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Hiroshima Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath
The first narrative history of the nuclear attack told from both the Japanese and American viewpoints.
Japan 1945. In one of the defining moments of the twentieth century, more than 100,000 people were killed instantly by two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by US Air Force B29s. Hundreds of thousands more succumbed to their horrific injuries, or slowly perished of radiation-related sickness.
Hiroshima Nagasaki tells the story of the tragedy through the eyes of the survivors, from the twelve-year-olds forced to work in war factories to the wives and children who faced it alone. Through their harrowing personal testimonies, we are reminded that these were ordinary people, given no warning and no chance to escape the horror.
American leaders claimed that the bombings were 'our least abhorrent choice' and fell strictly on 'military targets'. Even today, most people believe they ended the Pacific War and saved millions of American and Japanese lives. Hiroshima Nagasaki challenges this deep-set perception, revealing that the atomic bombings were the final crippling blow to the Japanese in a stratgic air war waged primarily against civilians.
Japan 1945. In one of the defining moments of the twentieth century, more than 100,000 people were killed instantly by two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by US Air Force B29s. Hundreds of thousands more succumbed to their horrific injuries, or slowly perished of radiation-related sickness.
Hiroshima Nagasaki tells the story of the tragedy through the eyes of the survivors, from the twelve-year-olds forced to work in war factories to the wives and children who faced it alone. Through their harrowing personal testimonies, we are reminded that these were ordinary people, given no warning and no chance to escape the horror.
American leaders claimed that the bombings were 'our least abhorrent choice' and fell strictly on 'military targets'. Even today, most people believe they ended the Pacific War and saved millions of American and Japanese lives. Hiroshima Nagasaki challenges this deep-set perception, revealing that the atomic bombings were the final crippling blow to the Japanese in a stratgic air war waged primarily against civilians.
640 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
About the author
Paul Ham
28 books147 followersPAUL HAM is a historian specialising in 20th century conflict, war and politics. Born and raised in Sydney, Paul has spent his working life in London, Sydney and Paris. He teaches narrative non-fiction at SciencesPo in Reims and English at l'École de guerre in Paris. His books have been published to critical acclaim in Australia, Britain and the United States, and include: 'Hiroshima Nagasaki', a controversial new history of the atomic bombings (HarperCollins Australia 2010, Penguin Random House UK 2011, & Pan Macmillan USA 2014-15); '1914: The Year The World Ended' (Penguin Random House 2013); 'Sandakan' (Penguin Random House 2011); 'Vietnam: The Australian War' and 'Kokoda' (both published by HarperCollins, 2007 and 2004). Paul has co-written two ABC documentaries based on his work: 'Kokoda' (2010), a 2-part series on the defeat of the Japanese army in Papua in 1942 (shortlisted for the New York Documentary prize); and 'All the Way' (2012), about Australia's difficult alliance with America during the Vietnam War, which he also narrated and presented (it won the UN's Media Peace prize). Paul is the founding director of Hampress, an independent ebook publisher, and a regular contributor to Kindle Single, Amazon's new 'short book' publishing platform, for which he has written '1913: The Eve of War' and 'Young Hitler', co-written 'Honey, We Forgot the Kids', and published several titles by other authors. Hampress welcomes your ideas! A former Australia correspondent for The Sunday Times (1998-2012), Paul has a Masters degree in Economic History from London School of Economics. He lives in Sydney and Paris, and takes time off now and then to organise the Big Fat Poetry Pig-Out, an annual poetry recital, for charity.
Some relevant links:
http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Ham/e/B001...
https://www.hampress.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ham
http://us.macmillan.com/hiroshimanaga...
http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/hir...
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18...
http://www.amazon.com/Sandakan-Paul-H...
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42...
http://www.randomhouse.com.au/authors...
http://www.harpercollins.com.au/97807...
Some relevant links:
http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Ham/e/B001...
https://www.hampress.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ham
http://us.macmillan.com/hiroshimanaga...
http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/hir...
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18...
http://www.amazon.com/Sandakan-Paul-H...
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42...
http://www.randomhouse.com.au/authors...
http://www.harpercollins.com.au/97807...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 139 reviews
December 11, 2020
In the beginning of the Pacific War the Allies heavily underestimated Japan. In 1945 they heavily overestimated it. The Japanese had tried with all their worth to persuade their enemy that they would fight to the last man, woman, or child, and they had succeeded. It appeared to the Allies that they were facing an enemy that resembled "a kind of a unnatural spirit that seemed to glorify cruelty and death." Joseph Grew, US ambassador to Japan for 10 years, warned in 1943, "I know Japan ... I know the Japanese intimately. The Japanese will not crack. They will not crack morally or physically or economically, even when eventual defeat stares them in the face ... Only by utter physical destruction or utter exhaustion of their men and materials can they be defeated."
As countless examples demonstrated, the Japanese didn't show any mercy – Unit 731, the brutal bayonetting of 160 Australian prisoners in Rabaul, cannibalism – and the evidence of their warcrimes filled the Allied minds with strong hatred against all Japanese people. Thus, in the immediate aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, American consciences were settled: the atomic bomb had avenged Pearl Harbor (the fact that the Tokyo Raid had already "avenged" it apparently didn't matter) and other war crimes, saved hundreds of thousands Americans from a potential destructive invasion of Japan's Home Islands, and ended the war. The press repeatedly assured the public that the targets were "military." In a poll published on 26 August 1945 85% of Americans said they approved of the bombing.
Truman and the rest of the politicians also "stuck to their guns": War Secretary Stimson, for example, claimed that the USA used to the bomb as "our last abhorrent choice", suggesting that Washington and the Pentagon had "wrestled painfully with alternatives."
As Paul Ham reveals in his book, however, everyone involved in the decision-making process presistently dismissed all other possible courses of action, such as warnings, demonstrations, or an attack on actual military targets. The atomic strikes, he argues, were a desirable outcome, not a regrettable last resort, and the administration focused on how, not whether, to use nuclear weapons. Ham quotes Churchill's words: "The decision whether or not to use the atomic bomb to compel the surrender of Japan was never an issue." If the Japanese had surrendered completely earlier, their surrender would have frustrated the plan to use the weapons, which was not the Pentagon's goal: the American leaders were absolutely determined to use the atomic bombs, and their policy was consistent with their decision. Truman had always been opposed to invasion of the Home Islands anyways. The mere thought of several hundred Okinawas on the shores of Nippon apalled him.
Another claim Stimson used to justify the attack was that the bombing ended WWII. Yet, as Paul Ham shows, there's no evidence that the Japanese leaders' surrender was a direct response to the nuclear attack. In fact, the staunch militarists in Tokyo barely acknoweledged the annihilation of the two cities, simply adding them to the list of 66 already destroyed. Bombed Japan didn't even stop clinging to its terms of "conditional surrender" – the retention of the Emperor – to the very end; a nation ready to sacrifice all its people could not be cowered with "a mushroom cloud in the sky", which wasn't even photographed. On the other hand, the Soviet Union's threats and subsequent invasion drove Japan to accept surrender much more effectively. As Ham explains, the Russians fought "iron with iron, battalion with battalion. This was a war Tokyo's samurai leaders understood, a clash they respected – in stark contrast to America's incendiary and atomic raids, which they saw as cowardly attacks on defenseless civilians".
Aside from proving his argument with meticulous research, Paul Ham offers insight into the "secret that would astonish the earth" from the aftermath of the meeting in Yalta, where Roosevelt and Churchill arrived already bound by a private agreement, signed on 19 September 1944 in Washington, not to share with the Soviet Union or the rest of the world the development of the atomic bomb, to the approvement of the bomb's development in 1939, after a letter from Einstein to Roosevelt, to the launching of the Manhattan Project in 1942. Ham paints vivid portraits of the project's leaders – Groves, tyrannical, unyielding, a master of of industrial engineering with extraordinary administrative and organisational skills that qualified him as "possibly the only man willing or able to attempt to build an atomic bomb in the time available [Stimson envisaged the production of 'a bomb a month' by 1 July 1944]" and Julius Robert Oppenheimer, tall, thin but with exceptional intellectual and admnistrative gift. The two men began what Ham pronounces "one of the oddest and most effective working pertnerships in American history."
An interesting part of the book was Ham's chronicle of the debate of the Target Committee, which met in Oppenheimer's office in Los Alamos, Mexico, the site of the bomb's laboratory. The committee focused on selecting the best military targets within Japan. Among the most suitable cities were – according to them – Kyoto, a large urban city with population of one million, and Hiroshima, an important army depot and port of embarkation. Remarkably, the committee barely discussed the possibility of targeting real military targets or even the two chosen cities' military attributes – Hiroshima's main industrial and miltary districts were actually located outside the city. Kyoto, which was recommended by Groves because of its beautiful wooden shrines and temples, had no significant military installations at all. In the end of the meeting, all members unanimously agreed that the bomb should be dropped on a large urban area, and the psychological impact should be "spectacular."
Paul Ham's book gives voice to Hiroshima's and Nagasaki's civillians before and after the raid, emphasizing that they were people, not faceless targets. For example, the diary of Yoko Moriwaki, a 12-year-old schoolgirl from Hiroshima who was among the youngest of the city's many mobilized children, is quoted. "Today, a new student called Adako Fujita joined our class," writes she in her diary. "She is an evacuee from Osaka. She was still in Osaka when 90 of those B-29s attacked the city and will be coming to school every day from Jogozen. I am going to be her friend ... Labor service began today, at last. Our job is to clear away 70 buildings, starting from the local courthouse. Most of the rubble has already been cleared away, but I am going to work hard and do the best job I can anyway."
This and similar accounts left a huge impact on me.
In summary, Paul Ham has done a great job both graphically chronicling the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and questioning the trustworthiness of its official rationale and its moral implications. Grippingly written and meticulously researched. Recommendable.
As countless examples demonstrated, the Japanese didn't show any mercy – Unit 731, the brutal bayonetting of 160 Australian prisoners in Rabaul, cannibalism – and the evidence of their warcrimes filled the Allied minds with strong hatred against all Japanese people. Thus, in the immediate aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, American consciences were settled: the atomic bomb had avenged Pearl Harbor (the fact that the Tokyo Raid had already "avenged" it apparently didn't matter) and other war crimes, saved hundreds of thousands Americans from a potential destructive invasion of Japan's Home Islands, and ended the war. The press repeatedly assured the public that the targets were "military." In a poll published on 26 August 1945 85% of Americans said they approved of the bombing.
Truman and the rest of the politicians also "stuck to their guns": War Secretary Stimson, for example, claimed that the USA used to the bomb as "our last abhorrent choice", suggesting that Washington and the Pentagon had "wrestled painfully with alternatives."
As Paul Ham reveals in his book, however, everyone involved in the decision-making process presistently dismissed all other possible courses of action, such as warnings, demonstrations, or an attack on actual military targets. The atomic strikes, he argues, were a desirable outcome, not a regrettable last resort, and the administration focused on how, not whether, to use nuclear weapons. Ham quotes Churchill's words: "The decision whether or not to use the atomic bomb to compel the surrender of Japan was never an issue." If the Japanese had surrendered completely earlier, their surrender would have frustrated the plan to use the weapons, which was not the Pentagon's goal: the American leaders were absolutely determined to use the atomic bombs, and their policy was consistent with their decision. Truman had always been opposed to invasion of the Home Islands anyways. The mere thought of several hundred Okinawas on the shores of Nippon apalled him.
Another claim Stimson used to justify the attack was that the bombing ended WWII. Yet, as Paul Ham shows, there's no evidence that the Japanese leaders' surrender was a direct response to the nuclear attack. In fact, the staunch militarists in Tokyo barely acknoweledged the annihilation of the two cities, simply adding them to the list of 66 already destroyed. Bombed Japan didn't even stop clinging to its terms of "conditional surrender" – the retention of the Emperor – to the very end; a nation ready to sacrifice all its people could not be cowered with "a mushroom cloud in the sky", which wasn't even photographed. On the other hand, the Soviet Union's threats and subsequent invasion drove Japan to accept surrender much more effectively. As Ham explains, the Russians fought "iron with iron, battalion with battalion. This was a war Tokyo's samurai leaders understood, a clash they respected – in stark contrast to America's incendiary and atomic raids, which they saw as cowardly attacks on defenseless civilians".
Aside from proving his argument with meticulous research, Paul Ham offers insight into the "secret that would astonish the earth" from the aftermath of the meeting in Yalta, where Roosevelt and Churchill arrived already bound by a private agreement, signed on 19 September 1944 in Washington, not to share with the Soviet Union or the rest of the world the development of the atomic bomb, to the approvement of the bomb's development in 1939, after a letter from Einstein to Roosevelt, to the launching of the Manhattan Project in 1942. Ham paints vivid portraits of the project's leaders – Groves, tyrannical, unyielding, a master of of industrial engineering with extraordinary administrative and organisational skills that qualified him as "possibly the only man willing or able to attempt to build an atomic bomb in the time available [Stimson envisaged the production of 'a bomb a month' by 1 July 1944]" and Julius Robert Oppenheimer, tall, thin but with exceptional intellectual and admnistrative gift. The two men began what Ham pronounces "one of the oddest and most effective working pertnerships in American history."
An interesting part of the book was Ham's chronicle of the debate of the Target Committee, which met in Oppenheimer's office in Los Alamos, Mexico, the site of the bomb's laboratory. The committee focused on selecting the best military targets within Japan. Among the most suitable cities were – according to them – Kyoto, a large urban city with population of one million, and Hiroshima, an important army depot and port of embarkation. Remarkably, the committee barely discussed the possibility of targeting real military targets or even the two chosen cities' military attributes – Hiroshima's main industrial and miltary districts were actually located outside the city. Kyoto, which was recommended by Groves because of its beautiful wooden shrines and temples, had no significant military installations at all. In the end of the meeting, all members unanimously agreed that the bomb should be dropped on a large urban area, and the psychological impact should be "spectacular."
Paul Ham's book gives voice to Hiroshima's and Nagasaki's civillians before and after the raid, emphasizing that they were people, not faceless targets. For example, the diary of Yoko Moriwaki, a 12-year-old schoolgirl from Hiroshima who was among the youngest of the city's many mobilized children, is quoted. "Today, a new student called Adako Fujita joined our class," writes she in her diary. "She is an evacuee from Osaka. She was still in Osaka when 90 of those B-29s attacked the city and will be coming to school every day from Jogozen. I am going to be her friend ... Labor service began today, at last. Our job is to clear away 70 buildings, starting from the local courthouse. Most of the rubble has already been cleared away, but I am going to work hard and do the best job I can anyway."
This and similar accounts left a huge impact on me.
In summary, Paul Ham has done a great job both graphically chronicling the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and questioning the trustworthiness of its official rationale and its moral implications. Grippingly written and meticulously researched. Recommendable.
July 31, 2019
I can see that Paul Ham's examination of the Manhattan Project, the atomic attacks on the two titular cities and the grim aftermath of the bombings would likely polarize opinion.
The central argument of the book is that the justification for the dropping of the atomic bombs, that they brought the war to an end, is a fallacy. Indeed, even the expected capitulation of the Japanese government under the threat of a rain of atomic munitions was fatally flawed.
Ham argues, with some authority, that a national government which expected its soldiers to take on tanks with pole mines, whose trainee pilots were intended to finish their careers as guided missiles, and who failed to bat an eyelid at the incineration of thousands of its citizens every night, would hardly be likely to surrender just because cities were being annihilated in atomic blasts.
Indeed Mr Ham has very little positive to say about the USAAF's efforts over the Japanese Home Islands in particular. Curtis LeMay's firebombing policy, it's argued, for all it's fire and fury, had no great effect on the Japanese will or ability to resist because the Japanese war economy by this point simply didn't exist. All the raids did was cause human misery and prolong the racist nature of the Pacific war.
"LeMay’s concentration on civilian destruction preserved much of the nation’s war infrastructure: the visible rail network, the Kokura arsenal and vital coal ferry between Hokkaido and Honshu were still operating in mid-1945. So too were several major industrial centres. Their ‘strangulation’ would have defeated Japan ‘more efficiently’ than ‘individually destroying Japan’s cities’, according to the US Strategic Bombing Survey. LeMay was ordered not to do so, in line with his personal mission to destroy Japanese civilian morale. In the broader picture, the US naval blockade as well as Fleet Admiral William ‘Bull’ Halsey’s carrier aircraft – which attacked Japanese military targets with withering accuracy in July 1945 – destroyed Japan’s capacity to wage war more effectively than LeMay’s indiscriminate air offensive. That offensive may be judged a moral and military failure."
In the aftermath of the bombings, Ham further expands on this theme as he describes American medical and scientific teams fail to provide any medical relief for the survivors of the bombings, and in fact cause further harm by stealing any material gathered by Japanese doctors on the emerging radiation poisoning cases.
"There was never any pretence that the foreign medical teams entering Hiroshima and Nagasaki were there to ease the people’s suffering. Navy Secretary James Forrestal outlined their experimental role with crystalline clarity in a note to Truman on 18 November 1945. The study of the effect of radiation ‘on personnel’ – that is, Japanese civilians – he wrote, had started as soon as possible after Japan’s capitulation, under the auspices of the army and navy and the Manhattan Project: ‘Preliminary surveys involve about 14,000 Japanese who were exposed to the radiation of atomic fission. It is considered that the group and others yet to be identified offer a unique opportunity for the study of the medical and biological effects of radiation which is of utmost importance to the United States.’"
The argument that the Pacific War was ended not by the Bombs but by the Russian invasion of Manchuria is supported by his description of the political manoeuvring by the Japanese government in trying to broker a peace deal and is mirrored by the double dealings in Europe.
I enjoyed the book, having come to it looking for a different interpretation of events, wanting my preconceptions to be challenged and, although there was a false start, this is what I got. While I didn't necessarily agree with all of the conclusions reached, and was a little concerned by some of the references quoted - in particular his use of David Irving's The Destruction of Dresden when describing the European bombing offensives, I was generally carried by the narrative and the debate. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on the birth of nuclear science and the workings of the Manhattan Project. The chapters dealing with the two raids are harrowing and surprisingly quite short, and although I found little new in the bombing of Hiroshima I learned a lot more about the effects of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
Very much recommended to anyone interested in the war in the Far East or the start of the Cold War, or twentieth century history in general, or if you're comfortable with well written challenges to the orthodox history. As The Onion put it in The Onion Presents: Our Dumb Century, it may well have been a case of "Nagasaki bombed 'just for the Hell of it'".
The central argument of the book is that the justification for the dropping of the atomic bombs, that they brought the war to an end, is a fallacy. Indeed, even the expected capitulation of the Japanese government under the threat of a rain of atomic munitions was fatally flawed.
Ham argues, with some authority, that a national government which expected its soldiers to take on tanks with pole mines, whose trainee pilots were intended to finish their careers as guided missiles, and who failed to bat an eyelid at the incineration of thousands of its citizens every night, would hardly be likely to surrender just because cities were being annihilated in atomic blasts.
Indeed Mr Ham has very little positive to say about the USAAF's efforts over the Japanese Home Islands in particular. Curtis LeMay's firebombing policy, it's argued, for all it's fire and fury, had no great effect on the Japanese will or ability to resist because the Japanese war economy by this point simply didn't exist. All the raids did was cause human misery and prolong the racist nature of the Pacific war.
"LeMay’s concentration on civilian destruction preserved much of the nation’s war infrastructure: the visible rail network, the Kokura arsenal and vital coal ferry between Hokkaido and Honshu were still operating in mid-1945. So too were several major industrial centres. Their ‘strangulation’ would have defeated Japan ‘more efficiently’ than ‘individually destroying Japan’s cities’, according to the US Strategic Bombing Survey. LeMay was ordered not to do so, in line with his personal mission to destroy Japanese civilian morale. In the broader picture, the US naval blockade as well as Fleet Admiral William ‘Bull’ Halsey’s carrier aircraft – which attacked Japanese military targets with withering accuracy in July 1945 – destroyed Japan’s capacity to wage war more effectively than LeMay’s indiscriminate air offensive. That offensive may be judged a moral and military failure."
In the aftermath of the bombings, Ham further expands on this theme as he describes American medical and scientific teams fail to provide any medical relief for the survivors of the bombings, and in fact cause further harm by stealing any material gathered by Japanese doctors on the emerging radiation poisoning cases.
"There was never any pretence that the foreign medical teams entering Hiroshima and Nagasaki were there to ease the people’s suffering. Navy Secretary James Forrestal outlined their experimental role with crystalline clarity in a note to Truman on 18 November 1945. The study of the effect of radiation ‘on personnel’ – that is, Japanese civilians – he wrote, had started as soon as possible after Japan’s capitulation, under the auspices of the army and navy and the Manhattan Project: ‘Preliminary surveys involve about 14,000 Japanese who were exposed to the radiation of atomic fission. It is considered that the group and others yet to be identified offer a unique opportunity for the study of the medical and biological effects of radiation which is of utmost importance to the United States.’"
The argument that the Pacific War was ended not by the Bombs but by the Russian invasion of Manchuria is supported by his description of the political manoeuvring by the Japanese government in trying to broker a peace deal and is mirrored by the double dealings in Europe.
I enjoyed the book, having come to it looking for a different interpretation of events, wanting my preconceptions to be challenged and, although there was a false start, this is what I got. While I didn't necessarily agree with all of the conclusions reached, and was a little concerned by some of the references quoted - in particular his use of David Irving's The Destruction of Dresden when describing the European bombing offensives, I was generally carried by the narrative and the debate. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on the birth of nuclear science and the workings of the Manhattan Project. The chapters dealing with the two raids are harrowing and surprisingly quite short, and although I found little new in the bombing of Hiroshima I learned a lot more about the effects of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
Very much recommended to anyone interested in the war in the Far East or the start of the Cold War, or twentieth century history in general, or if you're comfortable with well written challenges to the orthodox history. As The Onion put it in The Onion Presents: Our Dumb Century, it may well have been a case of "Nagasaki bombed 'just for the Hell of it'".
February 2, 2012
‘We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world.’ (Harry S. Truman 25 July 1945)
In an interview, Paul Ham said that it took him four years to write this book: 2.5 years of research and 1.5 years to write and edit. He said that he chose this topic because ‘I have always felt that there is something wrong with American narratives that attempt to justify the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in a nuclear holocaust.’ After researching and analysing the core archives, Paul Ham said he ‘felt a strong impulse to write an accurate account of the bomb, and to dissect the truth from the lies and popular myths.’
The lead up to August 1945, and the aftermath, is covered from a number of different angles: historical and political as well as military and scientific. Aspects of the book are based on extensive interviews with eighty survivors and depict the human communities of the two cities before and after they were destroyed. So much of the damage was civilian: schools, hospitals, and the homes of so many – primarily women, children and the aged.
‘It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.’
Paul Ham writes that the orthodox view of why the atomic bombs were dropped is President Harry S Truman’s justification (enunciated two years after the decision was made) that the bombs saved the necessity of invading Japan and the loss of one million American servicemen. Ham scrutinises this ex post facto justification: pointing out that the atomic bombs were not the only option and, in any case, Japan was rapidly running out of the raw materials required in order to continue.
General Curtis LeMay, like the RAF’s Air Vice Marshall ‘Bomber’ Harris (who ordered the area bombing of Hamburg and Dresden) believed that Japan’s military leaders could be shamed into surrender if their cities and civilian population were blanket bombed. The dropping of Little Boy and Fat Man was an extension of that strategy and while these bombs killed thousands of civilians, it apparently had little impact on the Japanese war machine or those directing it. Or did it? Surely it’s not total coincidence that Japan surrendered just days after Nagasaki was bombed.
In Ham’s view, what really led to the Japanese surrender was Stalin’s sudden entry into the war in the Pacific. The Japanese generals could see one million Soviet troops pouring into Manchuria, ready to invade Japan and to avenge the Russian defeat of 1904-05.
‘The Japanese people had kept their Emperor and lost an empire.’
Having read the book, having had some of my views and assumptions challenged, I’m still forming my own conclusions – especially on the role of science and the responsibility of scientists. Revisiting the choices made in 1945 is important: can we apply learning from the past to an unknown future?
‘Total war had debased everyone involved.’ As it does, and will continue to do.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
In an interview, Paul Ham said that it took him four years to write this book: 2.5 years of research and 1.5 years to write and edit. He said that he chose this topic because ‘I have always felt that there is something wrong with American narratives that attempt to justify the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in a nuclear holocaust.’ After researching and analysing the core archives, Paul Ham said he ‘felt a strong impulse to write an accurate account of the bomb, and to dissect the truth from the lies and popular myths.’
The lead up to August 1945, and the aftermath, is covered from a number of different angles: historical and political as well as military and scientific. Aspects of the book are based on extensive interviews with eighty survivors and depict the human communities of the two cities before and after they were destroyed. So much of the damage was civilian: schools, hospitals, and the homes of so many – primarily women, children and the aged.
‘It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.’
Paul Ham writes that the orthodox view of why the atomic bombs were dropped is President Harry S Truman’s justification (enunciated two years after the decision was made) that the bombs saved the necessity of invading Japan and the loss of one million American servicemen. Ham scrutinises this ex post facto justification: pointing out that the atomic bombs were not the only option and, in any case, Japan was rapidly running out of the raw materials required in order to continue.
General Curtis LeMay, like the RAF’s Air Vice Marshall ‘Bomber’ Harris (who ordered the area bombing of Hamburg and Dresden) believed that Japan’s military leaders could be shamed into surrender if their cities and civilian population were blanket bombed. The dropping of Little Boy and Fat Man was an extension of that strategy and while these bombs killed thousands of civilians, it apparently had little impact on the Japanese war machine or those directing it. Or did it? Surely it’s not total coincidence that Japan surrendered just days after Nagasaki was bombed.
In Ham’s view, what really led to the Japanese surrender was Stalin’s sudden entry into the war in the Pacific. The Japanese generals could see one million Soviet troops pouring into Manchuria, ready to invade Japan and to avenge the Russian defeat of 1904-05.
‘The Japanese people had kept their Emperor and lost an empire.’
Having read the book, having had some of my views and assumptions challenged, I’m still forming my own conclusions – especially on the role of science and the responsibility of scientists. Revisiting the choices made in 1945 is important: can we apply learning from the past to an unknown future?
‘Total war had debased everyone involved.’ As it does, and will continue to do.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
June 19, 2023
Hiroshima Nagasaki [2011] – ★★★★★
“An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” M. K. Gandhi (attributed)
“The Japanese collectively were to blame…Truman drew no distinction between civilian and soldier; mother and murderer; child and monster”; “America [sic] annihilated 100.000 persons, most of them civilians, at Hiroshima…and then…,in spite of the “universal horror”, repeated the performance at Nagasaki” [Paul Ham quoting, 2011: 420, 422].
Paul Ham is an Australian author and correspondent, who in his non-fiction Hiroshima Nagasaki presents a true account of what happened to the two Japanese cities in 1945, dispelling myths that still persist about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, including that the bombs were somehow “necessary”, or that their usage led to Japan’s surrender. Starting in winter 1945, when “Roosevelt and Churchill arrived bound by a private agreement…not to share with the Soviet Union…the development of an extraordinary new weapon” [Ham, 2011: 15], continuing to the secret development of the world’s first atomic bomb, and ending with the aftermath of the tragedy, the author goes into incredible depth about what happened in the final year of the war, demonstrating the situation through statistics, broader situation invoking key actors and through personal accounts. The result is a well-researched book about one of the most unbelievable and traumatic events in the world history. Since the scope of the book and the topic is so broad, I have decided to structure my review in the following manner: (i) Events leading up to the atomic bombings; (ii) Four myths and four corresponding realities; (iii) Immediate aftermath; and (iv) Long-term consequences.
I. EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE ATOMIC BOMBINGS:
After Pearl Harbour in 1941, the Bataan Death March of 1942, and the memories of the barbaric way the Japanese treated civilians and prisoners-of-war, the US government (and the public) understandably wanted blood. The allied forces were already firebombing cities and civilians savagely in terror attacks from the air that were even later equated with the Holocaust, as the one that occurred in Dresden, Germany, when 100.000 civilians were killed in one single night [Ham, 2011: 72]. This attack was initially championed by no other than Winston Churchill, who undoubtedly followed American Air Force General LeMay’s motto “bomb and burn them until they quit” [Paul Ham, 2011: 80]. Nearly every Japanese city was also bombarded and civilian targets in particular. However, terror(fire)-bombing was not very successful in defeating the enemy’s war machine. Paul Ham’s book then talks about the development of an atomic bomb in the US and the science that went into this endeavour, before talking about how the US government started choosing which cities in Japan to bomb through their atomic power. The most surprising thing for me to discover was that Kyoto had narrowly escaped the fate of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and only because Henry Stimson, American statesman, “visited Kyoto with his wife… in 1926 and it disturbed him to think that all its marvellous temples and cultural centres could be destroyed” [Paul Ham, 2011: 179]. The first atomic bomb landed on Hiroshima at 8: 15 AM local time on 6 August 1945, and the second atomic bomb followed and landed on Nagasaki at 11: 01 AM local time on 9 August 1945.
II. MYTHS & REALITY
MYTH 1: The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were “necessary”, with no other alternative being in existence
REALITY: The US Committees were quick to set aside the so-called “alternatives” to the atomic bomb, including giving Japanese a warning, a demonstration, or “even attacking a genuine military target” [Paul Ham, 2011: 523]. The US government never seriously considered any other option, but the atomic bombing [2011: 424]. And this is despite the fact that “155 Manhattan project scientists registered their moral opposition to dropping the bomb without warning on a Japanese city”. However, these scientists were branded “crazy” by President Truman [Paul Ham, 2011: 354].
At the point when the bombs were dropped, Japan was already defeated at sea and in the air, and the Soviet Union was already in the occupied-by-Japan territories. Japan simply needed to be told that the Soviet Union declared the war, that their invasion was imminent and that the Emperor was to live. There was never any need for atomic bombs, which never forced Japan to surrender anyway (see Myth 4 below). The atomic bomb was “deployed to remove the reliance on the Russians” [2011: 224], says the author. “American insistence on unconditional surrender and the removal of the Soviet Union form the Final [Surrender] Declaration meant that the Japan continued fighting, believing that Russia was neutral to the conflict”. Had the US put the Soviet Union as the signatory to the Declaration to Japan and mentioned the Japanese royal line preservation (the death of the Emperor literary meant for the Japanese the “death” of the Japanese race), it is very likely the Japanese would have surrendered much sooner, and, of course, without the use of atomic bombs [Paul Ham, 2011: 594]. In fact, the books states that “Japan surrounded only after the Russians invasion and after the [US] effectively met Tokyo’s condition” [Ham, 2011: 532].
MYTH 2: The atomic bombs fell on “military units” “of strategic importance”
REALITY: Hospitals and schools were the ones destroyed in Hiroshima, not “military targets”. In fact, the Hiroshima bomb “exploded directly above the Shima Hospital, in the centre of Hiroshima, instantly killing all patients, doctors and nurses”, and at the Honkawa National Elementary School, 400 children! and 10 teachers were also killed instantly, among other establishments. Hiroshima’s military and factories were left almost without any damage, as well as the city’s port, where the majority of soldiers were at that time [Ham, 2011: 365]. Similarly, the atomic bomb that fell on Nagasaki destroyed much of the Christian community in the city centre, as well as hit the medical and educational districts of the city. Hospitals, schools and universities were destroyed [Ham, 2011: 18]. For example, the “Shiroyama National Elementary School saw 1400 out of 1500 children died instantly”, the Keiho Junior High School saw its 187 children perish, and, at the Yamazato School, 1300 died out of 1581 [Ham, 2011: 409]. The bomb at Nagasaki actually “missed its designated target – the Mitsubishi shipyards – and did little damage to the torpedo factory” [Ham, 2011: 458].
MYTH 3: The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “saved hundreds of thousands of American lives”
REALITY: The book demonstrates convincingly how the American land invasion of Japan on its own was never an option for the American government [Ham, 2011: 529], so there was no “lives to be saved” through the atomic bomb. At worst, the Soviet army would have landed in Japan, but, even this case would not have materialised because Japan’s greatest fear would have been realised at that point, and at the mere threat of Soviet Union’s landing, Japan would have surrendered immediately (provided the Emperor lives, too). Moreover, Paul Ham showed that there were plenty of other ways “to save American lives”, including clarifying the terms of “unconditional surrender”, offering to demonstrate the bomb to the Japanese, encouraging the Soviet Union to enter the war earlier, and retaining the Soviet Union’s signature on the Potsdam Declaration to Japan [Ham, 2011: 530]. Ham demonstrates in his book how, rather than saving lives, the priority for America was “to end the war on its own terms” (without the involvement of the Soviet Union) and without any concessions offered to the Japanese [Ham, 2011: 531].
MYTH 4: The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “forced” Japan to surrender and effectively ended the World War II
REALITY: As the book states, nothing could be further from the truth. The atomic bombs never “shocked Japan into submission”, as the US government envisaged, “Tokyo did not surrender to protect the Japanese people from the weapon; [and] the leadership had shown not the slightest duty of care towards these “innocent lives” [Paul Ham, 2011: 538]. “The Emperor, the Cabinet…had barely mentioned the atomic bomb during their long discussions; if an external threat hastened their actions, it was the Soviet invasion” [Ham, 2011: 447]. This is what the author has to say: “not a shred of evidence supports the contention that the Japanese leadership surrendered in direct response to the atomic bombs. On the contrary, Tokyo’s…militarists shrugged as the two irradiated cities were added to the tally of 66 already destroyed…they barely acknowledged the news of Nagasaki’s destruction” and “no leaders considered modifying their conditional surrender offer” [Ham, 2011: 535]. The much greater worry for Japan was the threat of the Russian invasion and its declaration of war: “the Soviet invasion on 8 August crushed the Kwantung Army’s frontline units within days, and sent a crippling loss of confidence across Tokyo. The Japanese warlords despaired” [Paul Ham, 2011: 526].
III. IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH
After the two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and, as the US government started to prepare target lists for a third atomic bomb, the state of the two Japanese cities were becoming clearer. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had little to no medical supplies, their bomb shelters were poor and they lacked qualified medical staff (80% of doctors and nurses were killed in Hiroshima) [Paul Ham, 2011: 376]. The wounded and dying only increased after just two weeks. On 22 August, 160.000 was the number in Hiroshima, and 60.000 in Nagasaki. Most suffered from severe radiation sickness (that had terrible symptoms, from bleedings, diarrhoea and vomiting, to high fever, and the inflammation of the mouth and throat) and were dying, some quickly, others slowly and in agony over weeks and even months. Miscarriages were very common. No one really knew (doctors least of all) the true nature of the new and terrifying sickness that affected all. Japanese physician Dr Hachiya was one of the first to discover that it was not thermal burns that caused the majority of serious illness and death, but radiation (he counted red blood cells) – see my review of Dr Hachiya’s diary here.
After Japan’s surrender, in September 1945, the Pentagon shortlisted 66 Soviet cities of “strategic importance” for destruction, calculating that it would require “204 atomic bombs” and these bombs would “far exceed the power of the one that destroyed Hiroshima” [2011: 540]. The result of this nuclear raid, the Pentagon report stated, “would kill, wound or displace a population of 10.151.000” [ibid].
IV. LONG-TERM CONSEQUENCES
“For nearly a decade, the world would hear nothing of the human repercussions of the atomic bombings. The occupying forces not only ignored the A-bomb survivors’ medical complaints; they refused to recognise their existence. American censors forbade media references to the atomic bomb or its effects”[Paul Ham, 2011: 496].
When Japanese doctors started talking about a radiation sickness affecting thousands and the death toll started rising (not falling after three weeks from the bombings), “the American government…sought to counter the Japanese reports, damning them as propaganda” [2011: 486], writes Paul Ham. American doctors did not share their valuable information about the dangers of the radiation with perplexed-by-the-mysterious-disease Japanese doctors who were at the loss of how to treat their patients. Instead, writes the author, American doctors were present at the site for mere “observation and testing of the A-bomb victims” [2011: 479]. In March 2009, Japanese authorities had [finally] acknowledged 235.569 people in Japan as “atomic bomb sufferers”, granting them health cover. Many suffer or suffered from leukaemia, and battled discrimination all their lives: “to Japanese society, they were untouchables, the people you did not employ or let your son or daughter marry”. Many were refused compensation, jobs, love, family…” [Paul Ham, 2011: 488].
Though at times quite difficult to read because of the subject matter, Hiroshima Nagasaki is still a very engaging book about the 1945 atomic bombings that dispels many still-prevalent myths surrounding the attacks. Paul Ham’s book about the final years of the World War II is a must-read for anyone interested in modern history and the events surrounding the development of the world’s first atomic bomb.
“An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” M. K. Gandhi (attributed)
“The Japanese collectively were to blame…Truman drew no distinction between civilian and soldier; mother and murderer; child and monster”; “America [sic] annihilated 100.000 persons, most of them civilians, at Hiroshima…and then…,in spite of the “universal horror”, repeated the performance at Nagasaki” [Paul Ham quoting, 2011: 420, 422].
Paul Ham is an Australian author and correspondent, who in his non-fiction Hiroshima Nagasaki presents a true account of what happened to the two Japanese cities in 1945, dispelling myths that still persist about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, including that the bombs were somehow “necessary”, or that their usage led to Japan’s surrender. Starting in winter 1945, when “Roosevelt and Churchill arrived bound by a private agreement…not to share with the Soviet Union…the development of an extraordinary new weapon” [Ham, 2011: 15], continuing to the secret development of the world’s first atomic bomb, and ending with the aftermath of the tragedy, the author goes into incredible depth about what happened in the final year of the war, demonstrating the situation through statistics, broader situation invoking key actors and through personal accounts. The result is a well-researched book about one of the most unbelievable and traumatic events in the world history. Since the scope of the book and the topic is so broad, I have decided to structure my review in the following manner: (i) Events leading up to the atomic bombings; (ii) Four myths and four corresponding realities; (iii) Immediate aftermath; and (iv) Long-term consequences.
I. EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE ATOMIC BOMBINGS:
After Pearl Harbour in 1941, the Bataan Death March of 1942, and the memories of the barbaric way the Japanese treated civilians and prisoners-of-war, the US government (and the public) understandably wanted blood. The allied forces were already firebombing cities and civilians savagely in terror attacks from the air that were even later equated with the Holocaust, as the one that occurred in Dresden, Germany, when 100.000 civilians were killed in one single night [Ham, 2011: 72]. This attack was initially championed by no other than Winston Churchill, who undoubtedly followed American Air Force General LeMay’s motto “bomb and burn them until they quit” [Paul Ham, 2011: 80]. Nearly every Japanese city was also bombarded and civilian targets in particular. However, terror(fire)-bombing was not very successful in defeating the enemy’s war machine. Paul Ham’s book then talks about the development of an atomic bomb in the US and the science that went into this endeavour, before talking about how the US government started choosing which cities in Japan to bomb through their atomic power. The most surprising thing for me to discover was that Kyoto had narrowly escaped the fate of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and only because Henry Stimson, American statesman, “visited Kyoto with his wife… in 1926 and it disturbed him to think that all its marvellous temples and cultural centres could be destroyed” [Paul Ham, 2011: 179]. The first atomic bomb landed on Hiroshima at 8: 15 AM local time on 6 August 1945, and the second atomic bomb followed and landed on Nagasaki at 11: 01 AM local time on 9 August 1945.
II. MYTHS & REALITY
MYTH 1: The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were “necessary”, with no other alternative being in existence
REALITY: The US Committees were quick to set aside the so-called “alternatives” to the atomic bomb, including giving Japanese a warning, a demonstration, or “even attacking a genuine military target” [Paul Ham, 2011: 523]. The US government never seriously considered any other option, but the atomic bombing [2011: 424]. And this is despite the fact that “155 Manhattan project scientists registered their moral opposition to dropping the bomb without warning on a Japanese city”. However, these scientists were branded “crazy” by President Truman [Paul Ham, 2011: 354].
At the point when the bombs were dropped, Japan was already defeated at sea and in the air, and the Soviet Union was already in the occupied-by-Japan territories. Japan simply needed to be told that the Soviet Union declared the war, that their invasion was imminent and that the Emperor was to live. There was never any need for atomic bombs, which never forced Japan to surrender anyway (see Myth 4 below). The atomic bomb was “deployed to remove the reliance on the Russians” [2011: 224], says the author. “American insistence on unconditional surrender and the removal of the Soviet Union form the Final [Surrender] Declaration meant that the Japan continued fighting, believing that Russia was neutral to the conflict”. Had the US put the Soviet Union as the signatory to the Declaration to Japan and mentioned the Japanese royal line preservation (the death of the Emperor literary meant for the Japanese the “death” of the Japanese race), it is very likely the Japanese would have surrendered much sooner, and, of course, without the use of atomic bombs [Paul Ham, 2011: 594]. In fact, the books states that “Japan surrounded only after the Russians invasion and after the [US] effectively met Tokyo’s condition” [Ham, 2011: 532].
MYTH 2: The atomic bombs fell on “military units” “of strategic importance”
REALITY: Hospitals and schools were the ones destroyed in Hiroshima, not “military targets”. In fact, the Hiroshima bomb “exploded directly above the Shima Hospital, in the centre of Hiroshima, instantly killing all patients, doctors and nurses”, and at the Honkawa National Elementary School, 400 children! and 10 teachers were also killed instantly, among other establishments. Hiroshima’s military and factories were left almost without any damage, as well as the city’s port, where the majority of soldiers were at that time [Ham, 2011: 365]. Similarly, the atomic bomb that fell on Nagasaki destroyed much of the Christian community in the city centre, as well as hit the medical and educational districts of the city. Hospitals, schools and universities were destroyed [Ham, 2011: 18]. For example, the “Shiroyama National Elementary School saw 1400 out of 1500 children died instantly”, the Keiho Junior High School saw its 187 children perish, and, at the Yamazato School, 1300 died out of 1581 [Ham, 2011: 409]. The bomb at Nagasaki actually “missed its designated target – the Mitsubishi shipyards – and did little damage to the torpedo factory” [Ham, 2011: 458].
MYTH 3: The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “saved hundreds of thousands of American lives”
REALITY: The book demonstrates convincingly how the American land invasion of Japan on its own was never an option for the American government [Ham, 2011: 529], so there was no “lives to be saved” through the atomic bomb. At worst, the Soviet army would have landed in Japan, but, even this case would not have materialised because Japan’s greatest fear would have been realised at that point, and at the mere threat of Soviet Union’s landing, Japan would have surrendered immediately (provided the Emperor lives, too). Moreover, Paul Ham showed that there were plenty of other ways “to save American lives”, including clarifying the terms of “unconditional surrender”, offering to demonstrate the bomb to the Japanese, encouraging the Soviet Union to enter the war earlier, and retaining the Soviet Union’s signature on the Potsdam Declaration to Japan [Ham, 2011: 530]. Ham demonstrates in his book how, rather than saving lives, the priority for America was “to end the war on its own terms” (without the involvement of the Soviet Union) and without any concessions offered to the Japanese [Ham, 2011: 531].
MYTH 4: The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “forced” Japan to surrender and effectively ended the World War II
REALITY: As the book states, nothing could be further from the truth. The atomic bombs never “shocked Japan into submission”, as the US government envisaged, “Tokyo did not surrender to protect the Japanese people from the weapon; [and] the leadership had shown not the slightest duty of care towards these “innocent lives” [Paul Ham, 2011: 538]. “The Emperor, the Cabinet…had barely mentioned the atomic bomb during their long discussions; if an external threat hastened their actions, it was the Soviet invasion” [Ham, 2011: 447]. This is what the author has to say: “not a shred of evidence supports the contention that the Japanese leadership surrendered in direct response to the atomic bombs. On the contrary, Tokyo’s…militarists shrugged as the two irradiated cities were added to the tally of 66 already destroyed…they barely acknowledged the news of Nagasaki’s destruction” and “no leaders considered modifying their conditional surrender offer” [Ham, 2011: 535]. The much greater worry for Japan was the threat of the Russian invasion and its declaration of war: “the Soviet invasion on 8 August crushed the Kwantung Army’s frontline units within days, and sent a crippling loss of confidence across Tokyo. The Japanese warlords despaired” [Paul Ham, 2011: 526].
III. IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH
After the two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and, as the US government started to prepare target lists for a third atomic bomb, the state of the two Japanese cities were becoming clearer. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had little to no medical supplies, their bomb shelters were poor and they lacked qualified medical staff (80% of doctors and nurses were killed in Hiroshima) [Paul Ham, 2011: 376]. The wounded and dying only increased after just two weeks. On 22 August, 160.000 was the number in Hiroshima, and 60.000 in Nagasaki. Most suffered from severe radiation sickness (that had terrible symptoms, from bleedings, diarrhoea and vomiting, to high fever, and the inflammation of the mouth and throat) and were dying, some quickly, others slowly and in agony over weeks and even months. Miscarriages were very common. No one really knew (doctors least of all) the true nature of the new and terrifying sickness that affected all. Japanese physician Dr Hachiya was one of the first to discover that it was not thermal burns that caused the majority of serious illness and death, but radiation (he counted red blood cells) – see my review of Dr Hachiya’s diary here.
After Japan’s surrender, in September 1945, the Pentagon shortlisted 66 Soviet cities of “strategic importance” for destruction, calculating that it would require “204 atomic bombs” and these bombs would “far exceed the power of the one that destroyed Hiroshima” [2011: 540]. The result of this nuclear raid, the Pentagon report stated, “would kill, wound or displace a population of 10.151.000” [ibid].
IV. LONG-TERM CONSEQUENCES
“For nearly a decade, the world would hear nothing of the human repercussions of the atomic bombings. The occupying forces not only ignored the A-bomb survivors’ medical complaints; they refused to recognise their existence. American censors forbade media references to the atomic bomb or its effects”[Paul Ham, 2011: 496].
When Japanese doctors started talking about a radiation sickness affecting thousands and the death toll started rising (not falling after three weeks from the bombings), “the American government…sought to counter the Japanese reports, damning them as propaganda” [2011: 486], writes Paul Ham. American doctors did not share their valuable information about the dangers of the radiation with perplexed-by-the-mysterious-disease Japanese doctors who were at the loss of how to treat their patients. Instead, writes the author, American doctors were present at the site for mere “observation and testing of the A-bomb victims” [2011: 479]. In March 2009, Japanese authorities had [finally] acknowledged 235.569 people in Japan as “atomic bomb sufferers”, granting them health cover. Many suffer or suffered from leukaemia, and battled discrimination all their lives: “to Japanese society, they were untouchables, the people you did not employ or let your son or daughter marry”. Many were refused compensation, jobs, love, family…” [Paul Ham, 2011: 488].
Though at times quite difficult to read because of the subject matter, Hiroshima Nagasaki is still a very engaging book about the 1945 atomic bombings that dispels many still-prevalent myths surrounding the attacks. Paul Ham’s book about the final years of the World War II is a must-read for anyone interested in modern history and the events surrounding the development of the world’s first atomic bomb.
January 30, 2014
Judging by the two extremes ratings that this book received in Amazon, one can tell that this is a rather controversial book. The author did not think that the atomic bombs made Japan surrender which in turn avoided the loss of lives of many Americans who would otherwise have to invade the main islands of Japan. But his position was not just that the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unnecessary, he went further to obliquely imply that the reason for dropping the atomic bombs were for the pure purpose of killing civilians.
The author argued that the atomic bombs were unnecessary by showing that:
Fire bombing was not an effective strategy to make an enemy surrender
In support of this argument the author spent a chapter on the fire bombing of cities in Germany. Meant originally to bring Germany to its knees, the effectiveness was questionable and eventually Germany capitulated not because of the destruction of any or all of the cities but because of the land forces of the allies that reached Berlin.
The Japanese cabinet was not swayed by the atomic bombs
The author argued strenuously that the Japanese cabinet, especially the three (of six) representing the military, the War Minister Korechika Anami, the admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy Soemu Toyoda and general in the Imperial Army Yoshijiro Umezu. They did not change their minds after the two bombs were dropped. It was actually the entry of Soviet Union into the war that convinced the Japanese cabinet that all was lost and surrender was inevitable.
The Japanese were going to surrender anyway
Citing the futile and delusional efforts at getting Russia to play the role of the intermediary for an end to the war, the author showed that the Japanese were already seriously contemplating an end to the war (in contrast to unconditional surrender). It would be a matter of time, given Japan’s lack of ability to deploy air or naval power, that they would collapse.
These would have made for a persuasive case but Ham went further and opined that despite all these, the US bombed Japan anyway and it was not really because the decision makers wanted to save American lives, but because “total war had debased everyone involved…” (pg 158) and made it easy to contemplate the destruction of properties and lives on a grand scale, not helped by many who were spoiling to demonstrate the new power of the US.
The author then went further to imply that putting the blame on the Japanese for not surrendering despite the warnings was wrong because the Allies kept insisting on ‘unconditional surrender’, a term which at first confused the Japanese and later became the only stumbling block to their agreement to surrender because they were afraid that the Americans would try the Emperor as a war-criminal. In the end unconditional or not, was this not what the Japanese got? Knowing this the Americans should have just relented earlier, let them surrender and the bombs and the resulting carnage would have been spared. And if the Americans had really wanted to drop the bombs, the morally right thing to do was to give warning by demonstrating the power of the bombs given that it was so much more destructive than anything anyone knew then. Finally, even if one argues that Hiroshima was necessary and effective, there was no need for Nagasaki.
And since the bombs were used despite all reasons against them, the author brought us through the aftermath of the bombs, showing how many civilian targets were destroyed and how many of them were killed, maimed or suffered the radioactivity for years while the military targets were somehow missed (pg 410). To add insult to the injury, the victims were denied medical help and were in some cases treated as exhibits for research into the effects of radiation. Finally in the years following the end of the war, the main players could only manage incoherent narratives as to the reasons and effects of the bombs, further attesting to the difficulty in justifying their use.
The author was indeed persuasive. However as I read the book, I could not help wondering if the problem was one of hindsight. Take for example the case of area bombing. Its limits in persuading the enemy to surrender are recognised now because it was used then. Given that prior to the Second World War there was no precedence for one to learn from, it was reasonable that looking at how much fear it could instil in the enemies, this could be an effective way to get the enemy to surrender. Similarly while it is increasingly recognised that the Soviet Union’s invasion of Manchuria greatly accelerated Japan’s capitulation, how could one know then what we know now?
The author also did not give complete consideration to the whole context of the situation. For example it was not that the Japanese military had retreated from island to island and finally were confined to their main islands. They were still in Manchuria and also countries in South East Asia. To blockade them to starvation would mean a prolonged occupation of these places by the Japanese. If I were living under the Japanese then, I would wish for the bomb.
One important question was whether Nagasaki was necessary. There was a sense in the book that people realised the devastation the first bomb brought to Hiroshima and were no longer elated about Nagasaki, seeding some doubts in the readers’ minds about the correctness of its use. How should one decide whether or not to drop the second bomb given that the first one did not seem to get the Japanese to surrender? Was it really ineffective or did it just didn’t move them enough, in which case perhaps another bomb was in order?
Questions aside, there were a few chapters in the book that I like very much. The first one being the chapter on the science and scientists behind the atomic bomb which brought back good (and not so good) memories of my school years. The second one was the chapter discussing the Japanese’ deliberations over how to end the war, it was a very nuanced discussion about the Japanese psyche (which I cross-examined with Kazutoshi Handō’s Show Shi). There was this element of (pardon me) “smoking their own dope” where they would know the undesirable outcome if the Russians were to invade Manchuria. And since it was undesirable, it should not happen, and if it should not happen, then it would not happen. Therefore it was conceivable to get the Russians to mediate an end to the war.
The author also gave a very vivid description of the condition of the victims in the two cities immediately after the bombs were dropped. These represented the two times so far that atomic weapons were used on cities. Alas as tragic as they were, it failed to arouse in me the feeling of sympathy and I even felt that the descriptions were slightly over done, especially when he gave some statistics on civilian versus military casualties. I could not help wondering if he was steering readers to the conclusion that the bomb was selective; dropped on a city with both civilian and military targets, the civilian targets would be obliterated while the military ones intact. The indifference I felt towards the victims was at first curious to me given that I bear no hatred towards the Japanese today. This has made me re-examine my attitude towards Japan today. While I am not going to discuss it here, I have to give the author credit for doing this for me.
A reviewer in Amazon said that this book is only for people who can think for themselves. I would not say that, I would encourage people to read this book but to temper it with other books to put things in a better context.
The author argued that the atomic bombs were unnecessary by showing that:
Fire bombing was not an effective strategy to make an enemy surrender
In support of this argument the author spent a chapter on the fire bombing of cities in Germany. Meant originally to bring Germany to its knees, the effectiveness was questionable and eventually Germany capitulated not because of the destruction of any or all of the cities but because of the land forces of the allies that reached Berlin.
The Japanese cabinet was not swayed by the atomic bombs
The author argued strenuously that the Japanese cabinet, especially the three (of six) representing the military, the War Minister Korechika Anami, the admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy Soemu Toyoda and general in the Imperial Army Yoshijiro Umezu. They did not change their minds after the two bombs were dropped. It was actually the entry of Soviet Union into the war that convinced the Japanese cabinet that all was lost and surrender was inevitable.
The Japanese were going to surrender anyway
Citing the futile and delusional efforts at getting Russia to play the role of the intermediary for an end to the war, the author showed that the Japanese were already seriously contemplating an end to the war (in contrast to unconditional surrender). It would be a matter of time, given Japan’s lack of ability to deploy air or naval power, that they would collapse.
These would have made for a persuasive case but Ham went further and opined that despite all these, the US bombed Japan anyway and it was not really because the decision makers wanted to save American lives, but because “total war had debased everyone involved…” (pg 158) and made it easy to contemplate the destruction of properties and lives on a grand scale, not helped by many who were spoiling to demonstrate the new power of the US.
The author then went further to imply that putting the blame on the Japanese for not surrendering despite the warnings was wrong because the Allies kept insisting on ‘unconditional surrender’, a term which at first confused the Japanese and later became the only stumbling block to their agreement to surrender because they were afraid that the Americans would try the Emperor as a war-criminal. In the end unconditional or not, was this not what the Japanese got? Knowing this the Americans should have just relented earlier, let them surrender and the bombs and the resulting carnage would have been spared. And if the Americans had really wanted to drop the bombs, the morally right thing to do was to give warning by demonstrating the power of the bombs given that it was so much more destructive than anything anyone knew then. Finally, even if one argues that Hiroshima was necessary and effective, there was no need for Nagasaki.
And since the bombs were used despite all reasons against them, the author brought us through the aftermath of the bombs, showing how many civilian targets were destroyed and how many of them were killed, maimed or suffered the radioactivity for years while the military targets were somehow missed (pg 410). To add insult to the injury, the victims were denied medical help and were in some cases treated as exhibits for research into the effects of radiation. Finally in the years following the end of the war, the main players could only manage incoherent narratives as to the reasons and effects of the bombs, further attesting to the difficulty in justifying their use.
The author was indeed persuasive. However as I read the book, I could not help wondering if the problem was one of hindsight. Take for example the case of area bombing. Its limits in persuading the enemy to surrender are recognised now because it was used then. Given that prior to the Second World War there was no precedence for one to learn from, it was reasonable that looking at how much fear it could instil in the enemies, this could be an effective way to get the enemy to surrender. Similarly while it is increasingly recognised that the Soviet Union’s invasion of Manchuria greatly accelerated Japan’s capitulation, how could one know then what we know now?
The author also did not give complete consideration to the whole context of the situation. For example it was not that the Japanese military had retreated from island to island and finally were confined to their main islands. They were still in Manchuria and also countries in South East Asia. To blockade them to starvation would mean a prolonged occupation of these places by the Japanese. If I were living under the Japanese then, I would wish for the bomb.
One important question was whether Nagasaki was necessary. There was a sense in the book that people realised the devastation the first bomb brought to Hiroshima and were no longer elated about Nagasaki, seeding some doubts in the readers’ minds about the correctness of its use. How should one decide whether or not to drop the second bomb given that the first one did not seem to get the Japanese to surrender? Was it really ineffective or did it just didn’t move them enough, in which case perhaps another bomb was in order?
Questions aside, there were a few chapters in the book that I like very much. The first one being the chapter on the science and scientists behind the atomic bomb which brought back good (and not so good) memories of my school years. The second one was the chapter discussing the Japanese’ deliberations over how to end the war, it was a very nuanced discussion about the Japanese psyche (which I cross-examined with Kazutoshi Handō’s Show Shi). There was this element of (pardon me) “smoking their own dope” where they would know the undesirable outcome if the Russians were to invade Manchuria. And since it was undesirable, it should not happen, and if it should not happen, then it would not happen. Therefore it was conceivable to get the Russians to mediate an end to the war.
The author also gave a very vivid description of the condition of the victims in the two cities immediately after the bombs were dropped. These represented the two times so far that atomic weapons were used on cities. Alas as tragic as they were, it failed to arouse in me the feeling of sympathy and I even felt that the descriptions were slightly over done, especially when he gave some statistics on civilian versus military casualties. I could not help wondering if he was steering readers to the conclusion that the bomb was selective; dropped on a city with both civilian and military targets, the civilian targets would be obliterated while the military ones intact. The indifference I felt towards the victims was at first curious to me given that I bear no hatred towards the Japanese today. This has made me re-examine my attitude towards Japan today. While I am not going to discuss it here, I have to give the author credit for doing this for me.
A reviewer in Amazon said that this book is only for people who can think for themselves. I would not say that, I would encourage people to read this book but to temper it with other books to put things in a better context.
April 28, 2018
A fascinating account of the buildup and background to the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan and the aftermath. A lot of research obviously went into this book, and although I have read accounts before, those were mainly to do with the horrendous experiences of the survivors. This book makes it very clear exactly what drove the handful of men who controlled the entire Japanese war machine, and their lack of concern with one exception - a man who was always overruled - for the ordinary people. They were just cannon fodder or expected to live off starvation rations - a lot of children died of malnutrition - while labouring to demolish buildings and create firebreaks in the cities which by then were experiencing devastating icendiary bombing raids by the US airforce. Even children as young as 12 were conscripted while the mindless propaganda continued to insist that Japan was winning the war. As long as these civilians 'died with honour', that was all that mattered to those who ruled over them.
Behind the scenes, the heads of the military were resistant to the increasing conviction of the civilian members of the government that a peace had to be brokered - but the stumbling block was the US insistence on unconditional surrender. The Emperor had to be preserved and this had not been guaranteed. The book documents the peace 'feelers' these top officials put out, through various channels, the chief one being via the ambassador to the Soviet Union who was expected to convince the Russian goverment to be the mediator of an end to the war despite the - unusual for the time - blunt and determined attempts by that ambassador to explain to his superiors that the Russians had no interest in doing that and were in fact building up to break their agreement with Japan. The strange system of government in Japan at the time - where the Emperor was literally a living god but was also rarely expected to voice his own opinion and where, if he said that Japan should surrender, it would be seen as influence from corrupt officials who would then be fair game for assassination - meant that despite crippling losses and a mounting death toll from the conventional bombing, there was no will among the military or their leaders to cease fighting.
Contrary to the impression which has been given by the US government since the end of WWII, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are shown in the book to be of no consequence to the Japanese rulers. The chief reason for their finally agreeing to surrender was that the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan and was invading Japanese conquered territory in China. It was useful as an excuse - the Emperor for one used this in his broadcast to the general population that it was to save them from a cruel new weapon, but in his broadcast to the remnant of the Japanese fighting forces, he didn't mention it - in that, the reason given was that the Soviet Union had declared war and there was no point fighting such an overwhelmingly superior force. The author shows that the Japanese would most likely have surrendered without the dropping of atomic weapons, certainly without Nagasaki being bombed, and could have been induced to give up due to the blockade which had starved the country of all raw materials and fuel and food supplies. The decision had already been made in the US government not to invade, even before the atomic bomb had been tested, so there certainly was no saving of huge numbers of American lives as the public have always been told despite the few dissenting voices.
After the war, the US officials clamped down on news of radiation sickness and confiscated the documentation of Japanese doctors who tried to research it, as well as refusing to hand over any medical supplies to those desperately struggling medical professionals. At the same time, with inducements of food - or sweets to children - they induced Japanese who had felt the effects of the bomb or its aftermath to submit to tests, and did not provide any treatment. The whole attitude was one of extreme callousness. I had read about this before, but here it forms part of the continuous narrative of self serving and self deceiving attitudes among certain men in power in the occupation forces. Some did speak out, but reports were hushed up and so on.
In general, this is an illuminating book which raises moral questions such as how is it possible for countries which prided themselves on being Christian and democratic to inflict such horrendous suffering on a civilian population - commencing with the carpet bombing with incendiaries and high explosives and culminating in nuclear holocaust. As Ham shows, the Allies had condemned the barbaric treatment of prisoners and those conquered by Germany and Japan, and yet in effect had sunk to the same level. The only thing that holds this book back from a 5 star rating for me is that it is very focused on the US role in the Pacific and does not even acknowledge that the Royal Navy had a role in the Pacific war, which is an attitude shown in Hollywood portrayals for some years. A small acknowledgement of the British contribution in WWII would have provided a little balance.
Behind the scenes, the heads of the military were resistant to the increasing conviction of the civilian members of the government that a peace had to be brokered - but the stumbling block was the US insistence on unconditional surrender. The Emperor had to be preserved and this had not been guaranteed. The book documents the peace 'feelers' these top officials put out, through various channels, the chief one being via the ambassador to the Soviet Union who was expected to convince the Russian goverment to be the mediator of an end to the war despite the - unusual for the time - blunt and determined attempts by that ambassador to explain to his superiors that the Russians had no interest in doing that and were in fact building up to break their agreement with Japan. The strange system of government in Japan at the time - where the Emperor was literally a living god but was also rarely expected to voice his own opinion and where, if he said that Japan should surrender, it would be seen as influence from corrupt officials who would then be fair game for assassination - meant that despite crippling losses and a mounting death toll from the conventional bombing, there was no will among the military or their leaders to cease fighting.
Contrary to the impression which has been given by the US government since the end of WWII, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are shown in the book to be of no consequence to the Japanese rulers. The chief reason for their finally agreeing to surrender was that the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan and was invading Japanese conquered territory in China. It was useful as an excuse - the Emperor for one used this in his broadcast to the general population that it was to save them from a cruel new weapon, but in his broadcast to the remnant of the Japanese fighting forces, he didn't mention it - in that, the reason given was that the Soviet Union had declared war and there was no point fighting such an overwhelmingly superior force. The author shows that the Japanese would most likely have surrendered without the dropping of atomic weapons, certainly without Nagasaki being bombed, and could have been induced to give up due to the blockade which had starved the country of all raw materials and fuel and food supplies. The decision had already been made in the US government not to invade, even before the atomic bomb had been tested, so there certainly was no saving of huge numbers of American lives as the public have always been told despite the few dissenting voices.
After the war, the US officials clamped down on news of radiation sickness and confiscated the documentation of Japanese doctors who tried to research it, as well as refusing to hand over any medical supplies to those desperately struggling medical professionals. At the same time, with inducements of food - or sweets to children - they induced Japanese who had felt the effects of the bomb or its aftermath to submit to tests, and did not provide any treatment. The whole attitude was one of extreme callousness. I had read about this before, but here it forms part of the continuous narrative of self serving and self deceiving attitudes among certain men in power in the occupation forces. Some did speak out, but reports were hushed up and so on.
In general, this is an illuminating book which raises moral questions such as how is it possible for countries which prided themselves on being Christian and democratic to inflict such horrendous suffering on a civilian population - commencing with the carpet bombing with incendiaries and high explosives and culminating in nuclear holocaust. As Ham shows, the Allies had condemned the barbaric treatment of prisoners and those conquered by Germany and Japan, and yet in effect had sunk to the same level. The only thing that holds this book back from a 5 star rating for me is that it is very focused on the US role in the Pacific and does not even acknowledge that the Royal Navy had a role in the Pacific war, which is an attitude shown in Hollywood portrayals for some years. A small acknowledgement of the British contribution in WWII would have provided a little balance.
February 2, 2017
Thanks to my girlfriend's parents for giving me this one for Christmas, most appreciated.
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the close of World War 2 are two of the most controversial events in warfare. As a student of World War 2 - albeit I've always been much more interested in the European theater than the Pacific theater - I've read quite a lot about the subject, but it has always been tinged with a distinctly rationalist tone. 'Sure, it was a tragedy, but it stopped World War 2 so it was in service of good'.
This book is the first proper historical work I've read which has flown in the face of that narrative - if anything, the book is deeply biased against the use of the bombs, a point of view that I've always held myself so this review is likely to be flawed from the outset. But nevertheless, here we go.
The old samurai, in frock coats and winged collars, sitting at attention at the conference table in the government's well-stocked Tokyo shelter, continued to observe - in extremis - the ancient forms of deference and decorum of the warrior class; they lived in the shadow of an antique past, in the darkened codes of 'honour' and 'sacrifice', in whose interests they were willing to destroy their nation and race.
-p256
The book begins with an overview of the state of the world at the outset of 1945 - Roosevelt's death and Truman's ascendance, the defeat of Germany, the Japanese Empire's defeats and retreats throughout the pacific, and the research into the atomic bomb. As someone who hasn't been too interested in the Pacific theater until this point, this was valuable. I knew the broad strokes, but the first few chapters of Hiroshima Nagasaki do a fantastic job of laying the foundations for the deeper study to follow.
A chapter is dedicated to the US firebombing campaign which destroyed dozens of Japanese cities - including Tokyo and Osaka - and it is in this chapter that, if it weren't already, Ham's bias becomes self-evident. He labels this campaign of terror and wholesale civilian slaughter as the barbarism that it was, and doesn't shy away from the lack of Japanese response.
Fully the last two thirds of the book are dedicated to the preparation, use, and aftermath of the atomic bombs Little Boy and Fat Man. This is the real meat of it. There are three major themes running throughout this section off the text - the brutality of the US campaign, the Japanese leadership's indifference to the slaughter of its people, and the argument of whether the bombings were 'justified'.
Ham is quite obviously a detractor of the United States' campaigns against the Japanese homeland - this is made obvious by the chapter dedicated to the firebombing campaigns across Honshu and Kyushu. I was vaguely aware that the US had firebombed Japan (especially from the film Grave of the Fireflies), but I didn't realise the extent of the campaign - pursuing a flawed philosophy that the death of hundreds of thousands of noncombatants would cripple Japanese morale to such a point that they would have no choice but to surrender (a concept that anyone who knew the slightest amount of Japanese zealotry at the time would have found laughable), Major Curtis LeMay intentionally targeted civilian population centres and displaced millions from their homes.
This campaign continued for several months until the Japanese surrender in August - concurrent with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ham doesn't pull any punches with these events - the injuries, destruction and sickness are described in full detail, from a child losing his eyes from the change in pressure (screaming 'Soldier-san, help me!' while nobody listened), to a girl who tried to pick up her brother and carry him to safety, and found his skin sloughing off his arms in bloody, wet sheets.
This was the great success that was heralded back at home in America.
Lewis [co-pilot of the Enola Gay] scribbled 'Just how many did we kill? My God, what have we done?' 'My God, look at that sonofabitch go!' he is said to have also shouted, according to other crew members.
-p298
65,000 of Hiroshima's 90,000 buildings were 'rendered unusable' and the rest partially damaged. Glass windows were blown out at a distance of up to 8 kilometres. But 'nothing was vaporised', the report noted optimistically.
p414
While the bombing of Hiroshima is portrayed as a tragic waste of human life, the bombing of Nagasaki is worse - in fact the Japanese, having received word of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria the day before, were drafting surrender terms to send to America when a messenger burst into the cabinet and notified them that another 'special bomb' had been dropped on Nagasaki - the Japanese cabinet ministers paused for a moment, then went back to their drafting.
For most, the news that 30,000 of your people had just been wiped out would be an event worth dropping everything for - but not so for the Imperial Japanese. Throughout the book, the Japanese leadership's total and utter lack of care for their people is drilled home again and again - it wasn't that they didn't care whether they died or not, it is that they were expected to die for the Motherland. The Japanese plans to rebuff a US land invasion was predicated on the 'one-hundred million' residents of Japan (in actual fact Japan only had a population of 70m at the time) rising up and repelling the western invader.
After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they were in the process of developing a 'field cap' to protect their people from the glare and heat of future atomic bombings - this goes to show how just how low a priority they placed on the bombings. They were prepared to weather more of them until the 'inevitable' land invasion. And the United States was prepared to drop more of them - had Japan not capitulated on August 15th, the US had a half dozen more bombs in the pipeline, with plans to drop them every 10 days or so.
Ham makes his opinion on whether the bombings were justified well known by the closing chapter (tellingly titled 'Why'). The main reasons for justifying the use of the bombs is that they ended the war, and that if they hadn't used the bombs then the US would have risked a bloody land invasion of the Japanese mainland, killing many more Japanese and Americans in the process.
Ham carefully deconstructs these justifications. As stated above, and at numerous points throughout the text, the Japanese officials placed little importance on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - the same could not be said of those on the ground in those two cities, who experienced likely the closest representation of hell on earth yet - dozens of Japanese cities had already been wiped out wholesale by the American firebombing campaign, what were two more? The real impetus for Japan's surrender was the Soviet Union's surprising and crushing invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria and Korea between the bombings. Nothing matched the fear Japan held for a Russia, and their surrender to America on the 15th was merely picking the lesser of the two evils to capitulate to.
That the bombings removed the need for a US land invasion is also a fallacy - the US leadership had in fact abandoned the possibility of a land invasion of Japan in the early stages of 1945 as too costly, far before the atomic bomb was first tested. Later attempts to use this as the justification for the bombings by Truman and other American officials neatly avoids this point.
Of course, a less virtuous explanation often given is that the bombings are proportionate 'revenge' for the attack at Pearl Harbour, and the Japanese atrocities throughout the war. I won't dignify this with any more words.
In the end, the thing that finally brought Japan to the table was Emperor Hirohito giving his own judgement - in the past when the Emperor had suggested peace or surrender, the militant armed forces had killed those advisors closest to him - obviously they had corrupted his Majesty for him to suggest such things. But as the dust settled on Nagasaki, the Voice of the Sacred Crane stating once and for all that victory was no longer possible was the real decider - and tellingly, during his surrender address, Hirohito only pointed to the Soviet invasion as the reason for this.
As stated, I've always been on the view that the atomic bombings are wholly unjustifiable. Nothing - no atrocities, contingencies, possibilities or plans - justifies the instant murder of tens of thousands of civilians, and the slow and painful deaths of tens of thousands more. Having been to Hiroshima, having stood on the Aioi Bridge and under the hypocenter, I cannot feel anything other than disgust that this was something that human beings did to their own.
At a time of war, people will applaud any story their government feeds them. Americans continue to swear blind that the bombs alone ended the war; that they were America's 'least abhorrent' choice. These are plainly false propositions, salves to uneasy consciences over what was actually done on 6 and 9 August 1945 when, under a summer sky, without warning, hundreds of thousands of civilian men, women and children felt the sun fall on their heads.
-p510
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the close of World War 2 are two of the most controversial events in warfare. As a student of World War 2 - albeit I've always been much more interested in the European theater than the Pacific theater - I've read quite a lot about the subject, but it has always been tinged with a distinctly rationalist tone. 'Sure, it was a tragedy, but it stopped World War 2 so it was in service of good'.
This book is the first proper historical work I've read which has flown in the face of that narrative - if anything, the book is deeply biased against the use of the bombs, a point of view that I've always held myself so this review is likely to be flawed from the outset. But nevertheless, here we go.
The old samurai, in frock coats and winged collars, sitting at attention at the conference table in the government's well-stocked Tokyo shelter, continued to observe - in extremis - the ancient forms of deference and decorum of the warrior class; they lived in the shadow of an antique past, in the darkened codes of 'honour' and 'sacrifice', in whose interests they were willing to destroy their nation and race.
-p256
The book begins with an overview of the state of the world at the outset of 1945 - Roosevelt's death and Truman's ascendance, the defeat of Germany, the Japanese Empire's defeats and retreats throughout the pacific, and the research into the atomic bomb. As someone who hasn't been too interested in the Pacific theater until this point, this was valuable. I knew the broad strokes, but the first few chapters of Hiroshima Nagasaki do a fantastic job of laying the foundations for the deeper study to follow.
A chapter is dedicated to the US firebombing campaign which destroyed dozens of Japanese cities - including Tokyo and Osaka - and it is in this chapter that, if it weren't already, Ham's bias becomes self-evident. He labels this campaign of terror and wholesale civilian slaughter as the barbarism that it was, and doesn't shy away from the lack of Japanese response.
Fully the last two thirds of the book are dedicated to the preparation, use, and aftermath of the atomic bombs Little Boy and Fat Man. This is the real meat of it. There are three major themes running throughout this section off the text - the brutality of the US campaign, the Japanese leadership's indifference to the slaughter of its people, and the argument of whether the bombings were 'justified'.
Ham is quite obviously a detractor of the United States' campaigns against the Japanese homeland - this is made obvious by the chapter dedicated to the firebombing campaigns across Honshu and Kyushu. I was vaguely aware that the US had firebombed Japan (especially from the film Grave of the Fireflies), but I didn't realise the extent of the campaign - pursuing a flawed philosophy that the death of hundreds of thousands of noncombatants would cripple Japanese morale to such a point that they would have no choice but to surrender (a concept that anyone who knew the slightest amount of Japanese zealotry at the time would have found laughable), Major Curtis LeMay intentionally targeted civilian population centres and displaced millions from their homes.
This campaign continued for several months until the Japanese surrender in August - concurrent with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ham doesn't pull any punches with these events - the injuries, destruction and sickness are described in full detail, from a child losing his eyes from the change in pressure (screaming 'Soldier-san, help me!' while nobody listened), to a girl who tried to pick up her brother and carry him to safety, and found his skin sloughing off his arms in bloody, wet sheets.
This was the great success that was heralded back at home in America.
Lewis [co-pilot of the Enola Gay] scribbled 'Just how many did we kill? My God, what have we done?' 'My God, look at that sonofabitch go!' he is said to have also shouted, according to other crew members.
-p298
65,000 of Hiroshima's 90,000 buildings were 'rendered unusable' and the rest partially damaged. Glass windows were blown out at a distance of up to 8 kilometres. But 'nothing was vaporised', the report noted optimistically.
p414
While the bombing of Hiroshima is portrayed as a tragic waste of human life, the bombing of Nagasaki is worse - in fact the Japanese, having received word of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria the day before, were drafting surrender terms to send to America when a messenger burst into the cabinet and notified them that another 'special bomb' had been dropped on Nagasaki - the Japanese cabinet ministers paused for a moment, then went back to their drafting.
For most, the news that 30,000 of your people had just been wiped out would be an event worth dropping everything for - but not so for the Imperial Japanese. Throughout the book, the Japanese leadership's total and utter lack of care for their people is drilled home again and again - it wasn't that they didn't care whether they died or not, it is that they were expected to die for the Motherland. The Japanese plans to rebuff a US land invasion was predicated on the 'one-hundred million' residents of Japan (in actual fact Japan only had a population of 70m at the time) rising up and repelling the western invader.
After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they were in the process of developing a 'field cap' to protect their people from the glare and heat of future atomic bombings - this goes to show how just how low a priority they placed on the bombings. They were prepared to weather more of them until the 'inevitable' land invasion. And the United States was prepared to drop more of them - had Japan not capitulated on August 15th, the US had a half dozen more bombs in the pipeline, with plans to drop them every 10 days or so.
Ham makes his opinion on whether the bombings were justified well known by the closing chapter (tellingly titled 'Why'). The main reasons for justifying the use of the bombs is that they ended the war, and that if they hadn't used the bombs then the US would have risked a bloody land invasion of the Japanese mainland, killing many more Japanese and Americans in the process.
Ham carefully deconstructs these justifications. As stated above, and at numerous points throughout the text, the Japanese officials placed little importance on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - the same could not be said of those on the ground in those two cities, who experienced likely the closest representation of hell on earth yet - dozens of Japanese cities had already been wiped out wholesale by the American firebombing campaign, what were two more? The real impetus for Japan's surrender was the Soviet Union's surprising and crushing invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria and Korea between the bombings. Nothing matched the fear Japan held for a Russia, and their surrender to America on the 15th was merely picking the lesser of the two evils to capitulate to.
That the bombings removed the need for a US land invasion is also a fallacy - the US leadership had in fact abandoned the possibility of a land invasion of Japan in the early stages of 1945 as too costly, far before the atomic bomb was first tested. Later attempts to use this as the justification for the bombings by Truman and other American officials neatly avoids this point.
Of course, a less virtuous explanation often given is that the bombings are proportionate 'revenge' for the attack at Pearl Harbour, and the Japanese atrocities throughout the war. I won't dignify this with any more words.
In the end, the thing that finally brought Japan to the table was Emperor Hirohito giving his own judgement - in the past when the Emperor had suggested peace or surrender, the militant armed forces had killed those advisors closest to him - obviously they had corrupted his Majesty for him to suggest such things. But as the dust settled on Nagasaki, the Voice of the Sacred Crane stating once and for all that victory was no longer possible was the real decider - and tellingly, during his surrender address, Hirohito only pointed to the Soviet invasion as the reason for this.
As stated, I've always been on the view that the atomic bombings are wholly unjustifiable. Nothing - no atrocities, contingencies, possibilities or plans - justifies the instant murder of tens of thousands of civilians, and the slow and painful deaths of tens of thousands more. Having been to Hiroshima, having stood on the Aioi Bridge and under the hypocenter, I cannot feel anything other than disgust that this was something that human beings did to their own.
At a time of war, people will applaud any story their government feeds them. Americans continue to swear blind that the bombs alone ended the war; that they were America's 'least abhorrent' choice. These are plainly false propositions, salves to uneasy consciences over what was actually done on 6 and 9 August 1945 when, under a summer sky, without warning, hundreds of thousands of civilian men, women and children felt the sun fall on their heads.
-p510
May 20, 2017
Excellent account of the development of the atomic bomb leading to the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the aftermath. Ham focuses on the horror of the bombings and how it affected some of the indviduals. Over 100,000 people were killed and people have kept dying since then.
Was it worth it? Ham argues that, no, it wasn't. The atomic bombings did not bring about an end to the Pacific War. The blockade of Japan by the overpowering naval might of the USA and American total control of the air by July 1945 were bringing about an end to the war without any invasion by troops necessary. What finally pressed the Emperor Hirohito to make his announcement of surrender was the Soviet declaration of war followed by the reception of "the Byrnes Note" which stated that the Japanese could keep their Emperor ( although most Americans wanted him put on trial as a war criminal). So Japan was able to surrender conditionally--not unconditionally...Ham makes a good case that the thousands of deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unnecessary...
Was it worth it? Ham argues that, no, it wasn't. The atomic bombings did not bring about an end to the Pacific War. The blockade of Japan by the overpowering naval might of the USA and American total control of the air by July 1945 were bringing about an end to the war without any invasion by troops necessary. What finally pressed the Emperor Hirohito to make his announcement of surrender was the Soviet declaration of war followed by the reception of "the Byrnes Note" which stated that the Japanese could keep their Emperor ( although most Americans wanted him put on trial as a war criminal). So Japan was able to surrender conditionally--not unconditionally...Ham makes a good case that the thousands of deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unnecessary...
March 10, 2012
A great read from start to finish. Paul Ham has delivered yet again the book is well researched and tells the story from every aspect of the dropping of the A-Bombs on Japan. From the political intrigue to the scientific quest to unlock the power of the sun and those who were the victims of it's power this book is a well balanced look into a defining moment in history.
February 27, 2015
This is a fascinating book with a powerful premise. Americans are brought up believing we dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki only because we felt forced to, and that Japan would never have surrendered otherwise. After absorbing this controversial book, I still think that's partially true, but not the whole truth.
Paul Ham meticulously presents a different view that makes the chaotic end of the war and the race for the bomb feel much more nuanced than that standard history. Some of the things I learned were surprising and upsetting. According to Ham, we were eager to test the bombs, and actually in a bit of a hurry to do so before the war ended. There were military targets we could have chosen, but we deliberately targeted city centers full of civilians. Mistakenly, we thought that would send a stronger message to Japan, but Japan's military and political leaders were so far removed from reality at that point, and so generally unconcerned with civilian casualties, that Hiroshima and Nagasaki barely registered in their discussions near the end of the war. We also failed to understand that Japan wasn't a democracy and no amount of harming civilians could cause them to rise up and demand an end to the war -- they were truly helpless targets. And no one in Japan knew what an atomic bomb was or how it was different than the firestorms that had been raging through its other cities. Japan's leaders never got the message of shock and awe of the bombs were supposed to deliver.
More surprises (for me anyway): Russia invading Japan was really the catalyst that pushed Japan to surrender. That happened after Hiroshima but before Nagasaki, making a good argument that the second bomb was really extraneous. The people of Hiroshima may have suffered for little reason, but the people of Nagasaki suffered for no reason.
I thought it was interesting how removed Truman was from the creation and delivery of the bombs. He was gung-ho about doing it, but very hands off. He didn't even know about Nagasaki until afterwards. Imagine in this day and age, dropping a bomb on civilians in another country and the President not being directly involved?
The randomness of the cities chosen was chilling to read about -- Kyoto was spared from the list of targets because someone in the military group who was choosing the cities had been there and had fond memories of it. The weather dictated where the bombs were dropped; Nagasaki was literally a last-minute choice when the actual target city nearby was too obscured by clouds.
After the war, we sent American doctors to study the horrendous effects of radiation on the survivors. They examined countless suffering patients, but they were not permitted to help them in any way, or even share their knowledge with the Japanese doctors, who were mystified and utterly helpless in the face of this strange new illness. The suffering of the Japanese people was extended long after the war by this heartless US policy.
Ham's work has been castigated as revisionist, by those saying he's applying liberal modern thinking to a very different time and place. I can see threads of that in the book, and obviously he's presenting a very uncomfortable look at US behavior at the end of the war so people will react to that.
I think both viewpoints can be true, however -- Ham is convincing in his argument that the bombs weren't the major reason that Japan finally surrendered, and therefore we have to accept that it's possible we did not need to do what we did. But while Japan's leaders could live with civilian defeat, their death-before-loss-of-honor culture would never permit them to accept military defeat. Faced with the invasion by Russia and out of options, Japan used the bombings as a convenient "excuse" (in their view) to surrender. That means the bombings served a purpose in ending the war, even if it wasn't quite the way we intended.
What a powerful book about a terrible time in world history.
Paul Ham meticulously presents a different view that makes the chaotic end of the war and the race for the bomb feel much more nuanced than that standard history. Some of the things I learned were surprising and upsetting. According to Ham, we were eager to test the bombs, and actually in a bit of a hurry to do so before the war ended. There were military targets we could have chosen, but we deliberately targeted city centers full of civilians. Mistakenly, we thought that would send a stronger message to Japan, but Japan's military and political leaders were so far removed from reality at that point, and so generally unconcerned with civilian casualties, that Hiroshima and Nagasaki barely registered in their discussions near the end of the war. We also failed to understand that Japan wasn't a democracy and no amount of harming civilians could cause them to rise up and demand an end to the war -- they were truly helpless targets. And no one in Japan knew what an atomic bomb was or how it was different than the firestorms that had been raging through its other cities. Japan's leaders never got the message of shock and awe of the bombs were supposed to deliver.
More surprises (for me anyway): Russia invading Japan was really the catalyst that pushed Japan to surrender. That happened after Hiroshima but before Nagasaki, making a good argument that the second bomb was really extraneous. The people of Hiroshima may have suffered for little reason, but the people of Nagasaki suffered for no reason.
I thought it was interesting how removed Truman was from the creation and delivery of the bombs. He was gung-ho about doing it, but very hands off. He didn't even know about Nagasaki until afterwards. Imagine in this day and age, dropping a bomb on civilians in another country and the President not being directly involved?
The randomness of the cities chosen was chilling to read about -- Kyoto was spared from the list of targets because someone in the military group who was choosing the cities had been there and had fond memories of it. The weather dictated where the bombs were dropped; Nagasaki was literally a last-minute choice when the actual target city nearby was too obscured by clouds.
After the war, we sent American doctors to study the horrendous effects of radiation on the survivors. They examined countless suffering patients, but they were not permitted to help them in any way, or even share their knowledge with the Japanese doctors, who were mystified and utterly helpless in the face of this strange new illness. The suffering of the Japanese people was extended long after the war by this heartless US policy.
Ham's work has been castigated as revisionist, by those saying he's applying liberal modern thinking to a very different time and place. I can see threads of that in the book, and obviously he's presenting a very uncomfortable look at US behavior at the end of the war so people will react to that.
I think both viewpoints can be true, however -- Ham is convincing in his argument that the bombs weren't the major reason that Japan finally surrendered, and therefore we have to accept that it's possible we did not need to do what we did. But while Japan's leaders could live with civilian defeat, their death-before-loss-of-honor culture would never permit them to accept military defeat. Faced with the invasion by Russia and out of options, Japan used the bombings as a convenient "excuse" (in their view) to surrender. That means the bombings served a purpose in ending the war, even if it wasn't quite the way we intended.
What a powerful book about a terrible time in world history.
November 4, 2014
When all is said and done this is just another long piece of revisionist history. While it is fair to say that there will be those who will always question the justification for the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Ham makes some ludicrous claims to support his contention that the use of these weapons did nothing to contribute to Japan's surrender. Ham states that by early 1945 Japan was a defeated nation, that it had lost the air war, the sea war, that Japanese ground forces throughout the Pacific were defeated, that the American naval blockade had choked Japan's capacity to make war, that Japan was defeated economically. All of this is undeniably true, and yet Japan refused to surrender. Ham gives a long and detailed account of Lemay's "terror" bombings of Japanese cities, describing the death and destruction and displacement of millions of Japanese and yet agrees that these "terror" bombings had failed to force Japan to surrender. By April 1945 the Japanese Suzuki government embraced a war policy called Ketsugo whereby the home islands would be defended to the last man, woman, and child. While repeatedly stressing the misery visited on the civilian population, Mr. Ham does not assess Japan's lingering military capabilities. Richard Frank ("Downfall") and D.M. Giangreco ("Hell to Pay) have demonstrated that these capabilities were formidable. Ham claims that the fears of 500,000 to one million casualties were not made until after the war, and were made simply to justify the atomic bombings. This is utter nonsense. Based on the massive American casualties incurred in the capture of Okinawa, American military leaders expected severe casualties with the invasion of Japan's home islands. Staff working for Adm Nimitz calculated that the first 30 days of Olympic alone would cost 49,000 men. MacArthur's staff concluded that America would suffer 125,000 casualties after 120 days. Admiral Leahy estimated that the invasion would cost 268,000 casualties. Personnel at the Navy Department estimated that the total losses to America would be between 1.7 and 4 million with 400,000 to 800,000 deaths. The same department estimated that there would be up to 10 million Japanese casualties. Few would argue that the combined shock of events - the dropping of atomic bombs and the entry of the Soviet Union (in Ham's mind, far more important than the bombs) into the war against Japan forced Japan to surrender. To say that this book is the "real" story of the atomic bombings is a stretch - a big one at that.
November 13, 2014
I was disappointed with this book. Although meticulously researched and offering a good (although not unique) revisionist take on early nuclear history, this is really the story of the nuclear bomb, and not really about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Out of over five hundred pages, only two slight chapters focus on the bombings themselves and the citizens who found themselves at the epicentre of the worst terrorist attacks enacted upon innocent civilians.
If the book had been called The Creation and Detonation of Fat Man and Little Boy I may not have been set up for disappointment, but it was called Hiroshima Nagasaki and to have so little of the book focused on the city and the inhabitants feels like it is doing them a grave injustice.
If the book had been called The Creation and Detonation of Fat Man and Little Boy I may not have been set up for disappointment, but it was called Hiroshima Nagasaki and to have so little of the book focused on the city and the inhabitants feels like it is doing them a grave injustice.
Want to read
August 1, 2019************************
*Hiroshima Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath by Paul Ham TBR
*Hiroshima Diary: The Journal of a Japanese Physician, August 6-September 30, 1945 by Michihiko Hachiya TBR
*Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War by Susan Southard TBR
*The Last Train from Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back by Charles Pellegrino TBR
*Hiroshima by John Hersey 3 stars
*Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor's Story by Caren Stelson 3 stars
*The Bells of Nagasaki by Takashi Nagai 2 stars
July 1, 2016
This is the best book on the subject I've read yet, a superbly researched and absorbing narrative. I particularly like how Ham alternates between the American and Japanese perspectives. He effectively shatters the popularly held belief that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified because they ended World War II in the Pacific without a costly invasion of Japan’s home islands. Ham further convincingly argues that the bombings played no role at all in the surrender of Japan, that it was rather Japan's feared entry of the Soviet Union into the war made real that was the deciding factor. A skillful, comprehensive, provocative, and challenging work of history.
May 19, 2012
After visiting Japan and Hiroshima in particular I just had to read up more about it all. Nuclear power and weapons have scared and awed me since I was a small child and visiting Hiroshima chilled me to the very core. The book caters for a leftist swing at American politics and decision making as well as creating a mind boggling impression of the Japanese psyche during the final days of the Pacific War. This is a great book for gaining a perspective on WHY, and towards the end of the book you will gain an understanding as to why, rather than whether it was morally corrupt or anti-human.
October 18, 2015
There's nothing like the feeling of finishing an engrossing, thorough, well-written piece of historical scholarship that leaves you contemplating commonly-held myths that have been neatly shredded into pieces. A very worthy, gripping examination of a time & place everyone thinks they know about...but really don't.
December 28, 2014
Determining the thesis of Paul Ham's Hiroshima Nagasaki can be accomplished with ease by simply looking at the table of contents--specifically, chapter six, which is entitled "Japan Defeated." This would seem to imply an end to Ham's investigation of the titular events; after all, the surrender of Japan is what history tells us was the ultimate goal--and accomplishment--of the atomic bombings of Japan. And yet, beginning as it does on page 166, chapter six does not even mark the halfway point: when the chapter ends, there are still 300 pages remaining, almost all of them devastating in their critique of not only the American government but the Japanese one, as well. The story of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Ham believes, is not at all what we think it is.
For the longest time, we have told ourselves--in anecdotes, on television programs, in textbooks--that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified, that Hirohito's empire was so thoroughly invested in complete victory that it was willing to fight until the last man, woman, and child had shed their blood. Defeat, we have been repeatedly told, was not part of the Japanese vocabulary, and to force their hands, we had to demonstrate the utter destructive abilities of our own military--a clear and unequivocal sign that Japan would not survive if it continued to resist surrender. Part of the reason this story has survived as long as it has is because of our national hubris--a belief that, because of our victory and the speed with which we developed such destructive weapons, we were the deciding factor--and part of the reason is because we, as victors, were in the position to write the history ourselves. (As the saying goes, history isn't written by the losers.) But the overriding reason is that, for decades after the actual bombings, most of the pertinent information related to the decision and its aftermath was classified or unpublished by the U.S. government, including communications between members of the Japanese government that was intercepted and decoded by the MAGIC program.
Even today, those intercepted communications--which should be readily available on websites and in government publications--can only be accessed in bits and pieces across the internet, if at all. (The diplomatic cables between members of the Japanese government, which Ham uses to great effect throughout much of his book, are available in full only on 15 reels of microfilm that exist in a handful of college libraries across the country.) The reasons for this odd hesitancy to publicize more about our own history has never been explained, though theories might abound. What matters, however, is that the lack of awareness over what these documents reveal distorts our own understanding of history--our knowledge of what was done in our names and with our tacit permission, if not our unchallenged approval--and keeps us from making sure the tragedies of the past don't become tragedies of the future.
For example, the belief that Japan's government was unified behind its last-man-standing mentality is easily disproven by the MAGIC intercepts, in which many of the top men in Hirohito's government pushed vociferously for their country's surrender to the Allies, only to be refuted by more ardent and nationalistic colleagues. Perhaps the most vocal of these figures is Naotake Sato, a diplomat whose awareness of the situation transformed him into one of the few honest men in all of Japan's government, and he spoke his mind with careless abandon--a decision that could easily have cost him both his position and his life. The bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki play a minimal role in the back-and-forth between those voices advocating for continued hostilities against the Allied forces and those demanding a quick but honorable surrender; in fact, when notified of the bombing of Nagasaki during an hours-long meeting meant to plan out the terms of their surrender, the top Japanese officials are recorded as demonstrating little reaction or concern, a fact that our own country has steadfastly refused to acknowledge.*
The main reason the Japanese government was unmoved by the dropping of not one but two atomic bombs on their own people is that their empire was already suffering immensely at the hands of the Allies. Their country was prevented from importing any food or necessary supplies by an Allied navy blockade, and their closest neighbors--China, the Soviet Union--were also against them, removing any chance for humanitarian aid. Towards the end of the war, they hoped the latter of these nations, under the leadership of Josef Stalin, would at least serve as the arbitrator in negotiations with the Allied Powers; when the Soviet Union instead declared war on them, it marked the disappearance of the last possible hope of the Japanese government and its people. Millions were starving and homeless due to Allied air-raids and fire-bombings, and hundreds of thousands were dead; had the Allies simply kept the blockade intact and continued pushing towards the Japanese mainland, it's safe to assume--and General Eisenhower himself agreed after the war--that Japan would have been forced to declare surrender before the year's end anyway.
Likewise, the American government's decision to drop both bombs is called into question by Ham's research. Much like Japan, the American government experienced its own tumultuous split over how. when, and where to use the atomic bombs. Truman seemed determined to utilize the weapon as soon as possible, refusing to proffer a warning to the Japanese government about what would happen to their cities. (There were some in the government who said a warning would persuade the Japanese to surrender before the bomb was even used, an idea that is difficult to prove.) And, much like Japan, there were those who attempted to secure a peaceful resolution, or at least a resolution that did not involve the use of cataclysmic weapons. Included among these voices was Joseph Grew, the former ambassador to Japan who understood, after a decade of firsthand experience, that demanding Japan give up its emperor as part of an "unconditional surrender" would force the country to continue hostilities, even when all hope seemed lost. Grew, who had been interned by the Japanese after Pearl Harbor, was soundly ignored.
In the end, Ham argues that it wasn't the atomic bombs that forced Japan to finally surrender, nor was it the naval blockade--which, he argues, had a much greater effect on the Japanese government's decision than the actual bombs--but the Soviet Union's refusal to act as an intermediate and its subsequent declaration of war against Japan. Only then, according to the correspondences of those in power, did the government of Japan finally give in to what the rest of the world had seen as inevitable for some time. What followed was an ocean surrender and, as Ham writes, an occupation by the Allies that was shameful, with the American government steadfastly denying the true legacy of the atomic bombs: radiation poisoning, illness, and death, all spread across generations. Journalists who gained access to Hiroshima and Nagasaki wrote about and photographed the aftermath; much of this evidence was soon confiscated or censored by the American military. Not until John Hersey's Hiroshima, published in 1946, did the American public come to understand the true extent of the devastation.
And yet history continued to tell us that, had it not been for these two bombs, the war would have become even bloodier, lasted even longer, cost even more American lives. The atomic bombs, we are told, actually helped save lives and end the war. This postulation isn't entirely false--an invasion of the Japanese mainland would have certainly resulted in the deaths of Allied soldiers, as the mainland forces were surprisingly strong--but to offer those options as the only two we could have taken demonstrates a remarkable unwillingness to reexamine ourselves and our own war-time decisions, especially today. Yes, we didn't know then what we know now, so past generations should not be denounced with retrospective guilt--they were simply embracing what they were told by the very same government that had led them through the largest war in world history, and against some of the most vile dictators we would ever experience, including an empire that attacked us on our own soil. But to look back with so many previously classified and unpublished documents now available--albeit limitedly--for our consumption, and retain the same theory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is ignorant, if not downright dangerous. It allows us to see cataclysmic weapons as a viable--and paradoxically lifesaving--solution, one that values the civilian lives of one nation over the civilian lives of another, without understanding all of the implications and nuances inherent in such a momentous decision.
Yes, the people of Japan held onto their emperor, even as their emperor ignored them, and they had been brainwashed--or threatened--into believing their crusade against the Allied Powers was a noble one. But to use this as an excuse to dismiss hundreds of thousands of lives as justifiably expendable, simply because they were civilians under the other side's government, sets a dangerous precedent where foreign policy and war is concerned. By waving aside these numbers and statistics, and by ignoring the photographs of sick and deformed Japanese civilians--men, women, and children who were guilty of nothing more than being born in a country that warred against our own--we are casting ourselves as something less than the scions of liberty and freedom we so vocally aspire to be.
People will debate the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for decades to come, and there will never be a consensus over the efficacy--or even necessity--of Fat Man and Little Boy. Even Ham, for all the positive aspects of his book, leaves much to be desired in terms of writing a comprehensive and accurate history. But there can never be one, at least not yet: we exist beyond a time and place where one could be written, and our minds are too frequently clouded by ideology, propaganda, and patriotism to see what needs to be seen. Instead, we need to take the bombing of Japan for what it can still teach us, and that requires having all the information available to us, without restrictions or concessions. Unfortunately, as the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki grow ever more distant, and those who continue to push a simplistic, winner-take-all history fade into that very same timeline, we will see its legacy spread tendrils and grow. The truly sad part is that, without more books like this one, regardless of its successes or failures, we won't even realize that it is happening until the cycle repeats itself and we're back where we started, having learned nothing.
*There are those who point to Hirohito's 1945 radio broadcast, in which he stated that "the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives," as proof of the opposite. But what a government tells itself and what a government tells its people are often completely different.
This review was originally published at There Will Be Books Galore.
For the longest time, we have told ourselves--in anecdotes, on television programs, in textbooks--that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified, that Hirohito's empire was so thoroughly invested in complete victory that it was willing to fight until the last man, woman, and child had shed their blood. Defeat, we have been repeatedly told, was not part of the Japanese vocabulary, and to force their hands, we had to demonstrate the utter destructive abilities of our own military--a clear and unequivocal sign that Japan would not survive if it continued to resist surrender. Part of the reason this story has survived as long as it has is because of our national hubris--a belief that, because of our victory and the speed with which we developed such destructive weapons, we were the deciding factor--and part of the reason is because we, as victors, were in the position to write the history ourselves. (As the saying goes, history isn't written by the losers.) But the overriding reason is that, for decades after the actual bombings, most of the pertinent information related to the decision and its aftermath was classified or unpublished by the U.S. government, including communications between members of the Japanese government that was intercepted and decoded by the MAGIC program.
Even today, those intercepted communications--which should be readily available on websites and in government publications--can only be accessed in bits and pieces across the internet, if at all. (The diplomatic cables between members of the Japanese government, which Ham uses to great effect throughout much of his book, are available in full only on 15 reels of microfilm that exist in a handful of college libraries across the country.) The reasons for this odd hesitancy to publicize more about our own history has never been explained, though theories might abound. What matters, however, is that the lack of awareness over what these documents reveal distorts our own understanding of history--our knowledge of what was done in our names and with our tacit permission, if not our unchallenged approval--and keeps us from making sure the tragedies of the past don't become tragedies of the future.
For example, the belief that Japan's government was unified behind its last-man-standing mentality is easily disproven by the MAGIC intercepts, in which many of the top men in Hirohito's government pushed vociferously for their country's surrender to the Allies, only to be refuted by more ardent and nationalistic colleagues. Perhaps the most vocal of these figures is Naotake Sato, a diplomat whose awareness of the situation transformed him into one of the few honest men in all of Japan's government, and he spoke his mind with careless abandon--a decision that could easily have cost him both his position and his life. The bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki play a minimal role in the back-and-forth between those voices advocating for continued hostilities against the Allied forces and those demanding a quick but honorable surrender; in fact, when notified of the bombing of Nagasaki during an hours-long meeting meant to plan out the terms of their surrender, the top Japanese officials are recorded as demonstrating little reaction or concern, a fact that our own country has steadfastly refused to acknowledge.*
The main reason the Japanese government was unmoved by the dropping of not one but two atomic bombs on their own people is that their empire was already suffering immensely at the hands of the Allies. Their country was prevented from importing any food or necessary supplies by an Allied navy blockade, and their closest neighbors--China, the Soviet Union--were also against them, removing any chance for humanitarian aid. Towards the end of the war, they hoped the latter of these nations, under the leadership of Josef Stalin, would at least serve as the arbitrator in negotiations with the Allied Powers; when the Soviet Union instead declared war on them, it marked the disappearance of the last possible hope of the Japanese government and its people. Millions were starving and homeless due to Allied air-raids and fire-bombings, and hundreds of thousands were dead; had the Allies simply kept the blockade intact and continued pushing towards the Japanese mainland, it's safe to assume--and General Eisenhower himself agreed after the war--that Japan would have been forced to declare surrender before the year's end anyway.
Likewise, the American government's decision to drop both bombs is called into question by Ham's research. Much like Japan, the American government experienced its own tumultuous split over how. when, and where to use the atomic bombs. Truman seemed determined to utilize the weapon as soon as possible, refusing to proffer a warning to the Japanese government about what would happen to their cities. (There were some in the government who said a warning would persuade the Japanese to surrender before the bomb was even used, an idea that is difficult to prove.) And, much like Japan, there were those who attempted to secure a peaceful resolution, or at least a resolution that did not involve the use of cataclysmic weapons. Included among these voices was Joseph Grew, the former ambassador to Japan who understood, after a decade of firsthand experience, that demanding Japan give up its emperor as part of an "unconditional surrender" would force the country to continue hostilities, even when all hope seemed lost. Grew, who had been interned by the Japanese after Pearl Harbor, was soundly ignored.
In the end, Ham argues that it wasn't the atomic bombs that forced Japan to finally surrender, nor was it the naval blockade--which, he argues, had a much greater effect on the Japanese government's decision than the actual bombs--but the Soviet Union's refusal to act as an intermediate and its subsequent declaration of war against Japan. Only then, according to the correspondences of those in power, did the government of Japan finally give in to what the rest of the world had seen as inevitable for some time. What followed was an ocean surrender and, as Ham writes, an occupation by the Allies that was shameful, with the American government steadfastly denying the true legacy of the atomic bombs: radiation poisoning, illness, and death, all spread across generations. Journalists who gained access to Hiroshima and Nagasaki wrote about and photographed the aftermath; much of this evidence was soon confiscated or censored by the American military. Not until John Hersey's Hiroshima, published in 1946, did the American public come to understand the true extent of the devastation.
And yet history continued to tell us that, had it not been for these two bombs, the war would have become even bloodier, lasted even longer, cost even more American lives. The atomic bombs, we are told, actually helped save lives and end the war. This postulation isn't entirely false--an invasion of the Japanese mainland would have certainly resulted in the deaths of Allied soldiers, as the mainland forces were surprisingly strong--but to offer those options as the only two we could have taken demonstrates a remarkable unwillingness to reexamine ourselves and our own war-time decisions, especially today. Yes, we didn't know then what we know now, so past generations should not be denounced with retrospective guilt--they were simply embracing what they were told by the very same government that had led them through the largest war in world history, and against some of the most vile dictators we would ever experience, including an empire that attacked us on our own soil. But to look back with so many previously classified and unpublished documents now available--albeit limitedly--for our consumption, and retain the same theory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is ignorant, if not downright dangerous. It allows us to see cataclysmic weapons as a viable--and paradoxically lifesaving--solution, one that values the civilian lives of one nation over the civilian lives of another, without understanding all of the implications and nuances inherent in such a momentous decision.
Yes, the people of Japan held onto their emperor, even as their emperor ignored them, and they had been brainwashed--or threatened--into believing their crusade against the Allied Powers was a noble one. But to use this as an excuse to dismiss hundreds of thousands of lives as justifiably expendable, simply because they were civilians under the other side's government, sets a dangerous precedent where foreign policy and war is concerned. By waving aside these numbers and statistics, and by ignoring the photographs of sick and deformed Japanese civilians--men, women, and children who were guilty of nothing more than being born in a country that warred against our own--we are casting ourselves as something less than the scions of liberty and freedom we so vocally aspire to be.
People will debate the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for decades to come, and there will never be a consensus over the efficacy--or even necessity--of Fat Man and Little Boy. Even Ham, for all the positive aspects of his book, leaves much to be desired in terms of writing a comprehensive and accurate history. But there can never be one, at least not yet: we exist beyond a time and place where one could be written, and our minds are too frequently clouded by ideology, propaganda, and patriotism to see what needs to be seen. Instead, we need to take the bombing of Japan for what it can still teach us, and that requires having all the information available to us, without restrictions or concessions. Unfortunately, as the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki grow ever more distant, and those who continue to push a simplistic, winner-take-all history fade into that very same timeline, we will see its legacy spread tendrils and grow. The truly sad part is that, without more books like this one, regardless of its successes or failures, we won't even realize that it is happening until the cycle repeats itself and we're back where we started, having learned nothing.
*There are those who point to Hirohito's 1945 radio broadcast, in which he stated that "the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives," as proof of the opposite. But what a government tells itself and what a government tells its people are often completely different.
This review was originally published at There Will Be Books Galore.
January 18, 2022
How do you write an objective book about the nuclear bomb? It’s impossible. Paul Ham doesn’t even try, but that is not a disadvantage. Ham presents a quiet but ultimately insuperable argument for the moral outrage of the bomb. Merely by providing the actual history of the bomb, he deals with the most common arguments in favor of dropping it, namely that it saved American and Japanese lives who would have died in the imminent invasion. (There was no approved or imminent invasion. The bomb was Plan A.)
There are certainly theoretical scenarios in which the bomb could have “saved” lives, but Ham points to the moral impossibility of justifying mindless slaughter with mindless slaughter of smaller magnitude.
Americans have not come to grips with our sins in wartime, as the Germans and Japanese have been forced by defeat to do. Ham’s book is a welcome,e corrective.
There are certainly theoretical scenarios in which the bomb could have “saved” lives, but Ham points to the moral impossibility of justifying mindless slaughter with mindless slaughter of smaller magnitude.
Americans have not come to grips with our sins in wartime, as the Germans and Japanese have been forced by defeat to do. Ham’s book is a welcome,e corrective.
April 25, 2020
(3.5 to 4⭐). In one way the title of this book is misleading as it's more like a deep dive into the end of the war in the Pacific than a deep dive into Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first half I, up to after the Potsdam Conference, I would rate 3⭐ because the tediousness of inner politics are not my interest in this and because such sections read more like a text book with sentences that go on a tangent. However the second half of the book, the point of Hiroshima onwards (355 pages in) I would rate 4⭐ with specifically chapter 23 'Why' as 5⭐. If you have any interest at all in the use of the atomic bombs please read that chapter because it explains in depth why they had such a minimal affect in ending the war. Hence why there is so much build up in this book because the end of the war is way more complicated than can be explained in a classroom history lesson and that chapter does that well. Can't fault how comprehensive this is, even if I wanted it to be more focused on the point of Hiroshima and onwards, rather than the politics before. I've had to come up with a comprised rating because I feel like I'd rate the two halves differently in terms of my own interests. Imma just gonna have a sob because this book has taught me of the complete lack of humanity on ALL sides.
February 16, 2015
There was so much research done for this book. It was more informative than any text book in school. A very heavy read and a very dark time in our history. I learned so much and am sadden by the results of just war in particular. Why? War doesn't decide whose right it decides whose left.
December 28, 2022
Due to the very realistic looming danger of dying horrible death under nuclear bombings in the nearest future, I (like probably many other Ukrainians) started learning more about Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. This book was the first one and probably the most useful.
It’s a classical high-quality non-fiction immersion in the problem, as comprehensive as possible. It describes almost all the aspects you can imagine, from the lives and personalities of people concerned to the biggest geopolitical and historical implications, from the scientific basis of the bomb development and preparation to purely military considerations, from personal stories of regular people affected by the bombs to strictly medical and biological effects of the bombings, etc., etc. Depending on your baseline level of knowledge, this book may be overwhelming or illuminating, and you may appreciate some chapters more and dislike/find boring others. Anyway, this is the kind of book where you can find answers to most of your questions and learn both the very fundamental information and lots of important and unimportant details, plus many things you never even thought about. I am sure that even people who already know a lot about the subject would love to explore all those minute clarifications and expand their understanding of the subject.
(Paul Ham is a quite famous non-fiction author, a very diligent researcher, who already created several very impressive volumes about various aspects of the 20th-century history of war, politics, and diplomacy. I have at least two other books written by him in my plans.)
For me, “Hiroshima Nagasaki” was a little “too heavy” in the scientific/technical part and regarding all the details of politics (all those names, who said what, how who reacted, and so on). Nevertheless, I was very glad that I read the book and can now recommend it as the only book you can read if you want something saturated with information in a relatively concise form.
Although, as I said, the author describes all the aspects of the disaster, his main focus was politics. And here, we can learn a very interesting thing. I would say: the most remarkable and very well-justified conclusion about the greatest myth of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
The thing is: we were always taught that these bombings were a cruel and horrible but necessary thing, because eventually they forced the Japanese government to surrender, and thus World War Two finally ended. Everything we read in history books always confirmed that this was the most effective way to end this war as Japan was not going to surrender otherwise and would continue to kill and torture and destroy everything they could. The nuclear bombings horrified Japan, and the government promptly declared surrender to spare the lives of their people.
Right?
Well, no.
Paul Ham shows here (very, very conclusively) that all this was a great mystification. The key problem was the term “unconditional surrender.” Americans demanded “unconditional surrender” from Japan, and near the very end of the war, when everything was already obviously lost, especially in view of the unconditional surrender of Germany, Japan was quite ready to surrender. However, they had one — ONLY ONE! — but adamant condition: not touching the Emperor. At the time, they considered the Emperor a god-like figure and were ready to die for him and lose everything but to defend their Emperor. This was their only condition. Otherwise, the negotiations about surrender were already underway for some time, but Americans were similarly adamant in their demand of “unconditional surrender.” It was probably just a political clinch; Americans needed some triumphant ending to “their” part of the war, especially considering the recent unconditional surrender of Germany. So they continued to demand “unconditional surrender” from Japan, and Japan continued to desperately ask to spare their Emperor (and not even trying to ask for something else).
The nuclear bombings were the last resort of the USA in order to force Japan into “unconditional surrender.” AND IT FAILED. It failed completely. Japan did not care. They still had the same and only “condition” for their surrender: save our Emperor.
We were always taught that the first bombing was the demonstration of a new type of bomb and what it can do to people and their cities, and as Japan did not surrender after it, there was the second bomb, in order to show that Japan would be obliterated like this city by city until they surrender. And Japan promptly surrendered after the second bomb.
The truth is: they did not care. Neither after the first bomb, nor after the second one. If the USA had 10 or 100 nuclear bombs and continued to demand “unconditional surrender,” the bombings would continue, and Japan would still cling to their only condition: spare the Emperor.
So what happened after the second bomb?
First of all, it was the last bomb the USA really had ready, so they could not continue these bombings in the nearest future, until new bombs are prepared. This was the highest secret, of course, but the USA already faced a very unpleasant situation: they demonstrated the most powerful weapon in the world, and Japan did not flinch. Even if they had more bombs at the time, it was already obvious that Japan would still not agree to “unconditional surrender.” After all, Japan was notoriously cruel towards people overall, including its own people, and the horrible death of hundreds of thousands of Japanese women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was just “collateral damage” for the Japanese government.
Therefore, the USA hastily organized a “diplomatic special operation”: they silently accepted the only Japan’s condition about sparing the Emperor but presented the situation as if Japan finally agreed to “unconditional surrender.” Which could have happened any time even before/instead of the nuclear bombings if Americans wanted it, because, as I said, the Japanese government was not stupid and they already accepted that they lost the war. The negotiations about their surrender were going on all this time. The nuclear bombings just showed the Americans that Japan would not surrender “unconditionally,” so they decided to accept the condition about the Emperor and declare their victory at last.
(There was another powerful factor in this complex equation: the entrance of the USSR into the Eastern theater of the war. Otherwise, maybe the USA had some time to think and rearrange things. However, the USSR started to invade Japan-occupied territories, and it was obvious that they would do here the same things as in Europe: rapes, lootings, and occupation of vast territories for many years ahead. It meant a great concern regarding the uncontrolled expansion of the “Soviet bloc.” The USA and all the other Allies were desperate to save this part of the world free from the barbarian Stalinists, and so they did not think twice about finally offering Japan surrender without the word “unconditional.”)
And afterward, it was always the reiteration of the same myth: the nuclear bombings helped to end the war because they forced the Japanese to surrender. Nope, they did not. They would not do it. The nuclear bombings just showed the USA that Japan would not surrender unless they respect their only condition about the Emperor, and it was the Americans who were forced to yield, not vice versa.
Well, Paul Ham describes all the aspects of this problem in great detail, so you can learn all the argumentation and decide for yourself. For me, it was a very interesting and important lesson about geopolitics and “history as we know it.”
Among other things, I was also surprised to learn that Americans did not know much about the “radiation” aspect of their bombings. They knew that the nuclear bombs would kill and mutilate people in thousands, but they were scared and ashamed when they started to see more distant effects of the radiation (as if it was something much worse than horrible deaths immediately or shortly due to the direct effect of the destructive force). Well, it’s just another very interesting topic for discussion, so I’ll stop here. If you are interested, I do recommend this book a lot. There are many other thought-provoking and illuminating things there.
It’s a classical high-quality non-fiction immersion in the problem, as comprehensive as possible. It describes almost all the aspects you can imagine, from the lives and personalities of people concerned to the biggest geopolitical and historical implications, from the scientific basis of the bomb development and preparation to purely military considerations, from personal stories of regular people affected by the bombs to strictly medical and biological effects of the bombings, etc., etc. Depending on your baseline level of knowledge, this book may be overwhelming or illuminating, and you may appreciate some chapters more and dislike/find boring others. Anyway, this is the kind of book where you can find answers to most of your questions and learn both the very fundamental information and lots of important and unimportant details, plus many things you never even thought about. I am sure that even people who already know a lot about the subject would love to explore all those minute clarifications and expand their understanding of the subject.
(Paul Ham is a quite famous non-fiction author, a very diligent researcher, who already created several very impressive volumes about various aspects of the 20th-century history of war, politics, and diplomacy. I have at least two other books written by him in my plans.)
For me, “Hiroshima Nagasaki” was a little “too heavy” in the scientific/technical part and regarding all the details of politics (all those names, who said what, how who reacted, and so on). Nevertheless, I was very glad that I read the book and can now recommend it as the only book you can read if you want something saturated with information in a relatively concise form.
Although, as I said, the author describes all the aspects of the disaster, his main focus was politics. And here, we can learn a very interesting thing. I would say: the most remarkable and very well-justified conclusion about the greatest myth of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
The thing is: we were always taught that these bombings were a cruel and horrible but necessary thing, because eventually they forced the Japanese government to surrender, and thus World War Two finally ended. Everything we read in history books always confirmed that this was the most effective way to end this war as Japan was not going to surrender otherwise and would continue to kill and torture and destroy everything they could. The nuclear bombings horrified Japan, and the government promptly declared surrender to spare the lives of their people.
Right?
Well, no.
Paul Ham shows here (very, very conclusively) that all this was a great mystification. The key problem was the term “unconditional surrender.” Americans demanded “unconditional surrender” from Japan, and near the very end of the war, when everything was already obviously lost, especially in view of the unconditional surrender of Germany, Japan was quite ready to surrender. However, they had one — ONLY ONE! — but adamant condition: not touching the Emperor. At the time, they considered the Emperor a god-like figure and were ready to die for him and lose everything but to defend their Emperor. This was their only condition. Otherwise, the negotiations about surrender were already underway for some time, but Americans were similarly adamant in their demand of “unconditional surrender.” It was probably just a political clinch; Americans needed some triumphant ending to “their” part of the war, especially considering the recent unconditional surrender of Germany. So they continued to demand “unconditional surrender” from Japan, and Japan continued to desperately ask to spare their Emperor (and not even trying to ask for something else).
The nuclear bombings were the last resort of the USA in order to force Japan into “unconditional surrender.” AND IT FAILED. It failed completely. Japan did not care. They still had the same and only “condition” for their surrender: save our Emperor.
We were always taught that the first bombing was the demonstration of a new type of bomb and what it can do to people and their cities, and as Japan did not surrender after it, there was the second bomb, in order to show that Japan would be obliterated like this city by city until they surrender. And Japan promptly surrendered after the second bomb.
The truth is: they did not care. Neither after the first bomb, nor after the second one. If the USA had 10 or 100 nuclear bombs and continued to demand “unconditional surrender,” the bombings would continue, and Japan would still cling to their only condition: spare the Emperor.
So what happened after the second bomb?
First of all, it was the last bomb the USA really had ready, so they could not continue these bombings in the nearest future, until new bombs are prepared. This was the highest secret, of course, but the USA already faced a very unpleasant situation: they demonstrated the most powerful weapon in the world, and Japan did not flinch. Even if they had more bombs at the time, it was already obvious that Japan would still not agree to “unconditional surrender.” After all, Japan was notoriously cruel towards people overall, including its own people, and the horrible death of hundreds of thousands of Japanese women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was just “collateral damage” for the Japanese government.
Therefore, the USA hastily organized a “diplomatic special operation”: they silently accepted the only Japan’s condition about sparing the Emperor but presented the situation as if Japan finally agreed to “unconditional surrender.” Which could have happened any time even before/instead of the nuclear bombings if Americans wanted it, because, as I said, the Japanese government was not stupid and they already accepted that they lost the war. The negotiations about their surrender were going on all this time. The nuclear bombings just showed the Americans that Japan would not surrender “unconditionally,” so they decided to accept the condition about the Emperor and declare their victory at last.
(There was another powerful factor in this complex equation: the entrance of the USSR into the Eastern theater of the war. Otherwise, maybe the USA had some time to think and rearrange things. However, the USSR started to invade Japan-occupied territories, and it was obvious that they would do here the same things as in Europe: rapes, lootings, and occupation of vast territories for many years ahead. It meant a great concern regarding the uncontrolled expansion of the “Soviet bloc.” The USA and all the other Allies were desperate to save this part of the world free from the barbarian Stalinists, and so they did not think twice about finally offering Japan surrender without the word “unconditional.”)
And afterward, it was always the reiteration of the same myth: the nuclear bombings helped to end the war because they forced the Japanese to surrender. Nope, they did not. They would not do it. The nuclear bombings just showed the USA that Japan would not surrender unless they respect their only condition about the Emperor, and it was the Americans who were forced to yield, not vice versa.
Well, Paul Ham describes all the aspects of this problem in great detail, so you can learn all the argumentation and decide for yourself. For me, it was a very interesting and important lesson about geopolitics and “history as we know it.”
Among other things, I was also surprised to learn that Americans did not know much about the “radiation” aspect of their bombings. They knew that the nuclear bombs would kill and mutilate people in thousands, but they were scared and ashamed when they started to see more distant effects of the radiation (as if it was something much worse than horrible deaths immediately or shortly due to the direct effect of the destructive force). Well, it’s just another very interesting topic for discussion, so I’ll stop here. If you are interested, I do recommend this book a lot. There are many other thought-provoking and illuminating things there.
December 27, 2023
After watching Oppenheimer, I realised I didn't know a lot about the dropping of the bombs on Japan and the rationale behind it. The film touches on the events, but presents them through the lens of Oppenheimer's life and experience. It doesn't really engage with the morality of the decision(s) in a meaningful way.
About 2/3 of Hiroshima Nagasaki focuses on the events leading up to the bombings, including the appalling fire bombings of German and Japanese cities, and the political machinations which drove the huge machine underlying the Manhattan Project.
I found myself rushing a little toward the first bomb on Hiroshima, wanting to know what exactly had happened, but also having trepidations about what I'd read. The moments immediately after the bombings are so visceral it almost feels fictional. Genuine cosmic horror, doomsday scenes, the pits of humanity. That this could have been done to humans, and then deemed an acceptable act in total war, shocked me.
What also shocked me was how the US covered up the radiation sickness and other side effects of the bomb, actively suppressing humanitarian efforts to treat the wounded who would die horrifying deaths as a result.
Was there any other way of ending the war? Ham's contention is that there was and I struggle to disagree.
I think I'll read Barefoot Gen at some stage to see how Japanese people portray the experience.
About 2/3 of Hiroshima Nagasaki focuses on the events leading up to the bombings, including the appalling fire bombings of German and Japanese cities, and the political machinations which drove the huge machine underlying the Manhattan Project.
I found myself rushing a little toward the first bomb on Hiroshima, wanting to know what exactly had happened, but also having trepidations about what I'd read. The moments immediately after the bombings are so visceral it almost feels fictional. Genuine cosmic horror, doomsday scenes, the pits of humanity. That this could have been done to humans, and then deemed an acceptable act in total war, shocked me.
What also shocked me was how the US covered up the radiation sickness and other side effects of the bomb, actively suppressing humanitarian efforts to treat the wounded who would die horrifying deaths as a result.
Was there any other way of ending the war? Ham's contention is that there was and I struggle to disagree.
I think I'll read Barefoot Gen at some stage to see how Japanese people portray the experience.
February 15, 2022
You learn things growing up. How did we have a war, what did hitler do and how did the Japanese surrender. Till now I thought the two atomic bombs were key to this.
This book has reset my understanding and in an engaging, factual and balanced way. Chapter 17 is very engaging but one of the hardest chapter of a book I have ever read but I think for the understanding of why nuclear weapons are the most horrific thing a country could use I think everyone should read it.
This book has reset my understanding and in an engaging, factual and balanced way. Chapter 17 is very engaging but one of the hardest chapter of a book I have ever read but I think for the understanding of why nuclear weapons are the most horrific thing a country could use I think everyone should read it.
November 4, 2019
A great overview of the when, where, why, and how of the atmoic bombing of Japan (Both western and japanese views) during WWII, along with the aftermath.
November 10, 2024
boring lol
September 3, 2023
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivor testimonies are extremely powerful and I’m grateful I had the chance to read them. The nuclear bombs immediate and long reaching consequences to the Japanese people are hard to capture and to imagine.
I wanted to read this for the Japanese perspective and find out some more stuff about how / if it was strategically necessary.
Did USA need a second detonation to ensure Japanese surrender? No.
Did USA pick cities of civilians and not military targets? Yes.
That the USA denied medical care and knowledge to the Japanese survivors goes to show how cruel and inhumane the USA is.
I wanted to read this for the Japanese perspective and find out some more stuff about how / if it was strategically necessary.
Did USA need a second detonation to ensure Japanese surrender? No.
Did USA pick cities of civilians and not military targets? Yes.
That the USA denied medical care and knowledge to the Japanese survivors goes to show how cruel and inhumane the USA is.
February 20, 2016
[February 19th, 2016] AT LAST THE REVIEW
4 stars.
This weighty tome caught my eye due to the research I was doing for CrownedEmpyreon. Although I knew from what I read in textbooks and documentaries, and other forms of mediums that the atomic bombings, which helped end WWII has been a predominant blemish of both the sciencific and moral grounds of human life. And something that no person should have to play a part or have a role involved with such destruction. It is difficult though, considering I didn't live through that and seeing it from all sides, it was definitely no one wished for. Still it came down to such consequential actions that would impact millions of lives, then and now.
I already braced myself for the entirely of these horrific events when TSLI covered from preWWI all the way to the end of the Cold War. I knew I would have to deal with the historical tragic events that led and occurred and the aftermath of these actions. It's clear though, from Paul Ham's narrative and perspective, that a lot of things happened to led events to this path. War is a horrific thing, as are the actions people are forced to take in the matter of life and death, to protect and defend, and whether to kill or be killed.
And I'm glad that this book was written with both sides in mind. It truly shows exactly how no war is won without losses. No life would be the same after these events. And how much one choice can alter millions upon millions of lives, and then future billions. Yes, both sides showed terrible actions in war, but that what we should remember...
War alters our human morals into a fight for survival, the most animalistic and primal nature that has be within us since the dawn of time.
Paul Ham covers a majority of events and time frame, and doesn't leave his readers without information and a clear idea what's going on. The 2 years and a half worth of research he did is evident in the details he presents us. And it would take another 1 and a half worth to write and edit this weighty tome. It is ambitious to say the least.
My only regret is that because of the massiveness of this book, it was a harrowing effort on my part to struggle through the trenches of line after line of words. At times I had to take a break and do other things otherwise it would lose or overwhelm me. Considering the nature of the topic and the fact I had picked this up for research, it carried a burden of information and a narrative that we need to know and acknowledge about what happened.
Did the atomic bombs truly help win the war? Or did something else play in the decision of the desperate victory?
We are provided some inkling to this, however we won't truly know exactly what the final deciding factor was--the nuclear wrath, the threat of the Soviets, or both.
And the descriptions of those that suffered, their stories and details will haunt me, especially when their pleas were ignored. Especially when they were not told of the horrific aftermath of being exposed as we do now. The souls that suffered needlessly and without a voice. It saddens me deeply, more so when I relieve their words again in writing the scenes I need to portray. I only hope I do the justice they so rightly deserved, despite the horrific details I'll have to trudge through and dread.
Definitely a heavy read for me, more so as research.
I can only fervently wish and hope that such tragic actions will not have to be made again.
4 stars.
This weighty tome caught my eye due to the research I was doing for CrownedEmpyreon. Although I knew from what I read in textbooks and documentaries, and other forms of mediums that the atomic bombings, which helped end WWII has been a predominant blemish of both the sciencific and moral grounds of human life. And something that no person should have to play a part or have a role involved with such destruction. It is difficult though, considering I didn't live through that and seeing it from all sides, it was definitely no one wished for. Still it came down to such consequential actions that would impact millions of lives, then and now.
I already braced myself for the entirely of these horrific events when TSLI covered from preWWI all the way to the end of the Cold War. I knew I would have to deal with the historical tragic events that led and occurred and the aftermath of these actions. It's clear though, from Paul Ham's narrative and perspective, that a lot of things happened to led events to this path. War is a horrific thing, as are the actions people are forced to take in the matter of life and death, to protect and defend, and whether to kill or be killed.
And I'm glad that this book was written with both sides in mind. It truly shows exactly how no war is won without losses. No life would be the same after these events. And how much one choice can alter millions upon millions of lives, and then future billions. Yes, both sides showed terrible actions in war, but that what we should remember...
War alters our human morals into a fight for survival, the most animalistic and primal nature that has be within us since the dawn of time.
Paul Ham covers a majority of events and time frame, and doesn't leave his readers without information and a clear idea what's going on. The 2 years and a half worth of research he did is evident in the details he presents us. And it would take another 1 and a half worth to write and edit this weighty tome. It is ambitious to say the least.
My only regret is that because of the massiveness of this book, it was a harrowing effort on my part to struggle through the trenches of line after line of words. At times I had to take a break and do other things otherwise it would lose or overwhelm me. Considering the nature of the topic and the fact I had picked this up for research, it carried a burden of information and a narrative that we need to know and acknowledge about what happened.
Did the atomic bombs truly help win the war? Or did something else play in the decision of the desperate victory?
We are provided some inkling to this, however we won't truly know exactly what the final deciding factor was--the nuclear wrath, the threat of the Soviets, or both.
And the descriptions of those that suffered, their stories and details will haunt me, especially when their pleas were ignored. Especially when they were not told of the horrific aftermath of being exposed as we do now. The souls that suffered needlessly and without a voice. It saddens me deeply, more so when I relieve their words again in writing the scenes I need to portray. I only hope I do the justice they so rightly deserved, despite the horrific details I'll have to trudge through and dread.
Definitely a heavy read for me, more so as research.
I can only fervently wish and hope that such tragic actions will not have to be made again.
July 18, 2020
”Radio Tokyo described Hiroshima as a city of death … peopled by [a] ghost parade, the living doomed to die of radioactive burns.”
For most of Hiroshima Nagasaki, author Paul Ham delivers a compelling account of the U.S. bombings of two Japanese cities at the close of World War II, ushering in the age of atomic energy and providing the first frost to the upcoming Cold War. The history is nicely done with Ham providing an engaging overview of the ‘top secret’ Manhattan Project and a cool minute-by-minute account of the actual airstrikes, balancing the cool military-mindedness of the mission with the pilots’ first pangs of moral consciousness about the terrible Pandora’s Box being opened. Vivid, hellish descriptions of the two bombs’ explosive power and unimaginable consequences make for a ghoulish tour de force as Ham wisely gives us both a ‘before-and-after’ of the two Japanese cities, peopling the metropolises with a number of Japanese citizens – many of whom were children at the time of the attack – who offer firsthand accounts of the bombs’ terrible effects and stamping the almost incomprehensive destruction with a shuddering human pathos.
Much of the book is therefore amazing, but it is also history with a slant as Ham roots around in the politics of the decision to drop the bomb in an attempt to myth-bust the rationale and justification for the attacks, putting the kibosh on the notion that the atomic bombings were at all necessary, were at all important in saving American lives, or had any actual impact on ending the war. Ham does a credible job of stacking the evidence for his point of view, but I found his argument ultimately unconvincing and heavily dependent on the ‘certainties of hindsight.’ Even assuming that everything Ham asserts is unequivocally correct, his perspective seems to depend upon U.S. leaders of the time also being aware (and certain) of the same facts as the historian … and that those in the ‘real-time’ of war were able to sift those same facts from all the other bits of information and rumor that permeate the fog of combat. My guess is ‘certainty’ was much harder to come by during the War and that the simpler explanation – that U.S. leaders were ready to put any option on the table to avoid a ground war in Japan and end the conflict as quickly as possible to avoid even the slight risk of greater American causualties – is a more likely reality. Maybe the atomic bombings were ultimately unnecessary – as Ham asserts – but I don’t think that the U.S. brass knew that with any certainty at the time.
Ham’s theories aside, I usually don’t capsize a book just because I can’t entirely get on board with the writer’s perspective – especially when a book is admittedly great elsewhere – but Ham fairly turns his perspective into a bludgeon halfway through the narrative. After zipping through the first 300 pages, things turned terribly tedious over the last hundred pages or so – which is a shame because there is certainly more amazing work as to be found as Ham captures the tragic lives of the hibakusha (bomb-affected people) with a voice that is both compelling an emotionally poignant. Sadly, even that feels over-powered by the screed of the final chapters.
Mixed emotions on whether to recommend this one. Compelling, but Ham’s urge to ‘make a point’ is over-sold and keeps this unquestionably important history from telling itself.
October 11, 2016
A stunning, complete treatment of the only two nuclear weapons ever used on people. What makes this book unusual is the two-sided view -- A British historian investigating both the American and Japanese perspectives, as well as at least part of the Russian side, too.
The book left me with several takeaways:
--Civilization must never forget the inhuman devastation of these weapons. The graphic descriptions of the immediate and delayed human carnage make for nightmarish, heavy reading. Yet, 70 years later, the generally sanitized understanding most people seem to have of these bombs' effects makes me concerned about their potential use in the future.
--The reflections of President Truman and his advisers (particularly Secretary of State Byrne) were cooly politically charged. They never took their eyes off of public opinion, and revenge for Pearl Harbor, the Bataan Death March, and Japanese war atrocities drove their use of the bombs more than strategy or necessity.
--The continuing argument among Japanese leadership about how and when to surrender is sad and depressing in their general dismissiveness of civilian suffering.
--So much of what I thought I knew about the bombs and their use was pure propaganda... For instance, the "million American casualties" saved by precluding the planned invasion? The actual estimates were 30,000-50,000 ... And even that is capricious, because it was not seriously considered; the naval blockade was working effectively and had drastically weakened the Japanese war effort.
Also, "we only had two devices," is laughably accurate. It's true: but the assembly line was pumping out several more within 10 days.
The targets were by no means military targets. At all.
Perhaps most remarkably, all of the deliberations among the Japanese leadership were focused on the entrance of Russia into the Asian war -- just 2 days before the first bomb was dropped; that Manchurian invasion is what REALLY got their attention, rather than the continued destruction of Japanese cities.
Mostly these bombs were dropped because they could be dropped, and all that damn time and money and achievement was not going to go to waste ... That, and Joe Stalin needed a wake-up call.
Such a momentous event in human history demands such critical thinking and analysis, but I am reminded that hindsight is 20-20, and it is always easier to criticize a decision and recreate the circumstances of history outside the binding vise of a crisis. And more than anything else, this book reminds me that history is messy... and that monumental decisions are not made in a vacuum. Unfortunately, they are often made for specious reasons.
The book left me with several takeaways:
--Civilization must never forget the inhuman devastation of these weapons. The graphic descriptions of the immediate and delayed human carnage make for nightmarish, heavy reading. Yet, 70 years later, the generally sanitized understanding most people seem to have of these bombs' effects makes me concerned about their potential use in the future.
--The reflections of President Truman and his advisers (particularly Secretary of State Byrne) were cooly politically charged. They never took their eyes off of public opinion, and revenge for Pearl Harbor, the Bataan Death March, and Japanese war atrocities drove their use of the bombs more than strategy or necessity.
--The continuing argument among Japanese leadership about how and when to surrender is sad and depressing in their general dismissiveness of civilian suffering.
--So much of what I thought I knew about the bombs and their use was pure propaganda... For instance, the "million American casualties" saved by precluding the planned invasion? The actual estimates were 30,000-50,000 ... And even that is capricious, because it was not seriously considered; the naval blockade was working effectively and had drastically weakened the Japanese war effort.
Also, "we only had two devices," is laughably accurate. It's true: but the assembly line was pumping out several more within 10 days.
The targets were by no means military targets. At all.
Perhaps most remarkably, all of the deliberations among the Japanese leadership were focused on the entrance of Russia into the Asian war -- just 2 days before the first bomb was dropped; that Manchurian invasion is what REALLY got their attention, rather than the continued destruction of Japanese cities.
Mostly these bombs were dropped because they could be dropped, and all that damn time and money and achievement was not going to go to waste ... That, and Joe Stalin needed a wake-up call.
Such a momentous event in human history demands such critical thinking and analysis, but I am reminded that hindsight is 20-20, and it is always easier to criticize a decision and recreate the circumstances of history outside the binding vise of a crisis. And more than anything else, this book reminds me that history is messy... and that monumental decisions are not made in a vacuum. Unfortunately, they are often made for specious reasons.
September 3, 2023
“Ordinary Japanese people were ignorant of, or willfully blind to, the atrocities being committed in their name.” (p 15). This tracks with what Nakazawa wrote in The Autobiography of Barefoot Gen. (Barefoot Gen is a really well done description, first hand account, of the devastation of Hiroshima and its impact on inhabitants in manga format.)
“Anti-American articles and posters appeared every day: ‘If one considers the atrocities which [the Americans] have committed against American Indians, the Negroes, and the Chinese,’ fumed the respectable economic newspaper Nihon Sangyo Keizai, on August 5, 1944, ‘one is amazed at their presumption in wearing the mask of civilization.’” (p 19)
“Japanese children were prime targets of this propaganda. Throughout the 1940s, school posters urged children to ‘Kill the American Devils,’ boys and girls were instructed to attack images of Churchill and Roosevelt.” (p 19). Again, see Nakazawa also.
“‘Self-energized dislocation’…using a euphemism as callous as it was inexact*…’terror bombing’ - a phrase coined by German Propaganda Minister Goebbels - more accurately described the most efficient way yet discovered of killing human beings: ‘ it would be ironical,’ stated the British military historian Basil Liddell Hart, ‘if the defenders of civilization depend for victory upon the most barbaric and unskilled way of winning a war the world has ever seen.’” (p 52)
*Feuersturm: firestorm
“The clearest manifestation of its {LeMay’s fire bombing of civilians} failure was the people’s resistance. They did not revolt. Insurrection was unthinkable to hungry, bombed civilians. Major de Seversky, an air-war expert, put it rather more brutally in an appropriately named chapter: The Fallacy of Killing People’: ‘The dead can’t revolt.’…
De Sevenky’s opinion of civilian terror-bombing stands as its most clear headed denunciation: ‘in air battle, killing is incidental to the strategic purpose.’”
( p 66)
So there’s a lot of background provided before this book moves into discussion of the bomb: shogunate histories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Truman’s ascendancy to the presidency, germane discussion of bombing in Europe, so be prepared to read 80+ pages before Ham gets to discussing the bomb, and even then he goes into explaining the development of quantum physics from Rutherford to Bohr, and how to extract the necessary isotopes from uranium, but he provides interesting detail throughout.
But there’s maybe two chapters devoted to information about the actual bombing of both cities and the aftermath in each; a lot about multifaceted things that led up to each event, followed by a lot of discussion about the complexities for surrendering, followed by nuclear proliferation, so from this context the title could be seen as emphasizing each city too much - but overall, a very informative read. And it drives home point that the two atomic bombings* had little impact on the thinking of the Japanese Imperial Command- though Russia’s entry into the war did, as did the preservation of the Emperor.
{*in a way, what did it matter whether it was one bomb or a thousand bombs that destroyed a city? And the people - the commoners - didn’t matter to the samurai class}
“Stimson divulged the details of a secret organization larger than the biggest US corporation; tens of thousands working on an enterprise, the purpose of which they were ignorant; of huge factories and laboratories situated on mesas, deserts, and valleys; of swathes of American businesses given over to developing new and untested processes; of immense resources, deadly substances, and remarkable scientific advances; and of a cost to US taxpayers: upwards of US $2 billion (US $24 billion in 2020).” (p74)
“Black workers were segregated, paid little and housed in poor conditions; racial discrimination against African Americans and Hispanics did not pause for the war effort.” (p 128)
“The legal case of the ‘Radium Girls’ prompted new regulations to protect workers from radiation and other workplace hazards and ensured that American industrialists were well aware of the effects of radiation a decade before the use of the atomic bomb.” (p 90)
Ham confirms what I’ve read elsewhere: that early on some scientists advocated for the open exchange of ideas, in part to avert a nuclear arms race. This exchange didn’t happen and the nuclear arms race took off.
Unfortunate naïveté for people of Nagasaki, thinking since the city had been the hub of Christianity in Japan that they were being spared.
“The bed-wetters (younger children evacuated to the countryside), who lay in terror through the long, black nights pricked by starlight and comet, or perhaps the tail lights of American bombers flying home.” (p 139)
“Halsey’s precision raids demonstrated the strategic advantage of striking military targets over LeMay’s mass napalming of civilians: Halsey’s carrier aircraft sank eight of 12 huge ferries that transported coal from the Hokkaido mines to war factories on Honshu. The American historian Richard Frank described raid as ‘the most devastating single strategic bombing success of all the campaigns against Japan,’ crippling coal supplies to the main island.” (p 176)
“Oppenheimer had chosen the name ‘Trinity’ after the ‘three person’d God,’ …of John Donne’s ‘Holy Sonnet 14. The poem marries the self-flagellatory torment of the Old Testament with the devotional self-sacrifice of the New, and holds meaning for Christian and Jew:
Batter my heart, three person’d God; for you/
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine and seek to mend/
That I may rise, and stand, and o’erthrow me, and bend/
Your force to break, blowe, burn, and make me new…/
Donne intended the poem as a plea for redemption from a tripartite God. Oppenheimer hauled the poem into the 20th century as an appeal to the god of atomic energy who would ‘break, blowe, burn, and make me new’ - that is purify me by threatening to destroy me. The theme of redemption through destruction possibly appealed to the scientist’s troubled conscience; and furnished hope that the bomb could yet redeem mankind and end war forever…the heathen Japanese, broken, blown, and burned, were, implicitly, not to participate in the peaceful rebirth of a post-nuclear Judeo-Christian world.” (p 219)
“Honkawa National Elementary School - the school nearest the detonation…was completely gutted; the principal, all 10 teachers and 400 children, killed immediately (two, behind a wall, survived).” (p 317). I wonder if one of these two was Keiji Nakazawa who went on to write “Barefoot Gen.”
“It is palpable clear from these events that the Soviet declaration of war made a deeper impression on Tokyo than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.” (p 354)
Nagasaki: “thousands of near dead staggered up the Urakami Valley towards the hospital. The wounded carried the fatally wounded; children dragged their dying parents; parents clutched their children’s bodies. They bumped and shuffled up the hillsides, glancing back at fires that drew closer, and one by one they collapsed from dehydration or exhaustion.” (p 375)
“A tedious debate about how to surrender…proceeded…fantasy vied with delusion for a claim on their minds…the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were scarcely mentioned.” (pp 380-383)
“During this time, one foreign journalist’s persistence undermined the US investigation, and put a spur in the side of the world’s press…it was the work of an intrepid Australian correspondent, Wilfred Burchert, a young man not yet sullied by his love affair with communism.” (p 425)
“Their fear of cancer - or confirmation of it- drove many to suicide…whenever he heard such stories the great Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oe,* himself exposed to the bomb, felt relieved that Japan ‘is not a Christian country. I feel an almost complete relief that a dogmatic Christian sense of guilt did not prevent the girl from taking her own life.’” (p 441)
(Author of “Hiroshima Notes”)
“…Oppenheimer confided, ‘Mr President, I feel I have blood on my hands.”…Oppenheimer meant that he wore blood of future casualties of nuclear war; not the blood of the Japanese.” (p 463)
“In Edward Teller we encounter…the utter rejection of any controls on nuclear arms….Teller, on whom Stanley Kubrick partly modeled the character of Dr Strangelove…”. (p 467)
“John Hersey’s article ‘Hiroshima’…had a huge impact on perceptions of the nuclear weapons (notwithstanding the reporter Mary McCarthy’s demolition of Hersey’s article as a ‘human interest story’ that treated the bomb as an earthquake or other natural disaster and failed to consider why it was used, who was responsible, and whether it had been necessary.)”. (p 469). [i think, but didn’t set down Ham’s and Hersey’s works side by side, they tell some of the stories of the same survivors; but then again, there’s was a limited pool of interviewable survivors,]
“Anti-American articles and posters appeared every day: ‘If one considers the atrocities which [the Americans] have committed against American Indians, the Negroes, and the Chinese,’ fumed the respectable economic newspaper Nihon Sangyo Keizai, on August 5, 1944, ‘one is amazed at their presumption in wearing the mask of civilization.’” (p 19)
“Japanese children were prime targets of this propaganda. Throughout the 1940s, school posters urged children to ‘Kill the American Devils,’ boys and girls were instructed to attack images of Churchill and Roosevelt.” (p 19). Again, see Nakazawa also.
“‘Self-energized dislocation’…using a euphemism as callous as it was inexact*…’terror bombing’ - a phrase coined by German Propaganda Minister Goebbels - more accurately described the most efficient way yet discovered of killing human beings: ‘ it would be ironical,’ stated the British military historian Basil Liddell Hart, ‘if the defenders of civilization depend for victory upon the most barbaric and unskilled way of winning a war the world has ever seen.’” (p 52)
*Feuersturm: firestorm
“The clearest manifestation of its {LeMay’s fire bombing of civilians} failure was the people’s resistance. They did not revolt. Insurrection was unthinkable to hungry, bombed civilians. Major de Seversky, an air-war expert, put it rather more brutally in an appropriately named chapter: The Fallacy of Killing People’: ‘The dead can’t revolt.’…
De Sevenky’s opinion of civilian terror-bombing stands as its most clear headed denunciation: ‘in air battle, killing is incidental to the strategic purpose.’”
( p 66)
So there’s a lot of background provided before this book moves into discussion of the bomb: shogunate histories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Truman’s ascendancy to the presidency, germane discussion of bombing in Europe, so be prepared to read 80+ pages before Ham gets to discussing the bomb, and even then he goes into explaining the development of quantum physics from Rutherford to Bohr, and how to extract the necessary isotopes from uranium, but he provides interesting detail throughout.
But there’s maybe two chapters devoted to information about the actual bombing of both cities and the aftermath in each; a lot about multifaceted things that led up to each event, followed by a lot of discussion about the complexities for surrendering, followed by nuclear proliferation, so from this context the title could be seen as emphasizing each city too much - but overall, a very informative read. And it drives home point that the two atomic bombings* had little impact on the thinking of the Japanese Imperial Command- though Russia’s entry into the war did, as did the preservation of the Emperor.
{*in a way, what did it matter whether it was one bomb or a thousand bombs that destroyed a city? And the people - the commoners - didn’t matter to the samurai class}
“Stimson divulged the details of a secret organization larger than the biggest US corporation; tens of thousands working on an enterprise, the purpose of which they were ignorant; of huge factories and laboratories situated on mesas, deserts, and valleys; of swathes of American businesses given over to developing new and untested processes; of immense resources, deadly substances, and remarkable scientific advances; and of a cost to US taxpayers: upwards of US $2 billion (US $24 billion in 2020).” (p74)
“Black workers were segregated, paid little and housed in poor conditions; racial discrimination against African Americans and Hispanics did not pause for the war effort.” (p 128)
“The legal case of the ‘Radium Girls’ prompted new regulations to protect workers from radiation and other workplace hazards and ensured that American industrialists were well aware of the effects of radiation a decade before the use of the atomic bomb.” (p 90)
Ham confirms what I’ve read elsewhere: that early on some scientists advocated for the open exchange of ideas, in part to avert a nuclear arms race. This exchange didn’t happen and the nuclear arms race took off.
Unfortunate naïveté for people of Nagasaki, thinking since the city had been the hub of Christianity in Japan that they were being spared.
“The bed-wetters (younger children evacuated to the countryside), who lay in terror through the long, black nights pricked by starlight and comet, or perhaps the tail lights of American bombers flying home.” (p 139)
“Halsey’s precision raids demonstrated the strategic advantage of striking military targets over LeMay’s mass napalming of civilians: Halsey’s carrier aircraft sank eight of 12 huge ferries that transported coal from the Hokkaido mines to war factories on Honshu. The American historian Richard Frank described raid as ‘the most devastating single strategic bombing success of all the campaigns against Japan,’ crippling coal supplies to the main island.” (p 176)
“Oppenheimer had chosen the name ‘Trinity’ after the ‘three person’d God,’ …of John Donne’s ‘Holy Sonnet 14. The poem marries the self-flagellatory torment of the Old Testament with the devotional self-sacrifice of the New, and holds meaning for Christian and Jew:
Batter my heart, three person’d God; for you/
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine and seek to mend/
That I may rise, and stand, and o’erthrow me, and bend/
Your force to break, blowe, burn, and make me new…/
Donne intended the poem as a plea for redemption from a tripartite God. Oppenheimer hauled the poem into the 20th century as an appeal to the god of atomic energy who would ‘break, blowe, burn, and make me new’ - that is purify me by threatening to destroy me. The theme of redemption through destruction possibly appealed to the scientist’s troubled conscience; and furnished hope that the bomb could yet redeem mankind and end war forever…the heathen Japanese, broken, blown, and burned, were, implicitly, not to participate in the peaceful rebirth of a post-nuclear Judeo-Christian world.” (p 219)
“Honkawa National Elementary School - the school nearest the detonation…was completely gutted; the principal, all 10 teachers and 400 children, killed immediately (two, behind a wall, survived).” (p 317). I wonder if one of these two was Keiji Nakazawa who went on to write “Barefoot Gen.”
“It is palpable clear from these events that the Soviet declaration of war made a deeper impression on Tokyo than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.” (p 354)
Nagasaki: “thousands of near dead staggered up the Urakami Valley towards the hospital. The wounded carried the fatally wounded; children dragged their dying parents; parents clutched their children’s bodies. They bumped and shuffled up the hillsides, glancing back at fires that drew closer, and one by one they collapsed from dehydration or exhaustion.” (p 375)
“A tedious debate about how to surrender…proceeded…fantasy vied with delusion for a claim on their minds…the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were scarcely mentioned.” (pp 380-383)
“During this time, one foreign journalist’s persistence undermined the US investigation, and put a spur in the side of the world’s press…it was the work of an intrepid Australian correspondent, Wilfred Burchert, a young man not yet sullied by his love affair with communism.” (p 425)
“Their fear of cancer - or confirmation of it- drove many to suicide…whenever he heard such stories the great Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oe,* himself exposed to the bomb, felt relieved that Japan ‘is not a Christian country. I feel an almost complete relief that a dogmatic Christian sense of guilt did not prevent the girl from taking her own life.’” (p 441)
(Author of “Hiroshima Notes”)
“…Oppenheimer confided, ‘Mr President, I feel I have blood on my hands.”…Oppenheimer meant that he wore blood of future casualties of nuclear war; not the blood of the Japanese.” (p 463)
“In Edward Teller we encounter…the utter rejection of any controls on nuclear arms….Teller, on whom Stanley Kubrick partly modeled the character of Dr Strangelove…”. (p 467)
“John Hersey’s article ‘Hiroshima’…had a huge impact on perceptions of the nuclear weapons (notwithstanding the reporter Mary McCarthy’s demolition of Hersey’s article as a ‘human interest story’ that treated the bomb as an earthquake or other natural disaster and failed to consider why it was used, who was responsible, and whether it had been necessary.)”. (p 469). [i think, but didn’t set down Ham’s and Hersey’s works side by side, they tell some of the stories of the same survivors; but then again, there’s was a limited pool of interviewable survivors,]
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