Hiroshima Anniversary

Discussion in 'All Anniversaries' started by GUMALANGI, Aug 6, 2005.

  1. GUMALANGI

    GUMALANGI Senior Member

    On August 6 1945, the citiy of Hiroshima were destroyed by the first atomic bombs used in warfare.

    Following are from Wikipedia;

    At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of considerable military significance. It contained the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Hata's 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops. It was chosen as a target because it had not suffered damage from previous bombing raids, allowing an ideal environment to measure the damage caused by the atomic bomb. The city was mobilized for "all-out" war, with thousands of conscripted women, children and Koreans working in military offices, military factories and building demolition and with women and children training to resist any invading force
    The Tokyo control operator of the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation noticed that the Hiroshima station had gone off the air. He tried to re-establish his program by using another telephone line, but it too had failed. About twenty minutes later the Tokyo railroad telegraph center realized that the main line telegraph had stopped working just north of Hiroshima. From some small railway stops within ten miles (16 km) of the city came unofficial and confused reports of a terrible explosion in Hiroshima. All these reports were transmitted to the Headquarters of the Japanese General Staff.

    Military headquarters repeatedly tried to call the Army Control Station in Hiroshima. The complete silence from that city puzzled the men at Headquarters; they knew that no large enemy raid could have occurred, and they knew that no sizeable store of explosives was in Hiroshima at that time. A young officer of the Japanese General Staff was instructed to fly immediately to Hiroshima, to land, survey the damage, and return to Tokyo with reliable information for the staff. It was generally felt at Headquarters that nothing serious had taken place, that it was all a terrible rumor starting from a few sparks of truth.

    The staff officer went to the airport and took off for the southwest. After flying for about three hours, while still nearly 100 miles (160 km) from Hiroshima, he and his pilot saw a great cloud of smoke from the bomb. In the bright afternoon, the remains of Hiroshima were burning.

    Their plane soon reached the city, around which they circled in disbelief. A great scar on the land, still burning, and covered by a heavy cloud of smoke, was all that was left. They landed south of the city, and the staff officer immediately began to organize relief measures, after reporting to Tokyo.

    Tokyo's first knowledge of what had really caused the disaster came from the White House public announcement in Washington, sixteen hours after the nuclear attack on Hiroshima.

    By the end of 1945, it is estimated that 60,000 more people died due to radiation poisoning, bringing the total killed in Hiroshima in 1945 to 140,000. Since then several thousand more people have died of radiation-related causes.[8]

    According to the city of Hiroshima, as of August 6, 2004, the cumulative death toll of atomic-bomb victims was 237,062, [9] but it remains uncertain how many of them exactly died of the effects of the bombing. There are about 270,000 hibakusha, "bomb affected people," still living in Japan.

    Earlier this week, there's a show in Hiroshima by a very young girl pianist, who uses a piano that is survived the bomb owned by her granny. However her granny and her relatives were died by the bomb. The song was 'Twinkle twinkle little star' to represent of the granny and her relative who died during that time became stars in the sky.
     
  2. angie999

    angie999 Very Senior Member

    This is from the BBC:

    Hiroshima remembers atomic bomb

    The Japanese city of Hiroshima has marked the anniversary of the moment an atomic bomb exploded above the city 60 years ago.

    Around 140,000 people were killed by the bomb and its aftermath.

    Nuclear survivors, known as Hibakusha, joined dignitaries at the annual commemoration in the Peace Park, built at the epicentre of the blast.

    The head of the UN has said the world has made little progress in tackling the spread of nuclear weapons.

    More:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4748027.stm

    And for Brits there is a 90 minute docudrama on BBC1 at 9.00pm Sunday 7 August.
     
  3. Gnomey

    Gnomey World Travelling Doctor

    Should be interesting Angie, I will be watching it.
    I am remembering.
     
  4. morse1001

    morse1001 Very Senior Member

    I have set the video to record it. it should be interesting.
     
  5. Andy in West Oz

    Andy in West Oz Senior Member

  6. Lindele

    Lindele formerly HA96

    The first atomic bombing on 6th August 1945.
    If I look around the world today, have we learnt our lesson?

    Stefan.
     
  7. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Cant compare Stefan
    The japanese werent giving up, so there was the option and it was used twice
    Blame the emperor of japan and his fanatical military.

    end of.
     
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  8. SDP

    SDP Incurable Cometoholic

    A total tragedy that the bomb had to be used but, in my mind, it was a case of 'if needs must'. Dropping the Bombs also most likely saved my Uncle George's life - he was a POW courtesy of the Japanese on the island of Formosa (Taiwan) at the time...
     
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  9. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    I think we have learnt our lesson as they haven't been used in anger since the 2 were dropped on Japan.



    We'll always have small wars.
     
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  10. SDP

    SDP Incurable Cometoholic

    I hope you are right. Who knows what nutters will arise in the future...that's possibly a good argument for keeping the damn things.
     
  11. Blutto

    Blutto Banned

    Being old enough to have known and talked with people that were subject to awful maltreatment by the Japanese, I can say that I have absolutely no sympathy for Japan whatsoever.
     
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  12. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Worry more about asteroids smashing into the earth
    I might have mentioned this once or twice and then dont get me started being over run by robots and the like
    Oh oh
    Then aliens dont forget them
     
  13. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    As tragic as the atomic bomb was, for the reasons you mentioned, it was unlikely that the war on Japan would have ended without some form of tragedy. Most of us are familiar with the casualty estimates (both sides) for a conventional invasion of Japan.
     
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2019
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  14. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    I once read an article (attached) by Australian war correspondent, WG Burchett, who visited Hiroshima on the 2nd September 1945:
     

    Attached Files:

  15. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

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  16. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    Exactly right. Imagine thousands of women and children with bamboo spears attacking Americans with automatic weapons.
    Dad was home from Europe on leave and getting ready to go to the west coast and then the PTO. He heard the news on the radio.
     
  17. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    Once the bomb was operationally ready, Truman really had no choice but to use it. I shudder to think of the reaction by the American people if the atom bomb had been withheld in favour of another landing(s) and subsequent land campaign in Japan.
     
    SDP likes this.
  18. 8RB

    8RB Well-Known Member

    By the end of the war, my father, together with his mother and younger brother, was being fed no more than some sort of starch porridge, in a Japanese prison camp on Java. His father had been made POW in early 1942 and was later shipped off by the Japanese to Thailand, to work on the Burma Railroad. Somehow they all survived. My father always remained convinced that without the atomic bomb this would most likely not have been the case. I think he was right. At the same time I do feel sorry for all those people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many of them will have been kids, just like my father.
     
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  19. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    75 years ago today.
    We saw the Enola Gay last summer.
     

    Attached Files:

  20. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

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