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Nagasaki atomic bomb left man scarred for life

33 Comments
By MIKI TODA

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Japan had been looking to surrender for the las tyear.

The fault for the prolonging of the war lies with the American refusal to accept anything less than an unconditional surrender - which they knew Japan would not agree with.

The Japanese terms were reasonable enough but the USA, Inc wanted total domination over Japan, it wanted it out of the way so it could dominate Asia.

In that is the primary reason for the war, the continuation of the war, and the final suffering of innocents.

It could have all been over months earlier.

But, hey, you know, reconstruction is great for business, almost as great as military supplies.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"History has long established that the bombs did not end the war and were rather just an extremely callous and unnecessary political and scientific exercise."

You're deluded. Serious history has established the bombs key role in end the war...and further killing. The emperor in his surrender speech clearly points to the bombs for the decision to surrender, and also Japan dismissing the Potsdam Declaration in July 1945 is an irrefutable fact.

It's only the more recent revisionism that has concocted a narrative that ignores such basic facts to make the bogus argument that the bombs somehow didn't end the war.

"Let the hate go, for goodness sake."

Juicy comment, there, and not really worth of responding to in a proper debate. Just saying that the people who would prolong the war, and have the killing continue, are the haters.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

I saw a very sad documentary where one of the last existing crew men of the bomber met with two aged victims and still refused even a polite apology. The pain in the old lady in particular was deeply saddening.

@JeffLee

History has long established that the bombs did not end the war and were rather just an extremely callous and unnecessary political and scientific exercise.

Let the hate go, for goodness sake.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

"the USA has never apologized to the victims of the atomic bombs"

It would be a travesty for the US to apologize for an act that forced a quick end to the world's most destructive war, saving hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides, not to mention lives in lChina, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Russia, etc. etc.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Very different Smith as the USA has never apologized to the victims of the atomic bombs and this includes 22,000 Korean dead. The gift of the USA goes down bloodlines in the form of genetic damage. Japans war crimes do not excuse American war crimes. I admit Japan did many terrible things then the USA did their own terrible things and blaming Japan for making them do it.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

There's been talk recently about the children of Holocaust sufferers suffering from the constant re-telling of that story.

In earlier days, the past would have quickly been forgotten and consigned to history.

I think it's about time we de-nationalized and patriotized war and, as you say Smith, memorialized all the unnecessary victims as one.

A more accurate view would be to unite the military classes of all nations - and who they serve- as one; and acknowledge the rest of us as being their victims.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

This is all about what we're going to do about nuclear, thinking deeply about a human life. Not a time for finding someone to blame.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

YuriOtani: "The suffering does not end with the bomb survivors but continues down with their descendants."

Not just the bomb survivors, Yuri, but the survivors and victims of all war and heinous actions. Remember that next time you ask those who suffered at the hands of the Japanese to stop asking for apologies and forget about history, as though Japan were the only victim. Many suffered the same as your family did, and much worse, under the IJA. This man in the article is a true survivor and I agree with you at least that we should not call him 'lucky' in any casual sense of the word, as his suffering must have been severe. However, it is not limited to those who survive, scarred physically or mentally or both, by atomic bombings (and if you suggest it's not relative don't forget you mention your family in Okinawa, which would also be irrelevant as such).

So, again, remember those very words you mention. They are true, but they are true for all victims of war and atrocities.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

And kids think that they have got it tough when there xbox or play station stops working. this man has had it tough and i mean it tough, what a true survivor.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Mr. Taniguchi must be really mad at the Japanese leaders who started the war and surrendered 6 days too late for him and all the other Nagasaki A-bomb victims.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

For one moment, for one week, can we stop comparing atrocities please? Everything that happens during war is usually done in cold blood and is an atrocity (not saying it is a good thing btw!). So instead of minimizing one thing whilst focusing only on another thing. Instead of hating on a group of people, why not hate on the systems and philosophy/politics that caused the war (all wars), no matter who caused more damage for you? Afterall, usually, one sees his/her/family's/country's/ pain as the biggest and therefore will never see eye to eye.

Also, let's take the chance to really reflect on the cruelty of war, all of it, not that perpetuated by one side or other. Afterall usually war is caused by small groups of people, whilst the pain is suffered throughout countries. If you believe, pray for all victims; big, small, soldiers or not. Every one and every side has lost family members, has had large death tolls.

And, hopefully, hopefully remember history so that it doesn't ever get repeated.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Maybe, but this old guy, a paper boy whose youth stopped at 16, has dedicated his excruciatingly painful life to nuclear non-proliferation. What else do you expect of him?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

sangetsu03 totally agrreed the attrocities/ war crimes in asia were largely committed by soldiers of the IJA, that was the burning, beheading, rape torture, shooting of innocent civilians. this was done on a face to face basis, it doens get much more personal than that. then there are those in Japan that seem to think the Japanese are somehow the victims of the worst attrocities in human history. Just ask any Chinese, Korean, Singaporean, Jew etc that experienced the evil at the hands of Hitler and the IJA. the ignorance and blindness of many Japanese on what happened outside Japan on a much larger scale during WW2 is sickening at times. And you wonder why so many gajin dont find Japan sincere in there apologise for WW2

1 ( +3 / -2 )

What we learn from war is death and pain. People are pawns for those in power and that will not change even for future generations. When will love overcome hate? For some never, and those who waste time hating are truly ill. There are evil people in this world and some have to bear the burden of these lunatics.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

This man from Nagasaki was not a combatant. He is a victim of horrible, inhumane experiment performed by Americans over innocent civilian people. And many, many Americans are still proud of it !

1 ( +7 / -6 )

All readers back on topic please.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

What a dedicated wife.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

When you take Guatemalan children from their homes, hand them over to American scientists, and then send them to medical labs for experimentation and extermination it is entirely the same thing as the Holocaust, is it not?

I'd say nope -- not even close. Unless their objective was genocide of all Guatemalans. Let's keep things in perspective here. You obviously don't have a high regard for the US, but comparing it with Nazi Germany is going overboard.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

@Galag: That is the "morally inequivalent" argument and it does not work. As Brig. Gen. Carter W. Clarke, the officer in charge of preparing MAGIC intercepted cable summaries in 1945, stated:

"….we brought them [the Japanese] down to an abject surrender through the accelerated sinking of their merchant marine and hunger alone, and when we didn't need to do it, and we knew we didn't need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn't need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs."

As Clarke stated, the nuking of H&N was not about surrender, but racism and live human experimentation on children. The admission of Kermit Beahan proves it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdJyOBriLTI

When you take Guatemalan children from their homes, hand them over to American scientists, and then send them to medical labs for experimentation and extermination it is entirely the same thing as the Holocaust, is it not?

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/02/johns-hopkins-lawsuit-deliberate-std-infections-guatemala

The Guatemalan children and Nagasaki children were as innocent as the Jews, the transgender, the Gypsies and the homosexuals targeted by Hitler. The fire-bombings/nuclear attacks on Japan and the Guatemala Syphilis Experiment were atrocities on par with the Holocaust suffered by the Jews.

Which is more humane, the Hitler gas chambers or the Truman nukes?

-11 ( +3 / -14 )

I would not call him "lucky" as of the pain and suffering he has endured. Perhaps the western mind expects a low bow and a thank you. They justify it by actions of others committing war crimes. Must be the old eye for an eye stuff. Criminal Japanese commit crimes, so criminal Americans try to out do them. I wonder if my family suffered or had "clean" deaths. My family it was death during the steel typhoon and then Nagasaki. I see the Americans thinking it as a atomic bomb test with live subjects.

The suffering does not end with the bomb survivors but continues down with their descendants.

-3 ( +3 / -6 )

Downvote this as you will.

This guy is lucky. Most of the victims of war never see their death coming. They are the lucky ones. The unlucky ones see it coming, and live with the knowledge for a couple of years. Then they die. And nobody will ever post pictures of them on the internet and call them "survivors" with admiration.

They're just dead.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

The fire-bombings and nuclear attacks on Japan were war crimes on par with the holocaust suffered by the Jews.

That's the "moral equivalency" argument and it doesn't work. During the Adolf Eichmann trial in 1961 the Israeli judge questioned Eichmann,an SS Colonel and key figure in the Holocaust, "You have often compared the extermination of the Jews with the bombing raids on German cities, and you compared the murder of Jewish women and children with the death of German women in aerial bombardments. Surely it must be clear to you that there is a basic distinction between these two things. On the one hand the bombing is used as an instrument of forcing the enemy to surrender. Just as the Germans tried to force the British to surrender by their bombing. In that case it is a war objective to bring an armed enemy to his knees.

"On the other hand, when you take unarmed Jewish men, women and children from their homes, hand them over to the Gestapo, and then send them to Auschwitz for extermination it is an entirely different thing, is it not?"

Eichmann readily conceded it was.

7 ( +9 / -3 )

Nuking innocent women and children murdered hundreds of thousands and saved no one. Given that the Russian "August Storm" campaign ended the war, no American or Russian mainland invasion would ever have taken place. As the USSBS concluded:

"….in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."

-The United States Strategic Bombing Survey 1946

I hear beyond the mushroom cloud the screams of more than 55 million people in Asia and throughout the world who suffered from American aggression; I hear the screams of children used in the Guatemala Syphilis Experiment who were raped, cut open alive and without anesthesia and experimented upon who said: "we are not dead yet, do not cut us yet!" Don't you think their screams may have something with the only nuclear explosions on two cities?

From The Guardian:

"Marta Orellana was a nine-year-old orphan when she was included in the experiments.

During the experiments, the following occurred:

Subjects were inoculated by injection of syphilis spirochaetes into the spinal fluid that bathes the brain and spinal cord, under the skin, and on mucous membranes….A woman from the psychiatric hospital was injected with syphilis, developed skin lesions and wasting, and then had gonorrhoeal pus from a male subject injected into both of her eyes…"

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/02/johns-hopkins-lawsuit-deliberate-std-infections-guatemala

-13 ( +2 / -15 )

@bjohnson23 and yamashi: You guys are 2 sides of the same coin. Both perpetuating hate of an entire people.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

I am truly sympathetic to him and all the victims and survivors of the nuclear bombs but as with everything there are victims and survivors on both sides. If you see some of the pics from the infamous Unit 731 then you understand that the level of barbarity from the nuclear bombs pales in comparison to the results of the "experiments" conducted at that centre. The amazing thing is how the "scientists" could have done this given they had to get close up and personal to their lab "rats".

0 ( +7 / -6 )

When I was a child, I remember an old Chinese man in our neighbourhood who had no ears, no fingers, and no hair, his son owned a local produce store. It turns out this old man was in Malaya when the Japanese attacked. He was not a soldier, he was a business person who had lived in Malaya for several years. The Japanese seized him and other Chinese shop owners, doused them with gasoline, and set them on fire. He was the only survivor. He was an innocent man, not a soldier, and he was every bit as scarred for life as the man in the article above, but no one is interested in his story, or the similar stories of tens of thousands of others who endured torture and disfigurement at the hands of the Japanese.

12 ( +19 / -6 )

As sad as this man's suffering is, the Japanese should be blaming their imperial ruler for their suffering and not the allies that retaliated to Japan's imperial rule.

3 ( +14 / -10 )

@bjonson23"Survivor yes by at that young age a supporter of imperialistic Japan"

The more messages like this one, the better people can see a true nature of westerners.

-4 ( +8 / -12 )

@asdfgtr Maybe it was not necessary to win the war and USA could have waited for Russia to take Hokkaido forever, and to have more US soldiers die entering land of Japan. Yes, maybe that is the case. But I hear beyond the mushroom cloud the screams of more than 20 million people in Asia who suffered from Japanese aggression; I hear the screams of unit 731 victims who were cut open alive and without anesthesia who said: we are not dead yet, do not cut us yet! Don't you think their screams may have something with the only nuclear explosions on two cities?

4 ( +9 / -5 )

The nuking of H&N was the most disgusting and cowardly war crime ever committed. It was little more than a brutal and cynical live human experiment on women and children. The depravity and racism of the US government and military is apparent from Harry Truman`s demented giggling prior to his announcement of the mass murders at Hiroshima:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d42dMSAltnQ

See Kermit Beahan gloat as he claims responsibility for nuking the women and children of Nagasaki:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdJyOBriLTI

As Brig. Gen. Carter W. Clarke, the officer in charge of preparing MAGIC intercepted cable summaries in 1945, stated:

"….we brought them [the Japanese] down to an abject surrender through the accelerated sinking of their merchant marine and hunger alone, and when we didn't need to do it, and we knew we didn't need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn't need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs."

As the historical record shows, six of the seven US WWII five star officers concluded that the nuking of hundreds of thousands of civilians was unnecessary. In fact, the nuking was one of the most brutal and cynical atrocities ever committed. As Admiral Chester W. Nimitz stated:

"The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan. The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war…."

Truman`s own diaries show that he prolonged hostilities until the nukes were ready. We also know that he lied to the US public when he stated that Hiroshima was a "military target".

Prior to nuking Hiroshima, the U.S. military had already obliterated over 60 Japanese cities with napalm and white phosphorous. This conclusively proves that Hiroshima and Nagasaki had little value other than as an opportunity for the US military to conduct nuke testing on human subjects.

In this connection, Paul Tibbets is on record as stating that Hiroshima was set aside as a "virgin" test city. Additionally, the primary targets at Hiroshima were residential in nature with the overwhelming majority of casualties being civilian. In fact, Honkawa Elementary school was mere meters from the epicenter of the Hiroshima nuke strike. The fire-bombings and nuclear attacks on Japan were war crimes on par with the holocaust suffered by the Jews.

-3 ( +11 / -14 )

Surprised he has lived so long. That doesn't fit the narrative you usually hear. Humans aren't as frail as some say I guess. Well let's hope nuclear weapons are never used again. Maybe The U.S. And international community should come down on Iran a little harder.

0 ( +3 / -4 )

Survivor yes but at that young age a supporter of the imperialistic Japan, which exists today but in the shadows, no thanks to McArthur. The shadow government to this day has yet to allow any formal apology to the world and instead get backdoor apologies a sign that the imperial movement is well and alive in Japan today.

-19 ( +3 / -21 )

A true survivor.

9 ( +8 / -0 )

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