This is my final post following our visit to Japan earlier this year. Unlike many articles on Walking the battlefields, this is not about a battlefield in a conventional sense. Instead, it concerns one of the greatest human tragedies in history - an event that, arguably, brought the Second World War to an end, and in doing so, may have prevented an even greater loss of life than the estimated 40,000 to 70,000 people killed when a plutonium bomb exploded over Nagasaki's Urakami district at 11.02 a.m. on 9 August 1945.
My wife and I weren't sure what to expect as we stepped off the tram at Matsayama-Machi, the nearest stop to the three sites we were determined to visit - the Peace Park, the Atomic Bomb Hypocenter Park and the Nagasaki Bomb Atomic Museum. What we discovered was a place that was both remarkably accessible and profoundly moving - a landscape dedicated not to victory or defeat, but to remembrance, reflection and hope. That is, aside from the museum which presented an incomplete picture.
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| The Nagasaki Peace Memorial |
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| Nagasaki - Orientation Map |
At the top of the escalators visitors are immediately drawn towards the imposing ten metre high Peace Statue standing at the far end of the park beyond a tranquil pond and fountain. Unveiled in 1955, the statue has become a focal point of the memorial, while over the decades the surrounding landscape has been enhanced by numerous monuments and sculptures donated by nations as symbols of peace and reconciliation.
In the centre of the park, the outlines of building foundations in the grass provide a stark reminder of the devastation that engulfed this area in August 1945. These simple traces of everyday life are among the park's most moving features, illustrating how an ordinary residential district was transformed in an instant by the detonation of the world's second - and to date, last - atomic bomb used in anger.
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| The Entrance to the Peace Park |
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| The Nagasaki Stadium - said to be on the site of the original aiming point |
The epicentre of the blast was a few hundred metres from the Peace Park, at the foot of the escarpment. To reach it visitors descend a series of escalators before making their way towards the unmistakable Atomic Bomb Museum. Nearby stands the so-called Hypocenter monument marking the point directly beneath where the Fat Man plutonium bomb detonated approximately 500 metres (1,650 feet) above the city on the morning of 9 August 1945.
Nagasaki was not the first choice of target. That distinction belongs to Kokura, but heavy cloud and smoke had obscured the aiming point. After three unsuccessful bombing runs, the US Army Air Forces B-29 Bockscar, diverted to it's secondary target. Together with the Soviet Union's massive offensive into Japanese held Manchuria, launched the previous day, this second Atomic Bomb was the catalyst for Emperor Hirohito's announcement that Japan would accept the Allied terms of surrender, bringing the Second World War to a close.
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| The Hypocenter Monument, Nagasaki |
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| Ground Zero, Nagasaki |
Adjacent to the Hypocenter monument, a section of excavated ground reveal an ancient canal and the level of land as it existed at the time of the atomic bombing. The accompanying information panels make deeply uncomfortable reading. They describe the desperate actions of civilians who threw themselves into the canal in a futile attempt to ease the agony of severe burns. Other transparent panels built into the embankment allow visitors to see the depth of rubble and debris that accumulated in the aftermath of the explosion, providing a stark reminder of the scale of the devastation - which, incidentally, would have been even greater if it weren't for the fact that parts of the city were shielded by hills.
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| Atomic Bomb Museum, Nagasaki |
The nearby Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum was opened in April 1996, a slightly belated part of the 50th anniversary of the Nagasaki atomic bombing. The building is striking - the domed glass roof gives a vista of the sky above, orientated towards the position where the bomb exploded. The museum's primary focus is on the victims of the bombing and there are numerous artefacts and displays which seek to describe the horrors that ensued on that fatal day back in August 1945. Amongst the exhibits is a blasted clock frozen at the time of the explosion - 11:02 am (pictured above).
A second theme is concerned with peace and reconciliation. The graphic content of the museum serves to underline the imperative that mankind should work tirelessly to avoid such weapons being used in the future.
For all its strengths though, the museum presents only part of the historical picture. While it powerfully documents the effects of the bombing, it offers relatively little context for the decision to use the atomic bomb. The narrative gives the impression that the attack was an unjustified escalation, without fully exploring the strategic considerations facing the Allies in the summer of 1945, Japan's determination to continue the war despite devastating conventional bombing, or the anticipated casualties of a conventional invasion of the home islands. Nor does it examine in any depth Japan's own responsibility for the chain of events that culminated in the use of nuclear weapons. I suspect that most visitors would leave with a good understanding of the bombing's human consequences, but a less complete appreciation of the wider historical debate that continues to surround President Truman's decision to drop the bomb.
