Like millions before me, I made pilgrimage to the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima.

A-Bomb Dome

by Jonas in China

Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound

A visiting choir sang in front of the Cenotaph for the A-Bomb Victims. Very touching.

by colm.mcmullan

I was brought to tears at the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. For some reason I had this museum to myself though all the other buildings were busy.

The highlight is the Peace Memorial Museum (平和記念資料館 Heiwa Kinen Shiryōkan)

… heart-wrenching … documents the atomic bomb and its aftermath, from scale models of the city “before” and “after” to melted tricycles and other displays and artifacts related to the blast. Some are extremely graphic, evocative, and quite disturbing. The rest of the museum describes the post-war struggles of the hibakusha and an appeal for the abolition of nuclear weapons in the world today. Be warned: a visit here, while absolutely worthwhile, will ruin your day. …

wikitravel

But I particularly liked copies of protest letters from the mayor of Hiroshima to the leader of each nation each time they test a nuclear weapon. There were 3 to Obama on display.

Though I wasn’t much in the mood for taking pictures, by luck I captured a couple of good ones. We live for hope.

A nation that can run Bullet Trains safely bungles Nuclear Power. Surprising.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster has been a tourism & public relations disaster too, of course.

There’s as much confusion as information. Bloomberg cites the highest radiation levels yet, while the Financial Times tells that levels around Greater Tokyo have fallen.

Politicians are driven to publicity stunts like this — drinking a glass of water taken from puddles inside the damaged plant.

Personally I’ve not been worried at all for my safety over 7wks here.

The government is handing over $64 billion to Tokyo Electric Power. Part goes for compensation to 89,000 people.

That company needs to be nationalized, temporarily, at least. Japan needs power.

This is what gives me nightmares.

more photos of Hiroshima on The Big Picture

If you want to worry about something, worry about what will happen when some dictator or terrorist uses a nuclear weapon. It would be highly unlikely that the attacked nation would not retaliate in some way shape or form.

If you had told me when I was age-20 that I’d be visiting Hiroshima at age-54, I’d have laughed out loud. I was convinced that the world would be destroyed by now, by Nuclear war.

… yet somehow the planet has lasted this long.

Hiroshima had been left largely untouched by American bombing campaigns; that was, however, intended to ensure a more accurate measurement of the atomic bomb’s effect.

On Monday, August 6, 1945, “Little Boy” was dropped … directly killing an estimated 80,000 people. By the end of the year, injury and radiation brought total casualties to 90,000–140,000.

For those killed immediately (mostly women and children), it was a fast death. For the rest — horrific.

Three days later a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Another 80,000 were dead by the end of the year.

details on Wikipedia

… I’ve always wondered whether it was necessary to drop the second bomb so soon after the first. Yet it was another 6 days before Japan surrendered. Emperor Hirohito requested an end to the war personally.

Another big factor in the Japanese surrender was the Soviet Union launching surprise attacks at the same time.

Actually, the USA had a timetable for more bombs. We’re lucky that only two were used.

… Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, had honeymooned in Kyoto and argued to keep it off the list for as long as possible. One small blessing.