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Nagasaki Mayor Says, 'Thanks for Putting Us On the Map'

by Tim Swanson
by Tim Swanson

Of the nearly 3,000 victims of the 9/11 attacks, more than 10% were foreign nationals.

Two dozen Canadians were killed with the collapse of the World Trade Center towers in what is the worst terrorist attack on citizens of that country.

In addition, twenty-four Japanese, twenty-eight South Koreans and sixty-seven citizens of the UK were among more than 300 foreign nationals from dozens of countries killed that day.

And the seventh anniversary is less than a month away.

Half a world away

This past week, a somber anniversary took place, the 63^rd anniversary of the vaporization of tens of thousands of people living in two Japanese cities.

There have been untold volumes of literature and research written debating both sides of this issue. Yet, one important detail that is often overlooked: of the roughly 250,000 deaths promulgated by Little Boy and Fat Man, more than 15% of the victims of the slaughter were residents of other countries.

When Harry Truman authorized the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima, he became responsible for the deaths of:

More than10,000 Korean laborers
Over 2000 Japanese-Americans
At least a dozen American POWs
Hundreds of Australian, Dutch, and British POWs
Hundreds of Chinese laborers (from Manchuria) and students from Southeast Asia

Three days later, when Harry Truman authorized the nuclear destruction of Nagasaki, he became responsible for the deaths of:

At least 10,000 Korean laborers (another 10,000 hibakusha were harmed by radiation)
More than a dozen American, British, and Dutch POWs

After the radioactive dust cloud settled, between 35,000–50,000 non-Japanese people became shadows on pavement and their only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In fact, the Japanese-Americans (as many as 3200) had all been denied re-entry at the start of the war. And no, these weren’t spies and military officers – just as none of the 100,000 Japanese-Americans incarcerated from the West Coast had ever posed as a credible threat to US military operations.

Crawling with divisions, right?

Neither city was home to a major military base or naval shipyard. Neither had been on the strategic bombing list used by the Allies (e.g., 67 other cities). As a matter of fact, neither had been bombed at all as they had essentially been put on a "do not touch list" by General Curtis LeMay who wanted to see what the full brunt of the bombs could do to modern cities.

Curiously, the original motivation behind building the bomb in the first place was to beat the German effort and presumably unleash its energy on Dresden II & III and not Japan. In fact, even by the end of the war, Japan had neither the resources nor scientific community to construct such a device.

However there had been a kink in the original Allied plan: because Germany was defeated back in May, LeMay still had a couple of bombs that needed to be tested on something. After all, it would be a waste not to use them after so much effort was put into making them. Thus the home islands of Honshu and Kyushu ended up playing the unwitting host to two gruesome experiments.

It was necessary for surrender, right? Wrong. Japan had been suing for peace throughout the entire summer. In July of 1945, the US was actively intercepting communiqués between Japan’s Foreign Minister Togo and Japan’s Ambassador to Moscow, N. Sato. These messages clearly noted that Japan wanted to surrender and were actively requesting audiences and frameworks.

In addition, no matter what side of the political aisle you sit on, there is at least one other alternative Truman could have employed to illustrate the destructive power of the bombs without annihilating population centers. He could have detonated the bombs on an uninhabited island, allowing Japanese POWs, the Russians or even the neutral Swiss to see the effects. Or maybe LeMay was right when he said later, "The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all."

Peace dividends that never came

Promptly after their decimation, both cities were quarantined and a strict media blackout was enforced. Even war-time correspondents, such as George Weller were prevented from going in (he covered the aftermath but his reports were suppressed until his death in 2002). And of the more than 350,000 US troops that occupied Japan after its surrender, roughly 40,000 US soldiers occupied Hiroshima and another 27,000 occupied Nagasaki.

Today, more than 33,000 US soldiers are still stationed throughout the Japanese isles. Tokyo Bay plays permanent host to a US aircraft carrier. Okinawa is home to more than 15,000 Marines. And the curses of LeMay and Truman continue to vex the Japanese people: in the past fifty years more than 1000 Japanese civilians have been killed due to the actions of the occupying military (from negligent driving to violent rape).

But let’s ignore these accusations of occupation and focus on the issue du jour: if Truman cannot be called a terrorist for indiscriminately killing people, than neither can Osama bin Laden.

Don’t buy it? Well, each year – like clockwork – the respective mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki speak out against nuclear proliferation and scrutinize those who threaten to ever use the devices. It’s an odd situation because in retrospect, Tadatoshi Akiba and Tomihisa Taue should be thanking Truman who was willing to sacrifice 250,000 to purportedly save a million. Killing for peace – for the greater good.

Or maybe not.

Next month, while you remember the victims of 9/11, also remember to mourn the victims of 8/6 and 8/9.