The Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki As The Final Point in The World War 2

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are distinct historical events because they remain to be the only use of nuclear weapons in the history of warfare. Setting the stage for these tragedies were the commencement of the second world war in 1939 and the subsequent bombing of Pearl Harbor by Imperial Japan in 1941, which prompted the United States’ entry into World War II. Even before this, however, in 1940– a year prior to Pearl Harbor– the U.S. government had already begun funding the “Manhattan Project” as a reaction to the nuclear weapon research in Nazi Germany. Under this program, American scientists such as physicist and “father of the atomic bomb”(J. Robert) Robert J. Oppenheimer successfully detonated the world’s first atomic bomb in July of 1945 at the Trinity test site in a desert of New Mexico. Although Germany had already announced its unconditional surrender to the Allied powers by the time of the Trinity test in 1945, Japan remained committed to fight until the end despite clear indications that they had little chance of winning.

In order to see an end to the global war– already in its sixth year– and prevent further U.S. military casualties (estimated to be as much as 1 million for a massive invasion), President Harry S. Truman approved the use of atomic bombs developed under the Manhattan Project. (Harry S Truman) On July 25, 1945, orders for atomic bombs to be used on four selected Japanese cities were officially issued. On August 6, a B-29 plane dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima. On August 9, Fat Man fell from the sky upon Nagasaki, like an asteroid. In total, the two bombings killed approximately 150,000 to 200,000 people by December of 1945 (Hiroshima and Nagasaki Death Toll), most of whom were civilians. By the time President Truman announced the bombings to the nation via radio, the second bomb had already cleared an entire city. Six days later, Japan’s Emperor Hirohito also made a radio address, announcing his country’s surrender to the Allies. On September 2, 1945, the Japanese government officially signed the Instrument of Surrender, effectively ending World War II.

RIVALRY

In elementary school, a playful rivalry between Japanese American and Korean American students arose before I even noticed it. The Korean kids would often readily tease the Japanese, who would then continue the banter back. Many of these comments consisted of bold assertions of nationalistic pride, with children on both sides arguing which country was better by comparing what each had to offer. I didn’t understand the significance of this dynamic at the time, and merely went along with it as it never turned too serious. A Korean friend of mine once innocently, yet bluntly, asked me, “Would you care if I called you a Jap?” I didn’t understand why I was being asked this nor what it meant, so I shrugged and said no. The deeply rooted rivalry also takes shape in sports, with soccer being the most popular amongst Korean and Japanese sports fans. Although soccer season is great fun and excitement for many fans supporting opposing teams, some long-lasting issues between the nations resurface during these games.

Unresolved political conflicts come to light in international tournament matches as Japanese Imperial flags are waved despite (or perhaps because of) the cruel history attached to it, and controversies rise as Korean soccer player Jong-woo Park is penalized for displaying a sign saying “Dokdo is our territory.”7 (Dokdo is an island which has been long debated as to whether it is the rightful territory of Japan or Korea.) When I recall the rivalry between Korea and Japan that has been passed down by the parents and grandparents of my generation– in my experience, more often strongly expressed by Koreans– I think of how my mom often says in Japanese, “The victim always remembers, while the perpetrator forgets.”

KAMIKAZE

The fear of war was first implemented in me when my mother would unsettlingly speak of the terrors of extreme Japanese nationalism. She would talk of Imperial troops who repeated the traditional cheer Tenno Heika Banzai, or “Long live the emperor,” usually before dying in combat or committing suicide under enemy captivity. The term Kamikaze, officially known as “Special Attack Unit,” refers to military aviators who would initiate suicide bombing attacks by crashing their planes into American warships. Selected pilots aged between 17 and 24; some were enthusiastic to fulfill their duties and offer their lives in the name of their emperor, country, or families, while many others silently repressed their fears of death.

In 1945, an 88-page Suicide Manual was written to mentally prepare Kamikaze pilots, including information on how to cause maximum damage on an enemy ship, how to maintain spiritual composure by eliminating thoughts about life and death, and what they would see in their final milliseconds of consciousness: their mother’s face, neither “smiling [n]or crying.” 16 My suppressed memory of Kamikaze resurfaced in my first year of college, when I heard the pop song “Kamikaze” by Danish singer MØ, released in 2015. While conducting research on these wartime pilots, a quick Google search revealed that the band Walk the Moon and rapper Eminem have both released songs named “Kamikaze” within the past year. When I think of these songs, I think of the contrast between this casual use of the word in catchy pop songs, and the morbid reality of wartime propaganda. Knowing that an estimated 10,000 lives were lost in these suicide missions(Zaloga), the flippant and even romanticized use of Kamikaze in pop songs by white American musicians is not just inappropriate– it also shows a blatant disregard for the word’s frightening history.

AMERICAN SENTIMENT ON THE BOMBING

At 7:48 am on December 7, 1941, the surprise military strike on Pearl Harbor commenced. The United States naval base in the Hawaii Territory was attacked by 353 aircrafts from the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service in two waves. The Japanese bombers destroyed nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight U.S. Navy battleships and over 300 airplanes. Of the 2,403 Americans killed, 68 were civilians and the rest soldiers or sailors. The Japanese losses, on the other hand, were light; only 29 aircrafts and five submarines were lost, and 64 servicemen died in battle. 9 This surprise raid was Japan’s attempt to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from impeding on its military efforts and expansion in Southeast Asia against the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States(Pruitt). Although the raid on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, Japan and the U.S. had been edging towards war for decades. Despite their relationship as trade partners, tension between the nations had been steadily growing as early as the 1930s; indeed, Japan’s invasion of China and Manchuria imbued in many Americans an early and ongoing fear of Japanese expansion. (Pearl Harbor)

The attack on Pearl Harbor led directly to the American entry into World War II. With President Franklin D. Roosevelt signing a declaration of war against Imperial Japan the following day. Japan was later charged with a war crime during the Tokyo trials because of the lack of any official declaration of war on the U.S. prior to the attack. (Yuma) Within months of the attack, Roosevelt signed into action Executive Order 9066. Immediately beginning the forced relocation and incarceration of people with as little as a sixteenth of Japanese ancestry into concentration camps.(Short History of Amache) Approximately 110,000-120,000 people were rounded up and sent to internment camps, with sixty-two percent of them being U.S. citizens.(Semiannual) The Japanese Americans were given as few as six days notification to dispose of most of their possessions and property before they were transported to assembly centers in California, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arkansas. Victims of Japanese internment in America suffered numbers of lasting issues such as monetary and property loss, death or lack of medical care in camp, and psychological injury– Japanese Americans had grown increasingly depressed and overcome with feelings of helplessness and personal insecurity.

For instance, many older men were observed to have developed a sense of insecurity in their stripped abilities to provide for their families and maintain their preexisting roles as head of the household. Following the release and return of Japanese Americans to the West Coast, many attempted to rebuild their lives, yet found that they had nothing to return to and were left with no choice but to start from scratch. It was not until 1988, after decades of activism and lobbying for redress by the Japanese American Citizens League, that Congress attempted to compensate the victims of internment by providing each surviving internee $20,000. (Qureshi) The internment remains evidence of America’s lack of respect for the civil liberties of Japanese Americans. As well as other immigrant and minority groups. Having resulted from racist propaganda turned into anti-immigrant sentiment. The internment and stories of survivors remain relevant as people draw connections to present day events such as President Donald Trump’s immigrant children detention centers.

COMFORT WOMEN

Of the atrocities committed by Imperial Japan. One of the most difficult to listen to or read about is the sexual slavery of women and girls as “comfort women” for Japanese soldiers. Because the Japanese government worried about their military reputation due to cases of mass rape committed during raids such as the Nanking Massacre, hundreds of “comfort stations” were officially organized throughout Japanese-occupied territories such as Korea, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and French Indochina. The women rounded up to be “comfort women” were as young as 14 years old, often coming from poor households. They were lured with promises of work in factories or opportunities for higher education. Not knowing they were being abducted into sexual slavery. Although the exact number of “comfort women” is still under debate due to erased documents and obscured evidence by Japanese officials, estimates range from as low as 20,000 by Japanese historian Ikuhiko Hata, to as high as 410,000 women by a Chinese scholar. Although the exact demographic makeup is also undetermined, Chuo University professor Yoshiaki Yoshimi makes an estimation based off Imperial Army medical records for venereal disease treatment, of which Korean women comprised 51.8 percent, Chinese women comprised 36 percent, and Japanese women comprised 12.2 percent. In Trafficking in Women’s Bodies, Then and Now: The Issue of Military “Comfort Women,” Kazuko Watanabe estimates the number of Korean women to be as high as 80 percent. In addition, there is evidence that the total population of “comfort women” included considerable Southeast Asian women, as well as Dutch, and Australian women.

Testimonies of the few survivors of the “comfort stations” recount unimaginably torturous and grotesque experiences. After being transported to what they thought were factories or workplaces. Women and girls were assigned units with straw beds in which they were continually raped. Many girls who resisted the forced sex would be beaten, stabbed, or even killed by soldiers. Serving up to 40 men a day, many “comfort women” recall in their testimonies how they would see soldiers lined up outside of their units. Not only were they not allowed to rest despite pregnancy or venereal disease, but women who contracted diseases would be killed or “sterilized” by having a hot iron bar “stuck… in [their] private parts.” 8 After being released from years of enslavement following the surrender of Japan and the end of World War II, “comfort women” became societal outcasts. Carrying the overwhelming shame and condemnation of premarital sex, many women could not marry due to trauma or long-term health conditions. Ahn Jeom-sun reflects.

“As I was deceived into doing that terrible work and forced to do such terrible things, of course I couldn’t marry… after going through such suffering, how could I turn my life into some rosy, picture perfect movie by getting married?” Those who did marry often had to conceal their pasts, unable to repeat their painful memories. Instead, they had no choice but to carry this heavy burden in their hearts. An anonymous Taiwanese woman describes how she told her husband 50 years later. “Bowing and begging him to forgive [her].” The blame that is perpetually weighed on the shoulders of women, even for forced sexual assault, extends across countries and is why many former “comfort women” were not able to tell their stories, even to family members. Kim Hak-sun was the first woman to come forward with her story as a “comfort woman” in 1991. Now a South Korean human rights activist against sex slavery and war rape. Hak-sun played a crucial role in bringing the issue of Japanese sex slavery to light. By filing a class-action lawsuit against the Japanese government, she initiated the movement for women from Korea, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, and the Philippines to also tell their stories.

The majority of victims, however, did not live to tell their stories; 90 percent died from disease or were killed by soldiers before the end of World War II. After nearly a decade of surviving “comfort women” protesting in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. A statue of a young woman was built in honor of the 1,000th Wednesday Demonstration in 2011. The Japanese government made numerous demands to have the statue removed, which were strongly rejected by the South Korean population. Japan’s position on “comfort women” is a very controversial one, starting from the erasure of such history. From the downplay of the issue as “a thing of the past” to the outright insistence that “comfort stations” never existed in the first place, Japanese officials and civilians have made endless attempts to neglect and repudiate the testimonies of victims. Although Japan officially acknowledged in 1993 that the military had forced women to work in brothels, Japanese nationalists maintain that the sex work was voluntary, paid, or even necessary.

In 1994, the Japanese government set up the Asian Women’s Fund to compensate victims with a signed apology from prime minister Tomiichi Murayama. However, many former Korean “comfort women” rejected the compensations because the money came from private donations rather than from the government, making it “unofficial.” School textbooks have also been a source of controversy because of their silence on– and consequent erasure of– the topic of “comfort women” as a whole, constituting further acts of historical negationism by the Japanese government. This issue still very much strains the relationship between South Korea and Japan. In 2017, San Francisco made a monument in memory of the “comfort women.” In response, the mayor of Osaka, Japan, Hirofumi Yoshimura wrote a formal letter threatening to cut its sister-city partnership ties with San Francisco unless the statue was removed. 12 The mayor’s reasoning is that he does not want a negative light to be shed on Japan, and that the statue tells a one-sided story. This refusal to accept and take responsibility for war crimes of the past reflects the unsympathetic and nationalistic stance of Japan in the present. A notable feature of Japanese culture is the instinct to not cause any disturbance in a crowd. However, it is important to recognize that silence is agreeance, and how detrimental this silence can be.

INTERNET COMMENTS

Growing up, but also while doing research for this book. I have observed much spitefulness on social media, online forums, or comment sections of video streaming websites such as YouTube. Shortly after visiting the Nagasaki Peace Museum. I watched an animation called Barefoot Gen– a manga made into a film. Based on writer Keiji Nakazawa’s experiences as a Hiroshima A-bomb survivor– on YouTube and recall scrolling down to the comment section and reading “I’m Korean and this makes me happy.” Mixed with pain I felt for hibakusha and the understanding of the existing anti-Japanese sentiment from Korea, I could not settle my feelings. More recently. As I watched testimony videos by surviving “comfort women” for this project. I again looked into the comment section and would see Japanese comments. Claiming that “These old hags are lying,” “The past is in the past,” or “They just want money.”

The dismissive language and even outright humorous tone of these comments. Often rife with laughing emojis, is extremely inappropriate, and even more so given the context. Seeing the hostile, heartless. And condescending comments that fill these online forums. Including the FaceBook statuses of a close childhood friend’s father. I was confronted with a side of Japan and the Japanese public that I had never seen before. The pervasiveness of these comments indicate to me that there is a nationalistic. And discriminatory presence that must still exist. And subconsciously influence even the people who do not make strong remarks such as these. Lastly, when watching videos of hibakusha. Or Japanese atomic bomb victims. I would spot many comments from an American perspective saying, “Just remember what they did on December 7,” “This is revenge for Pearl Harbor.” In regards to these comments. I immediately think not only of the varying scales.

In offense of these two events. But of the evasion of blame rather than acceptance and sympathy. Despite the atrocities that Japan committed during WWII. The atomic bombings are undeniably crimes against humanity at a horrifyingly immense. And destructive scale, and should not by any means be taken lightly. The disregard of such an event is not only deeply insensitive toward. The hibakusha (which includes significant numbers of Koreans, Japanese Americans. And other foreigners as well). But also inconsiderate of the threat that nuclear weaponry poses against humanity itself. Going forward, I am uncertain how to reconcile these opposing sides and tangled histories. Though it is difficult to detach from one’s personal background and biased perspective, it is invaluable to be able to adopt not only a holistic view, but also a sympathetic one when it comes to such complex relations. Thus, I hope for generations in the future to outgrow the cruel, ignorant, and self-servient behavior of these hostile commenters.

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