Posted on 08/06/2005 8:53:54 AM PDT by pabianice
Sixty years ago, US President Harry Truman ordered the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It was a weapon of unprecedented power, and one that changed the face of warfare and international politics forever.
On August 6, 1945, lessons begin at the National Technical University on the outskirts of downtown Hiroshima, as always, at 8 a.m. Math is first up in the lesson-plan for the day, and Keijiro Matsushima is gazing out the window, bored. The lanky, fatherless 16 year-old is the only member of his family still in Hiroshima: His brothers are off with the Imperial Navy fighting the Americans and the British, and his mother is staying with her parents in the countryside. She is afraid of an air attack, because Hiroshima, a city built mainly of wood, is one of the few major Japanese cities that hasn't been bombed to smithereens by the American air force.
But Matsushima, who is studying mechanical engineering, must remain in the city. Like all young Japanese men, he is required to help out in the country's munitions factories when not in school. And so he's sitting in his chair by the stairwell wall, listening to the instructor discuss problems of differential calculus, when he suddenly sees the silvery-white bombers of the US Air Force appear in the clear blue summer sky.
The boy is surprised not to hear air-raid sirens. Suddenly, a gleaming light fills the classroom. A "reddish-orange flash" bright "as the sun" prompts him to dive beneath his desk. He places his hands over his eyes and his thumbs into his ears -- doing exactly what he has been told to do to protect himself in an air raid.
But nothing can protect him against what happens next.
"I had the feeling that the explosion happened right next to me," he says today of the deafening blast, an explosion so massive that it could be heard even 160 kilometers away. Hot air singes the skin on his face and the pressure from the blast presses his body against the floor.
The roof of the building collapses into the classroom, hurtling shards of glass through the room like bullets. The young man calls for help. After a while -- he can't recall how long -- he pulls himself from the wreckage and goes outside. It's as quiet as a graveyard...
All these countries are using American and Isreali made kalishnikovs. Right..... What they try to do with these figures is include things like sales of expensive fighter jets so actual dollar values can be used. Not the number of weapons that are actually being used to cause problems.
I guess they included descriptions of what it was like for the victims of German Nazi ovens in this story as a comparison...? ;)
Keep up the US bashing, jerks, since you've OBVIOUSLY done NOTHING that even remotely compares--with the exception that our bombs that day were completely justified because they ended a war.
Thank you Harry and happy H-Day to all.
Here is a statement in the article that is correct:
"Finally, Hitler's World War II sent 60 million people to their graves, including the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
Hitler's WWII? Japan gets a pass on that?
Ironically, when I was much younger one of my best friend's was Jewish and he was always extremely pissed that the A-Bomb wasn't used on Germany to retaliate for the death camps. He was a oddball far-lefty who advocated the immediate pullout of all our forces from Vietnam so they could go to Israel and help them fight the Arabs. (which, in retrospect, doesn't sound quite as crazy as it did then)
Trace the distribution of planted "Remember Heroshima" day stories ( Code for Don't Bomb Mecca) or ( Don't see The Great Raid ) and you get a pretty good idea of the left's net.
Notice the bed fellows.
He*ll no. Part of the package.
Amen!
Can diatribes against Dresden be far behind?
The "He*ll" should have been the more discrete... "H*ll"
Shows you how used I am to saying the former ;)
So when will the MSM publish survivor accounts of the Bataan Death March or the Rape of Nanking? (crickets chirping)
Reading Spiegel will do that to a person ;>)
Yep, that's the one. And Goebbels did ask for "Total War." Well, he got it.
Doesn't the author think that old Adolf deserved to have one stuck up his heinie? I do. Long Live the Bomb!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.