The Bombing of Nagasaki August 9, 1945:

[JBeee]

[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] The Untold Story[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]by Gary G. Kohls
by Gary G. Koh[/FONT][/FONT]​

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]62 years ago, on August 9th, 1945, the second of the only two atomic bombs (a plutonium bomb) ever used as instruments of aggressive war (against essentially defenseless civilian populations) was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, by an all-Christian bomb crew. The well-trained American soldiers were only "doing their job," and they did it efficiently.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]It had been only 3 days since the first bomb, a uranium bomb, had decimated Hiroshima on August 6, with chaos and confusion in Tokyo, where the fascist military government and the Emperor had been searching for months for a way to an honorable end of the war which had exhausted the Japanese to virtually moribund status. (The only obstacle to surrender had been the Truman administration’s insistence on unconditional surrender, which meant that the Emperor Hirohito, whom the Japanese regarded as a deity, would be removed from his figurehead position in Japan – an intolerable demand for the Japanese.)[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The Russian army was advancing across Manchuria with the stated aim of entering the war against Japan on August 8, so there was an extra incentive to end the war quickly: the US military command did not want to divide any spoils or share power after Japan sued for peace. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The US bomber command had spared Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Kokura from the conventional bombing that had burned to the ground 60+ other major Japanese cities during the first half of 1945. One of the reasons for targeting relatively undamaged cities with these new weapons of mass destruction was scientific: to see what would happen to intact buildings – and their living inhabitants – when atomic weapons were exploded overhead.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Early in the morning of August 9, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress called Bock’s Car, took off from Tinian Island, with the prayers and blessings of its Lutheran and Catholic chaplains, and headed for Kokura, the primary target. (Its bomb was code-named "Fat Man," after Winston Churchill.) [/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The only field test of a nuclear weapon, blasphemously named "Trinity," had occurred just three weeks earlier, on July 16, 1945 at Alamogordo, New Mexico. The molten lavarock that resulted, still found at the site today, is called trinitite.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]With instructions to drop the bomb only on visual sighting, Bock’s Car arrived at Kokura, which was clouded over. So after circling three times, looking for a break in the clouds, and using up a tremendous amount of valuable fuel in the process, it headed for its secondary target, Nagasaki.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Nagasaki is famous in the history of Japanese Christianity. Not only was it the site of the largest Christian church in the Orient, St. Mary’s Cathedral, but it also had the largest concentration of baptized Christians in all of Japan. It was the city where the legendary Jesuit missionary, Francis Xavier, established a mission church in 1549, a Christian community which survived and prospered for several generations. However, soon after Xavier’s planting of Christianity in Japan, Portuguese and Spanish commercial interests began to be accurately perceived by the Japanese rulers as exploitive, and therefore the religion of the Europeans (Christianity) and their new Japanese converts became the target of brutal persecutions. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Within 60 years of the start of Xavier’s mission church, it was a capital crime to be a Christian. The Japanese Christians who refused to recant of their beliefs suffered ostracism, torture and even crucifixions similar to the Roman persecutions in the first three centuries of Christianity. After the reign of terror was over, it appeared to all observers that Japanese Christianity had been stamped out. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]However, 250 years later, in the 1850s, after the coercive gunboat diplomacy of Commodore Perry forced open an offshore island for American trade purposes, it was discovered that there were thousands of baptized Christians in Nagasaki, living their faith in a catacomb existence, completely unknown to the government – which immediately started another purge. But because of international pressure, the persecutions were soon stopped, and Nagasaki Christianity came up from the underground. And by 1917, with no help from the government, the Japanese Christian community built the massive St. Mary’s Cathedral, in the Urakami River district of Nagasaki.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Now it turned out, in the mystery of good and evil, that St. Mary’s Cathedral was one of the landmarks that the Bock’s Car bombardier had been briefed on, and looking through his bomb site over Nagasaki that day, he identified the cathedral and ordered the drop. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]At 11:02 am, Nagasaki Christianity was boiled, evaporated and carbonized in a scorching, radioactive fireball. The persecuted, vibrant, faithful, surviving center of Japanese Christianity had become ground zero.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]And what the Japanese Imperial government could not do in over 200 years of persecution, American Christians did in 9 seconds. The entire worshipping community of Nagasaki was wiped out.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The above true (and unwelcome) story should stimulate discussion among those who claim to be disciples of Jesus. The Catholic chaplain for the 509th Composite Group (the 1500-man Army Air Force group, whose only job was to successfully deliver the atomic bombs to their targets) was Father George [/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Zabelka. Several decades after the war ended, he saw his grave theological error in religiously legitimating the mass slaughter that is modern land and air war. He finally recognized that the enemies of his nation were not the enemies of God, but rather children of God whom God loved, and whom the followers of Jesus are to also love. Father Zabelka’s conversion to Christian nonviolence led him to devote the remaining decades of his life speaking out against violence in all its forms, especially the violence of militarism. The Lutheran chaplain, William Downey, in his counseling of soldiers who had become troubled by their participation in making murder for the state, later denounced all killing, whether by a single bullet or by a weapon of mass destruction.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]In Daniel Hallock's important book, Hell, Healing and Resistance, he talks about a 1997 Buddhist retreat led by Thich Nhat Hanh that attempted to deal with the hellish post-war existence of combat-traumatized Vietnam War veterans. Hallock said, "Clearly, Buddhism offers something that cannot be found in institutional Christianity. But then why should veterans embrace a religion that has blessed the wars that ruined their souls? It is no wonder they turn to a gentle Buddhist monk to hear what are, in large part, the truths of Christ."[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]As a lifelong Christian, that comment stung, but it was the sting of a sad and sobering truth. And as a physician who deals with psychologically traumatized patients every day, I know that it is violence, in all its myriad of forms, that bruises the human psyche and soul, and that that trauma is deadly and contagious, and it spreads through the families and on through the 3rd and 4th generations – until somebody stops continuing the domestic violence that military violence breeds.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]One of the most difficult "mental illnesses" to treat is combat-induced posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In its most virulent form, PTSD is virtually incurable. It is also a fact that whereas most Vietnam War recruits came from churches where they actively practiced their faith, if they came home with PTSD, the percentage returning to the faith community approached zero.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]This is a serious spiritual problem for any church that (either by the active support of its nation’s "glorious" wars or by its silence on such issues) fails to teach its young people about what the earliest form of Christianity taught about violence: that it was forbidden to those who wished to follow Jesus.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]If a Christian community fails to thoroughly inform its confirmands about the gruesome realities of the war zone before they are forced to register for potential conscription into the military, it invites the condemnation that Jesus warned about in Matthew 18:5–6: "And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believes in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea."[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The purpose of this essay is to stimulate open and honest discussion (at least among the followers of Jesus) about the ethics of killing by and for one's government, not from the perspective of national security ethics, not from the perspective of the military, not from the perspective of (the pre-Christian) eye-for-an-eye retaliation that Jesus rejected, but from the perspective of the Sermon on the Mount, the core ethical teachings of Jesus in Matthew 5, 6 and 7.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Out of that discussion (if any are willing to engage in it) should come answers to those horrible realities that seem to immobilize decent Bible-believing Christians everywhere: Why are some of us Christians so willing to commit (or support and/or pay for others to commit) homicidal violence against other fellow children of a loving, merciful, forgiving God, the God whom Jesus clearly calls us to imitate? And what can we Christians do, starting now, to prevent the next war and the next epidemic of combat-induced posttraumatic stress disorder? [/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]What can we do to prevent the next round of these atrocities, all of which have been perpetrated by professed Christians: the My Lai Massacre, Auschwitz and the other Nazi death camps, Dresden, El Mozote, Rwanda, Jonestown, the black church bombings, the execution of innocent death row inmates, the sanctions against Iraq (that killed 500,000 children during the 1990s), the military annihilation of Fallujah and much of the rest of Iraq and Afghanistan, the torturing of innocents at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay plus the many other international war crimes (albeit un-indicted to date) perpetrated by the current "Christian" administration of the United States. And what is to be done to prevent the next Nagasaki?[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]A large portion of the responsibility for the prevention of military atrocities like Nagasaki lies within the organized Christian churches and whether or not they soon start teaching and living what the radical nonviolent Jesus taught and lived. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The next Nagasaki can be prevented if the churches finally heed Jesus’ call to nonviolence and refuse their government’s call for the bodies and souls of their sons and daughters.[/FONT]

[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]August 6, 2007[/FONT][/FONT]​

 

[Colpy]

Well, that article was a bunch of BS.

First of all, I'd love to see the documented historical evidence that Japan was seeking a method of surrender.....not "honourable" surrender, because in their mindset, no such thing existed. Just surrender, on terms that granted the occupation of Japan by allied forces.

Good luck.

such solid evidence DOES NOT exist.

Why?

Because there was no attempt to seek a surrender......a truce in place, perhaps, but NOT surrender. That, of course, was completely unacceptable, with or without Hirohito.

Nagasaki is one of the best ports in Japan, with excellent ship-building capability.....thus a perfectly legitimate target, Christian, Jew, Shinto or Muslim does not enter into the equation. End of discussion.

Perhaps you think we should have let the Germans keep mainland Europe because there were Christians in Germany?

The general theme of this guy's agenda can be seen in his use of the discredited claim of "sanctions against Iraq (that killed 500,000 children during the 1990s)," WHAT A LOAD!

The facts are as follows:

The Japanese had already shown themselves to be vicious imperialist conquerers in China in the 30s. In Nanking, they murdered 350,000 civilians in a few weeks. The Jap commander pronounced every female of over 12 years to be a free prostitute...........

Japan attacked Pearl Harbour in the early days of Dec. 1941, killing thousands of Americans. They also attacked the Phillipines, and British holdings in the Far East, including Hong Kong, defended in part by Canadian soldiers.

The Japanese commited unbelieveable acts of mayhem and murder upon every civilian population they held..............and they treated prisoners even worse, using them in lethal experiments in chemical and biological warfare.

In every place the Japs were challenged, they fought to the death.....

On Saipan, an entire village walked off a cliff rather than surrender to allied troops. Japan negotiating surrender? That is truely funny.

The ONLY alternative to the use of nukes to cow Japan was a invasion............estimated to cost between 1 and 2 MILLION allied lives, with many times that number of Japanese killed.

The use of nukes saved many, many lives......there was no other logical choice.

If you wish to engage in revisionist history, good for you. But you'll have to realize the burden of PROOF is on you when you challenge conventional wisdon.

This crap don't cut it.

Not even close.

 

[Zzarchov]

The official defense plan to counter Allied invasion was titled "90 million dead"

Their official plan was to send wave after wave of their own civilian populace at allied lines to swamp them beyond their ability to kill fast enough.

You also apparently don't understand Atomic bombs, they weren't as war winning as we think. Conventional firebombing raids were more devestating to the civilian population, atomic bombing was a just a way to hit buried heavy industry.

From everything Japan did, such as unit 731 and its bio weapons division, as well as its own TWO (IJA and IJN) quite advanced nuclear program which was reported to have tested its own weapon, even if later considered to have too little evidence of an actual detonation ,what did you think they were building A-bombs for? Tea parties? That they were enriching Uranium from Manchuria is without question as is that they had an atomic weapons program. They were also recieving shipments of Uranium from Germany when it surrendered, it was confiscated by the British.

There is no good way to blow the smithereens out of someone with a bomb.

 

[Logic 7]

Well, that article was a bunch of BS.

First of all, I'd love to see the documented historical evidence that Japan was seeking a method of surrender.....not "honourable" surrender, because in their mindset, no such thing existed. Just surrender, on terms that granted the occupation of Japan by allied forces.

Good luck.

such solid evidence DOES NOT exist.

Why?

Because there was no attempt to seek a surrender......a truce in place, perhaps, but NOT surrender. That, of course, was completely unacceptable, with or without Hirohito.
]

There was attemps to surrender from the japenese,of course if you only read US official story (which is most of the time a big joke) you would believe such stupidity, but hey from someone who has been raised by Fundamentalist christians, i won't expect a nobel price from you, that is just a sad fact.

 

[Logic 7]

The official defense plan to counter Allied invasion was titled "90 million dead"

Their official plan was to send wave after wave of their own civilian populace at allied lines to swamp them beyond their ability to kill fast enough.

You also apparently don't understand Atomic bombs, they weren't as war winning as we think. Conventional firebombing raids were more devestating to the civilian population, atomic bombing was a just a way to hit buried heavy industry.

From everything Japan did, such as unit 731 and its bio weapons division, as well as its own TWO (IJA and IJN) quite advanced nuclear program which was reported to have tested its own weapon, even if later considered to have too little evidence of an actual detonation ,what did you think they were building A-bombs for? Tea parties? That they were enriching Uranium from Manchuria is without question as is that they had an atomic weapons program. They were also recieving shipments of Uranium from Germany when it surrendered, it was confiscated by the British.

There is no good way to blow the smithereens out of someone with a bomb.

Honestly that is a pretty retarded statement, if you ask me, no nuclear bomb on civilian is justified, you guys can sing like you want , bring stupid statement or document like you want, but dropping nuclear bomb on japan, was BARBARIAN AND ONLY BARBARIAN, PERIOD, and when i look what kind of nation you guys support, it doesnt surprised me.

 

[EagleSmack]

HOG WASH!

The Japanese did not want to surrender ACCORDING to their own records. As a matter of fact when the Emperor agreed to the Unconditional Surrender officers of the IJA and IJN attempted a coup at the Imperial Palace to stop the surrender.

Japan wanted a negotiated surrender or truce so they could keep their honor in a war that they started.

Did you know that the first Canadian killed in WWII was killed by the Japanese? How? After he surrendered he had his head cut off with a sword. Why do you weep for them?

 

[tamarin]

It's blinkered thinking to be compassionate for Imperial Japan today. Without the intervention of the Emperor, the Japanese military would have continued the war after Nagasaki. The homeland strategy was already in place and the people primed to confront the looming invasion.
Revisionism is foolish.

 

[Colpy]

There was attemps to surrender from the japenese,of course if you only read US official story (which is most of the time a big joke) you would believe such stupidity, but hey from someone who has been raised by Fundamentalist christians, i won't expect a nobel price from you, that is just a sad fact.

Fortunately, Logic, being insulted by one with as faint a grasp on reality as yourself bothers me not at all.

 

[Colpy]

Honestly that is a pretty retarded statement, if you ask me, no nuclear bomb on civilian is justified, you guys can sing like you want , bring stupid statement or document like you want, but dropping nuclear bomb on japan, was BARBARIAN AND ONLY BARBARIAN, PERIOD, and when i look what kind of nation you guys support, it doesnt surprised me.

I can understand the argument that the targeting of civilian populations in bombing campaigns is questionable at best. Unfortunately, in the modern industrialized world, and with the advent of total war (the practise of turning the nation's entire production to war material), the population becames, as producers, a valuable asset in the military machine in ways it never was before, and therefore a target. As well, in the modern world, no government exists without at least the acquiestence of the population at large, therefore they are partially responsible for the actions of the elites. Finally, the civilian population must be convinced of the nation's defeat. Germany, at the end of the first world war, was untouched, its civilian population disbelieved the depth of their own defeat, and were therefore willing to accept the idea of "betrayal" by (somehow) the Jews......all a factor in the re-emergence of German military might, the rise of Hitler.....and World War Two.

Then there is, last but not least, the argument that the nuking saved millions of lives in the long run.........

So, what is your opinion on the one-night conventional raid on Tokyo, which killed 150,000 civilians? Is that somehow less "barbaric" than the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Of course mass air raids on civilians are barbaric..........the question is was such barbary necessary?

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

I actually have a lot of Japanese friends from a Buddhist sect i once frequented.....This was brought up to people who lived through the war....The bombing of Hiroshima was viewed by many as trick and they honestly did not think it was possible to repeat another.......

Of course if you read the OP and don't see the ruse , well yer prolly foaming at the mouth enjoying some inane anti america bashing whilst eating out of a can of room temperature garbonzo beans thinking you are worldy.

 

[Blackleaf]

I agree with the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Americans and Canadians fought in both World wars (the US only joining in part of the way through each one, though, and their contribution in WWI was negilgible) and didn't experience any bombings from the Axis powers in their own territories (except Pearl Harbor, when Hawaii wasn't a state of the US). The British, though, experience the destruction of several of their cities by the axis powers, leaving thousands dead. This would be the equivalent of Axis planes bombing New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, Chicago, Montreal, Miami, etc. If the British (who probably suffered the most extensive bomb damage by aircraft in Europe after Germany) had to suffer this then so did our enemies.

Dresden also deserved to be bombed.

There are still many buildings in Britain that still have bomb damage from the War. Coventry cathedral is still a ruin.

 

[Blackleaf]

but dropping nuclear bomb on japan, was BARBARIAN AND ONLY BARBARIAN, PERIOD.

And so was The Blitz, which was the massive German bombardment of London every night between 7th September 1940 and 10th May 1941. It is known as the Second Great Fire of London.

 

[Colpy]

And so was The Blitz, which was the massive German bombardment of London every night between 7th September 1940 and 10th May 1941. It is known as the Second Great Fire of London.

Exactly.

Same thing, only different.

 

[EagleSmack]

I agree with the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Americans and Canadians fought in both World wars (the US only joining in part of the way through each one, though, and their contribution in WWI was negilgible) and didn't experience any bombings from the Axis powers in their own territories (except Pearl Harbor, when Hawaii wasn't a state of the US). The British, though, experience the destruction of several of their cities by the axis powers, leaving thousands dead. This would be the equivalent of Axis planes bombing New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, Chicago, Montreal, Miami, etc. If the British (who probably suffered the most extensive bomb damage by aircraft in Europe after Germany) had to suffer this then so did our enemies.

Dresden also deserved to be bombed.

There are still many buildings in Britain that still have bomb damage from the War. Coventry cathedral is still a ruin.

Oh listen to you Blackleaf... I guess over 100,000 casualties is "negligible" with regards to WWI. I guess compared to France your contribution was "negligible". There aren't many WWI Battlefield tours of England are there.

Why don't you give your chest thumping a rest for a day or go post some obscure British newspaper article as you typically do.

 

[Avro]

The U.S. has never experienced true hardship from an enemy compared to the British.

FACT!

 

[JoeSchmoe]

The U.S. has never experienced true hardship from an enemy compared to the British.

FACT!

Except when the British invaded and burned down the White House....

 

[EagleSmack]

Except when Canada invaded and burned down the White House....

You mean the British. That is just another thing that some Canadians take credit for. They sure don't like to claim being part of the same unit that burnt the White House went up the river to try and take Baltimore and got beaten soundly in the Battle of Baltimore.

 

[Avro]

You mean the British. That is just another thing that some Canadians take credit for. They sure don't like to claim being part of the same unit that burnt the White House went up the river to try and take Baltimore and got beaten soundly in the Battle of Baltimore.

Actually I prefer to take credit for not being part of the Iraqi invasion.

Canada rocks.

 

[EagleSmack]

Nice change in the subject.

:roll:

 

[Avro]

Nice change in the subject.

:roll:

Are you on glue? It wasn't my claim Eaglewhack.:roll: