all of this?
"Survivors of the United States' atomic attack on Hiroshima, still hospitalized two years later, 1947."
http://life.time.com/history/hiroshima-portraits-of-survivors/?iid=lb-gal-viewagn#4
http://life.time.com/history/hiroshima-portraits-of-survivors/?iid=lb-gal-viewagn#4
"Atomic cloud rises over Hiroshima; photo taken from the B-29 Enola Gay about 30 seconds after the A-bomb exploded."
http://atomicbombmuseum.org/1_devastation.shtml
http://atomicbombmuseum.org/1_devastation.shtml
Links to Videos:
Other Sources:
- http://www.hiroshima-spirit.jp/en/museum/morgue_w17.html
- http://atomicbombmuseum.org/3_radioactivity.shtml