Hiroshima Day of Remembrance: How Grace Overcame the Atomic Bomb
August 6th is the Hiroshima Day of Remembrance. It is the day that the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. A few days later, the United States dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki. This day of remembrance prompts the question, “How will I, as a US citizen, remember the bombing of Hiroshima?”
When President Harry Truman reflected upon his decision to use the bombs in his book Year of Decisions, he said this: “This is the greatest thing in history.”[1]
Really?!? That’s how we should remember the bombing of Hiroshima? As the greatest thing in history?!?
I admit that Monday morning quarterbacking on decisions of war is a very easy thing to do. I don’t know what I would have done if I were in Truman’s shoes. What we need to know, though, is that Truman had alternatives to using the bombs, and he knew he had alternatives.[2] The myth in the US is that there were only two options and picking one of those options was necessary: use the atomic bombs or lengthen the war by invading Japan and risk killing millions of lives.
Part of the tragedy behind the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that neither bombing was necessary. Japan was defeated before August 6th 1945. Its Navy and Air Force were both decimated. The US flew in Japan air zones at will. In fact, in March of 1945 the US bombed Tokyo, killing 100,000. America also cut off the Japanese food supplies. Japan’s military was defeated and its people were starving – and Japan knew it and offered to surrender before August 1945. The US, however, demanded the unconditional surrender of Japan. For its part, Japan offered to surrender all armed forces, all of the territory Japan seized in the war, to stop production of weapons, to release prisoners of war, and to allow itself to be occupied by allied troops. The only thing Japan refused to surrender was its 2,000 plus year tradition of having an Emperor. This was not sufficient for the US, so Truman decided to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
As fate would have it, after Nagasaki was bombed and Japan capitulated, the US decided it would be a good idea for Japan to have a puppet Emperor.
There were voices critical of the bombing, too. General Dwight Eisenhower voiced his concerns about the decision when the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, told him about the impending bombing. Eisenhower wrote, “I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I though, no longer mandatory as a measure of saving American lives. It was my belief that Japan was … seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face.’ … It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”[3]
There were other options that the US considered. First, the US could have changed the terms of surrender, allowing Japan to keep its Emperor, which the US would eventually allow, anyway. Second, the US could have demonstrated the bombs power in a place where 200,000 civilians would not have been killed. Third, knowing that Japan’s military was defeated and the population starving, the US could have simply waited until Japan capitulated.
Why, then, did the US bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Maybe Truman really thought it was necessary. Or, maybe the US spent over $2 billion making the bomb, so, damn it, it was going to use it. Or, maybe since the Soviet Union was about to enter the war against Japan, the US dropped the bomb so that Japan would surrender to it, as opposed to the Soviets.
I don’t know the exact reasons for the bombing. But I remember it not as “the greatest thing in history,” but as one of America’s greatest sins.
But I remind myself that grace abounds and that grace can overcome any sin.
The people of Hiroshima have created the “Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.” On the website, you can find a history of Hiroshima and the war. You can read articles and see pictures of the devastation. But most importantly, you can see forgiveness and grace. The people of Hiroshima are still suffering from the affects of the bomb, but they don’t want revenge. They don’t blame Americans. All they want is a world of peace. Each year the mayor of Hiroshima delivers a speech on August 6th called, “The Peace Declaration.” Last year mayor Tadatoshi Akiba ended his speech with this statement, “Finally, on this, the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing, as we offer to the souls of the A-bomb victims our heartfelt condolences, we hereby declare that we cannot force the most patiently enduring people in the world, the hibakusha (the survivors), to be patient any longer. Now is the time to devote ourselves unreservedly to the most crucial duty facing the human family, to give the hibakusha, within their lifetimes, the nuclear-weapon-free world that will make them blissfully exclaim, ‘I’m so happy I lived to see this day.’”
May they live to see that day.
[1] Harry Truman, Year of Decisions, Vol 1 (New York: Doubleday and Co., 1955), 465.
[2] See William Juhnke, “Teaching the Atomic Bomb: The Greatest Thing in History” in Nonviolent America, ed Louise Hawkley (Mishawaka, IN: Bethel College, 1993) 104-123.
[3] Gar Alperovitz “More on Atomic Diplomacy,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, December 1985, 36.
Jeremiah Alberg has spent the greater part of his adult life in Japan or Europe. He is the author of A Reinterpretation of Rousseau: A Religious System (over 50 weeks not on the New York Times Bestseller List). In addition to doing research on Immanuel Kant, he is being spoiled by his wife, Yumi, and raised by his two daughters, Hannah and Yuriko. In the essay, Transforming Hiroshima, he reflects on a city he loves.
Countdown to Zero
A Call for Nuclear Disarmament
Sixty-five years ago on July 16, 1945, the first atomic device was detonated at Alamogordo, New Mexico. The time has come to take a stand for nuclear disarmament!
Attend one of the premiere showings of the highly acclaimed documentary Countdown to Zero at the Landmark Century Theatre (2828 N. Clark St.) July 30-August 1, 2010. The film, produced by Academy Award winner Lawrence Bender (An Inconvenient Truth), makes a compelling case that total nuclear disarmament must be put back on the national agenda. Peace groups are hoping for a huge turnout, giving the film a huge boost when it opens nationally.
MOVIE SHOW TIMES: July 30, July 31, and August 1 at 1:30pm / 4:10pm / 7:00pm / 9:45pm