過ちは (Nagasaki)
The anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing is today just after 11 o’clock.
安らかに眠って下さい
過ちは
繰返しませぬからSleep in peace,
For the mistake
is one we will not repeat.
That’s the inscription on the stone under the memorial arch in Hiroshima. A man broke in and chipped away the word mistake (過ち) a few years ago, maintaining that Japan had nothing to regret. (The we is intended to refer to all of humanity; however, because the sentence in Japanese has no explicit subject, it can be interpreted as meaning that the Japanese themselves are apologizing for entering the war that brought on the bombing.) I’m not sure whether it’s been reinscribed, though I assume it has been; the last time I visited was ages ago.
On 6 August Cathy Young linked to this post about the Hiroshima bombing. It’s well written and worth reading. She also cites some comments appended to an Oliver Kamm piece in The Guardian defending the bombings. The first sentence of the first one appeals to the authority of Noam Chomsky; they go (further) downhill from there.
No one can deny that a lot of children and pregnant women and old grandfathers died in the atom bombings. But we are talking about action taken nearly four years into a declared war that had engulfed a good deal of the planet and had already claimed millions of innocent lives. The time for peace, love, and understanding would come, but the first order of business was to demonstrate with finality that there was no point in continuing to fight. And the only reliable way to do that was to send a clear message: We can destroy your land and people utterly if you force us to. No peaceable people wants to run about sending such a message except under extreme circumstances. The Pacific War was an extreme circumstance. Taking the position that it was the Americans (and British and Australians and Canadians) who were demonstrating contempt for individual human lives—-vis-à-vis the early-Showa Japanese, no less–is so morally bankrupt as to defy comprehension. That we all fervently hope that the atom bombings never have to be repeated does not, sadly, make Hiroshima and Nagasaki a mistake.
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I admit that A-boming fastened Japanese surrender few months or so. And I think the harsh treatment of POWs in S.E.Asia was quite regrettable. I feel simpasy for them because I also feel resentment to USSR’s compulsory labor of more than 650,000 Japanese POWs till 1956. However I don`t think such a bomimg as killed more than 140,000 in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki at once was needed at that time. Only the motivation on U.S.side that wanted faster victory is understandable.It couldn’t be agreed on both side. This cannot be helped. (shouganai)
Jun’ichiro, with all due respect, “compulsory labor” may be tough going, but it does not compare with the Sandakan Death March. It does not compare with being forced to stand outside wetted down in sub-zero temperatures as part of an experiment on the effects of frostbite. It does not compare with being exposed to chemical weapons.
I don’t think that Japan should have to apologize over and over, until the end of the world, for what it did during World War II. It paid the restitution demanded of it at the time. It’s spent the last sixty years establishing a track record as a peaceful, free society and democratic ally. The Japanese have earned the right to be proud of their country.
But it’s chilling as an American to hear the way officials talk about the atom bomb here. The implication seems to be something like, “Well, yes, maybe there was a Unit 731 with a few scientists who let their patriotism get the better of them…but, hey, the Americans dropped the bomb on us, so we had to suffer, too. Can’t we just call it even?” No, we can’t.
Jun’ichiro – “However I don`t think such a bomimg as killed more than 140,000 in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki at once was needed at that time.”
Really? We killed about two to three times that many with one night of firebombing in Tokyo right before the two A-bombs, and Japan didn’t surrender. Why don’t we hear Japan bitching about that? The effort was so great that the IJA figured they could defend the country while we had to make thousands of individual bombing runs per city to clean out resistance. The atom bombs made clear we’d only have to make one run per city, and the calculus of death shifted heavily in favor of immediate surrender.
Next, consider Japan’s ongoing spat with Russia over a few fishing islands. Now think of an invasion of Japan. Stalin was ready to get in on that act. Now imagine a North and South Japan a la the DPRK and ROK. How many innocents would have perished in that conflict, to say nothing of those lost to a North Japanese gulag system?
Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider the calculus of death on that scale versus 500,000 from the bombs? (I’m inlcuding later death via cancer etc. in that figure).
Enough of the Japanese, though. This calculation was mostly about saving American lives. Not one Japanese mother or grandmother was worth another drop of American or Chinese blood in that war. Nanjing, Manilla, and Bataan et al. made that clear. The Chinese, in particular, would have wanted even more than the pound of flesh we extracted, had they been in a position to invade.
As Sean said, we Americans don’t expect either Germany or Japan to kowtow in shame every time the war is mentioned – both countries paid in blood for their mistakes. I’m not sure either paid quite enough, but they paid a lot, and so long as past mistakes are acknowledged properly (Yasukuni, anyone?) we can call it settled after 65 years. What we can’t do, however, is countenance the “woe is us” story every August.
Sean, I don’t intend to make even with A-Boming and treatment of POW and to accuse of US. I think unit 731 was against humanity but it is another matter. Speaking about Bataan death march and Siberia, I think it is the same regarding about treatment of POW. I wrote last comment refering the recognithon difference about nececity of A-Boming.
John, Talking about nomal fire boming, the biggest number of death is 80,000 to 100,000 one night in Tokyo,10th Mar.1945.I mentioned least number not to exaggerate the loss because I don’t want to be like Chinese to do so just to accuse. Regarding about USSR, you are right. Then I also would like to point out that A-Boming was not only the reason of Japanese surrender because USSR joined the war 9th Aug.1945(same day of Nagasaki Boming),betraying treaty between Japan and them. The time when Japan didn’t have any more resouce to fight 3 front.
I know that, Jun’ichiro. I tried to refer to “officials” to make it clear that I was using your comment as a point of departure to discuss why these things bother me, not to imply that you were drawing such an equivalence yourself. But thanks for clarifying.