The Best Read of the Year? # 1 - Shockwave Hiroshima.

[tikay]

THIS POST CONTAINS OFFENSIVE MATERIAL

"Work" has seriously eaten into my available reading time in 2006, and I've barely managed to read 30 books this year.

Naturally, they were all non-fiction, &, with a few days peace & quiet at Christmas, I wanted to share the pleasures of 1 or 2 of them with you. Here's the first, & the one that affected me most, which was, for me, the Best Read of the Year, 2006.

"SHOCKWAVE - THE COUNTDOWN TO HIROSHIMA", by STEPHEN WALKER

This is an absolute heart-breaking tale, & if this one does not make you stop & think, nothing will.

Tells the story of the development of the Atomic Bomb that was eventually used to bomb Japan, & end World War 2. It only took 6 months or so to develop, & they did test blasts in the New Mexico Desert. They knew they had something awesomely powerful when the sand in the desert turned to glass - literally!

Anyway, eventually they decide to bomb Japan with this horrendous device.

And they do just that.

It's tough to explain how horrific an A-Bomb is when it's dropped in the middle of a City occupied by civilians.

The lucky ones - & I mean lucky - were vaporised instantly, & no traces of their bodies were ever found.

Two days later, another A-Bomb was dropped, this time Nagasaki copped it - it was intended for another city, but that city got lucky (!) when cloud cover buggered the plans up.

Some 250,000 folk died. There was not a single "Allied" or American death, or even injury. Impressive stuff.

If the "lucky ones" were vaporised, what about the rest?

"....within a 1 kilometre radius of the hypocentre, the heat was sufficeint to instantly evaporate the internal organs of human beings...."

"...birds spontaneously ignited in mid-flight...."

"...everyone within 500 metres of the hypocentre died immediately......

"..the shockave travelled at 10,000 feet per second. Behind the shockwave the air was sucked out of the atmosphere forming a semi-vacuum. Peoples eyes or viscera were vacuumed out of their bodies......"

".......80,000 died within the first 3 seconds of the bomb exploding......"

A survivor tells of what someone from the "outer zone" looked like.

"......I did not know if it was a man or woman. It did not even look human. Black, from head to foot, with shreds of clothing hanging off it's grotesquely disfigured body. But they were not shreds of clothing - it was flesh. Burning flesh.

It's eyes protruded like golf balls. No hair, burned away, no nose, nose gone, lips swollen to half the size of their face, and a big gaping hole where it's mouth was........." 

Alive though - alive enough to walk, or stagger, or crawl.

100,000 suffered like this. They did not die immediately, they lingered, & mostly died within 24 hours. In the open streets. From shock, & trauma, in the main. Imagine THAT.

OK, now let's switch to Tinian Island, a small Pacific Island, 8 hours flying time away. This was the USAF Base from where the 7 plane mission had originated, with the bomb itself on "Enola Gay".

Before take-off, they'd had a Press Conference. They were in a party atmosphere, there were streamers and bunting, & a band played on the side of the runway. It was "Hip hip hooray, we are going to bomb those mother******* and then Japan will surrender." kinda thing.

After the bombing, they returned to Tinian to a welcoming party. The war was, effectively, over. A flyer had been Roneo'd off & distributed, this was the evening's fare....

"FREE BEER PARTY, 2pm

FOUR BOTTLES OF BEER PER MAN

NO RATION CARD NEEDED

LEMONADE FOR THOSE WHO EDO NOT CARE FOR BEER

ALL STAR SOFTBALL GAME 2pm

JITER BUG CONTEST

NOVELTY ACTS

FREE FOOD GALORE"

Now, this was 8 hours "post-bomb". Here were the Americans whooping it up.

8 hours away, 100,000 folks were laying in the streets. Not dead - they should be so lucky - but dying. Slowly. From shock. Trauma. Blood loss. Mutilation. Most of them had been blinded. Radiation sickness was the least of their problems, they'd not last 48 hours. Only the "survivors" suffered from radiaton sickness. And their children.

And this is the rub. At the exact moment that 100,000 or so Japanese were dying in such hideous pain, the Americans were having their Jitterbug Contest & free beer & stuff.

Winning with dignity is clearly not something done in wartime.

This Post is not anti-American, not at all. And yes, I know, the Japanese did some grotesque things to "us". Us to them, ditto, I'm quite sure, too, War is like that. And it's true, those two Atomic Bombs ended the war, & maybe saved tens of thousands of deaths.

And who'd be the politician - in this case, President Truman - who had to make the agonisingly awful decision to drop those bombs, knowing full well the consequences?

I can't get over that image. At simultaneous moments, the Americans were having their Jitter Bug Contest, & the Japanese were dying in the streets, of hideous injuries, with no Doctors or Hossies to aid their passing, no help, no shelter, not so much as a blanket to cover them up.

It's possible - just - to take positives from this book. Winning with dignity ain't amongst 'em though.

A stunning book. Read it & wonder at just how bad can Mankind be unto Mankind.

[CelticGeezeer]

Not all is fair in love and war and I think that the nuking of two cities full of civilians ranks up there with the holocaust in terms of man's inhumanity to man.

[wader leg]

Moving stuff
I'm sure the party would have been prepared in advance though and the airmen wouldn't have had any first hand accounts of the horror they had just caused. No CNN to report the aftermath.

[RED-DOG]

War is Hell!

It makes no difference whether it's mass destruction in one fell swoop like Heroshima, or 100s of 1000s of individual horror stories from Galipoli or the Somme.

What have we (mankind) learned? Nothing. It goes on as we speak.

[tikay]

Not all is fair in love and war and I think that the nuking of two cities full of civilians ranks up there with the holocaust in terms of man's inhumanity to man.

You are not wrong.

[barhell]

War is Hell!

It makes no difference whether it's mass destruction in one fell swoop like Heroshima, or 100s of 1000s of individual horror stories from Galipoli or the Somme.

What have we (mankind) learned? Nothing. It goes on as we speak.

Mentioning the somme the book that grabbed me most this year was The Somme by Peter Hart an account of the battle which includes alot of first hand material from those on the front line (English, French and German). Gives a detailed account of the horror, heroism and sometimes humour of the soldiers life.

[tikay]

Moving stuff
I'm sure the party would have been prepared in advance though and the airmen wouldn't have had any first hand accounts of the horror they had just caused. No CNN to report the aftermath.

As it happens, that is the sidebar to this story. We take instant "real-time" communication for granted these days, we play Online Poker against peeps the other side of the world day after day.

Believe it or not, the Hiroshima A-Bomb was not reported anywhere - (because nobody knew) not even in Japan - for 7 hours..... Think on THAT! Even the planes could not Radio back to base, Comms were not so good in those days.

[Royal Flush]

And who'd be the politician - in this case, President Truman - who had to make the agonisingly awful decision to drop those bombs, knowing full well the consequences?

It was the worst and the most needless act of his life, if he just wanted to defeat the Japanese he could have invited them to a demonstration in New Mexico, the reason he chose to kill all those innocent people was simply to send a message to Russia that he was capable of using them, truly shocking, can you imagine if that happened today!!


As for the book, i am too lazy to read them, bad i know but if i do start reading again i will deffo check it out, sounds very good.

[tikay]

And who'd be the politician - in this case, President Truman - who had to make the agonisingly awful decision to drop those bombs, knowing full well the consequences?

It was the worst and the most needless act of his life, if he just wanted to defeat the Japanese he could have invited them to a demonstration in New Mexico, the reason he chose to kill all those innocent people was simply to send a message to Russia that he was capable of using them, truly shocking, can you imagine if that happened today!!


As for the book, i am too lazy to read them, bad i know but if i do start reading again i will deffo check it out, sounds very good.

For sure, he was sending a message to Russia. Not overly subtle, either.

You really should read more non-fiction Flushy, & watch less TV dross. I think books are one of the greatest material things we can ever possess. I must have 2,000 of them, I could not begin to explain the pleasure they have given me.

[RED-DOG]

Try audio-books Flushie.

[Royal Flush]

You really should read more non-fiction Flushy, & watch less TV dross.

As it happens the only TV i watch is the stuff i download, the big American drama series stuff, its great escapism when i am having a rough time at the tables.

The only stuff i used to read was non fiction, anything history related. I was mad about history at school (thanks mainly to an excellent engaging teacher. It's what i would have done had i gone to Uni.

Try audio-books Flushie.

I might just do that, Tighty helped me out a while back with my problem of boredom in the longer structured events, he suggested podcasts and they have had a positive impact on me so far so i will give the Audio books a go. Is it possible to get all books on Audio?

[RED-DOG]

I don't know about all books, but I've downloaded a few.

[Jim-D]

I dont think there are many books that arent in audio form now

[ariston]

Do any of you know how many were killed at Pearl Harbour? How many were killed in Serbia or Yugoslavia? What about how many people were wiped out by the famines in Africa over the last 10 years. Death is the only thing guaranteed in life and although many lost their lives in Nagasaki and Hiroshima I think that "demonstration" as people liked to call it saved hundreds of thousands of lives by bringing that war to an end. As long as countries go to war innocent people will get killed its just one of those things you have to accept. Our country has been one of the biggest killers of innocents over the years (going back through the middle ages etc) so I don't think people should make such a big deal about the atom bomb, if we had developed it first we would have used it as would the Russians or the Japanese. The fact that they had a party a few hours later should not be a surprise to anyone, not the best of losers or winners are the Yanks- maybe they should try not taking part so often.

Great topic for Christmas Day btw guys.

[CelticGeezeer]

Peal Harbour 2468 dead(68 civilians), Hiroshima 80,000 Nagasaki 73,000 not including the post explosion radiation deaths.