14 ms·

A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

100 points by pmoriarty 6y ago

pmoriarty 6y ago
More details here: http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/08/08/kyoto-misconception/ http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/08/08/kyoto-misconceptio...
someperson 6y ago
On this historic day (exactly 75 years to the day since the August 9 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki) we should take a moment to understand more about our shared history. > But he was also behind the internment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans because, as Mr Stimson put it, "their racial characteristics are such that we cannot understand or trust even the citizen Japanese". The internment of Japanese-Americans is a blight on United States history [1], as is the gold rush era Chinese Exclusion Act [2] ("the first law implemented to prevent all members of a specific ethnic or national group from immigrating" to the United States), as was the 1950s "Red Scare" [3] (where accusations of being Communist spies were made without evidence.) As the United States enters into a (likely multi-decade long) second Cold War and potential painful economic decoupling, it's worth knowing this history so that the real problems the United States has identified with the Chinese Communist Party can be addressed in accordance to the values the United States exposes. Especially with the presumption of innocence (innocent until proven guilty) when it comes to individual people's lives, and the principle that everybody is created equal. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's recent "Distrust and Verify" [4] reformulation (of a famous Russian proverb) should definitely be applied widely to counter the Chinese Communist Party threat, but great care must be taken to ensure America's core values are always respected. Cold Wars are very dangerous and vastly increase the risk of nuclear escalation, so it's vital we all understand what's at stake. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust,_but_verify https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust,_but_verify
- googthrowaway42 6y ago
  Here are some other elements of our shared history we should endeavor to understand more about during this moment you have carved out for us: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_march_through_the_institutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_march_through_the_ins... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps
  - someperson 6y ago
    I didn't mean to hijack the discussion. I agree that Imperial Japan, Maoist China and Soviet Russia killed tens of millions of people, and Europe/United States had similar number of deaths in World War 1 and 2. I know there is terrible atrocities taking place right now all over the world. From the ethno-religious concentration camps, to human trafficking and slavery, forced prison labor etc. My comment was in context of the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and nuclear war, and how, as the United States enters into what many are calling Cold War 2, we should learn the lessons from the first Cold War and the realities of nuclear war. These major anniversaries provide a lot of news stories for all of humanity to take a moment to pause and reflect on.
    - googthrowaway42 6y ago
      Seems to me that in order to take away any truly valuable lessons from some historical event, you have to understand the context in which it occurred. Generally speaking, humans are very bad at actually understanding how they themselves would actually feel, react, or behave in a similar situation. It's kind of like people who talk all the time about entrepreneurship or starting their own company but then never actually quit their jobs because the reality of handing in your resignation and going off on your own is quite different than the intellectualization of it.
      - 6y ago
lordgeek 6y ago
great story, thanks for finding this!
freeopinion 6y ago
I grew up with a cold war era US-centric understanding of why Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to happen. I get those arguments, Later I was taught a very different, also compelling, rationale for Nagazaki from a Japanese perspective. I get that argument, too. I'm USian, so of course I like any argument that puts the US on the right side of history. But as that moment gets more and more into the past, and we lose the context of culture, etc of that time, what is left is that the US intentionally killed thousands of civilians to demonstrate military prowess and intimidate the opposition. I've been taught the nuances. I've accepted them and perhaps even clung to them. As time passes, even USians might feel less need to keep the memory of those nuances alive. But the horror of that action doesn't go away. I grew up learning about Christopher Columbus, and Pocahontas and Thomas Jefferson, and all the narrative we learned decades ago. Especially lately there has been a lot different version of much of those stories. Some see people and actions of the past as heroic, others see them as hideous. I do not personally condemn decision makers of WWII. I am grateful for the sacrifices of past generations. But the fact remains that the US is the only country in the history of the world that has ever used a nuclear weapon in anger. That is extremely humbling.
- MangoCoffee 6y ago
  Imperial Japan during WWII deserved getting atomic bomb drop on them. Those nuke doesn't even come close to what they have done to the Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese and every Asian countries they have invaded. Imperial Japan should get 10 atomic bomb drop on them for Nanjing Massacre. Imperial Japan use Chinese as test subject for bio and chemical weapon. They have committed far greater crime against humanity than Nazi.
  - GolDDranks 6y ago
    What if you don't believe that Hammurabi kind of thinking? (Especially when it comes to bombing civilians.) Japan had already lost the war.
    - barrenko 6y ago
      The bomb, while vicious, probably stopped the war on many more fronts than just in the Pacific.
082349872349872 6y ago
Some discussion of nuclear targeting criteria (with refs): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24072478 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24072478
hhua_ 6y ago
One less known fact is that one of the advisors to US army back in WWII is Dr Liang Sicheng https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liang_Sicheng https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liang_Sicheng. He is the father of modern Chinese architecture. He recommended that the Americans military authorities spare the ancient Japanese cities of Kyoto and Nara. He married with another legend Lin Huiyin, whose niece Maya Lin later designed Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Lin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Lin
- someperson 6y ago
  The fact this claim has been at the top of this Hacker News thread for hours piqued my interest. So I did some research. I read the New York Times "Overlooked" obituary for Dr Liang Sicheng but found no reference to this event. [1]. The closest thing I could find was [2] which writes the following (and links to a currently-unavailable article hosted on the government of China mouthpiece China Daily): > During World War II, as Japan occupied Beijing and most of coastal China, Liang Sicheng was working in Sichuan. According to Luo Zhewen, a former student who frequently assisted Liang Sicheng in his research, Liang heard that the Allied forces were planning on bombing Japan and Japanese-controlled areas in China. Liang began drawing up a map of the major Chinese cities occupied by Japan as well as Japan’s former capitals, Nara and Kyoto to help American military planners avoid destroying important historic sites and buildings. Liang then traveled to Chongqing, the wartime capital of the Republic of China, and passed the maps to the US Army liaison stationed there. The NYT article suggests Dr. Liang Sicheng was later in life sent to re-education as a counterrevolutionary of Maoist China, but that he has had his reputation revived by the CCP which turn him into a folk hero. I don't doubt that he passed on maps and messages to the US Army in the hope of sparing culturally important sites from bombing, but without further evidence the claim that he was an advisor to the US military that convinced them to spare Kyoto and Nara appears overblown. I am happy to be convinced if independent historians believe Liang Sicheng had a part to play in the decision, but right now this claim feels like highly-upvoted CCP propaganda. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/obituaries/overlooked-lin-huiyin-and-liang-sicheng.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/obituaries/overlooked-lin... [2] https://radiichina.com/did-chinese-architect-liang-sicheng-save-the-historic-sites-of-kyoto/ https://radiichina.com/did-chinese-architect-liang-sicheng-s...
Hokusai 6y ago
I see how hard we are still trying to rationalize such a despicable act as the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "We choose not to destroy cultural value" seems a compassion argument until one realizes that the atomic bomb murdered more civilians that a conventional attack would have killed. To try to justify the attack, to talk about the process, the decisions, removes a very important part of the discussion. And that is the consequences on the civil population. I accept that talking about strategies and politics make sense. But, to remove any human consideration from the discussion only makes us one step closer to repeat the horrific acts of the past. As we have seen so recently, facts do not change people's minds, but feelings do. To talk about the effects on the population, to talk about the suffering will help people to change their minds about using atomic bombs.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > the atomic bomb murdered more civilians that a conventional attack would have killed. That's false. More Tokyo residents died from incendiary bombing. The alternative to the two nuclear bombs was to use 10,000 bombers with napalm to literally incinerate every village and town in Japan. Because of the failure of the Treaty of Versailles in WW1 due to no occupation of Germany, in WW2 the only acceptable outcome was occupation and unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan. (An exception was made for Japan to keep the Emperor.) The Japanese military were end-of-the-world type leaders, same as in Germany, so no negotiated surrender was possible. And calling the USA murderers after Japan declared war on them is absurd. The Japanese population got off easy compared to their butchery in China, which they still deny (because they have to - there was no honor in their conduct and no excuse.)
- slightwinder 6y ago
  > until one realizes that the atomic bomb murdered more civilians that a conventional attack would have killed The conventional bombings on Tokyo killed more people than any atomic bomb.
  - Hokusai 6y ago
    > The conventional bombings on Tokyo killed more people than any atomic bomb. Tokyo had at the time a population of 1.1 million and 90,000 to 100,000 dead on the bombing of March 10th 1945. Hiroshima had at the time a population of 255,000 and 66,000 dead caused by the atomic bomb. You are right. It would have been way worse if the USA has attacked a more populated area. The situations is no less horrific because it.
cageface 6y ago
Even overflowing with tourists Kyoto is a magical place. I'm not religious at all but standing in those beautiful temples and shrines I can't help but be moved by them. Destroying them would have been a tragic mistake.
brzezmac 6y ago
Japanese did their fair share of disgusting things during WWII and occupation of China, Korea, but the article sounds like and old joke about a mugger who says he saved a girl today. He didn't mug her, so that counts as a save.
toto444 6y ago
An interesting fact that you may not know about is that Von Neumann was involved in the decision : "Von Neumann, four other scientists, and various military personnel were included in the target selection committee that was responsible for choosing the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the first targets of the atomic bomb. Von Neumann oversaw computations related to the expected size of the bomb blasts, estimated death tolls, and the distance above the ground at which the bombs should be detonated for optimum shock wave propagation and thus maximum effect. The cultural capital Kyoto, which had been spared the bombing inflicted upon militarily significant cities, was von Neumann's first choice,[131] a selection seconded by Manhattan Project leader General Leslie Groves. However, this target was dismissed by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson.[132]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann
postit 6y ago
“Saved” - I love how American portraits their war crimes.

100 points by pmoriarty 6y ago

More details here: http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/08/08/kyoto-misconception/ http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/08/08/kyoto-misconceptio...

someperson 6y ago

On this historic day (exactly 75 years to the day since the August 9 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki) we should take a moment to understand more about our shared history. > But he was also behind the internment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans because, as Mr Stimson put it, "their racial characteristics are such that we cannot understand or trust even the citizen Japanese". The internment of Japanese-Americans is a blight on United States history [1], as is the gold rush era Chinese Exclusion Act [2] ("the first law implemented to prevent all members of a specific ethnic or national group from immigrating" to the United States), as was the 1950s "Red Scare" [3] (where accusations of being Communist spies were made without evidence.) As the United States enters into a (likely multi-decade long) second Cold War and potential painful economic decoupling, it's worth knowing this history so that the real problems the United States has identified with the Chinese Communist Party can be addressed in accordance to the values the United States exposes. Especially with the presumption of innocence (innocent until proven guilty) when it comes to individual people's lives, and the principle that everybody is created equal. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's recent "Distrust and Verify" [4] reformulation (of a famous Russian proverb) should definitely be applied widely to counter the Chinese Communist Party threat, but great care must be taken to ensure America's core values are always respected. Cold Wars are very dangerous and vastly increase the risk of nuclear escalation, so it's vital we all understand what's at stake. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust,_but_verify https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust,_but_verify

googthrowaway42 6y ago
Here are some other elements of our shared history we should endeavor to understand more about during this moment you have carved out for us: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_march_through_the_institutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_march_through_the_ins... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps
- someperson 6y ago
  I didn't mean to hijack the discussion. I agree that Imperial Japan, Maoist China and Soviet Russia killed tens of millions of people, and Europe/United States had similar number of deaths in World War 1 and 2. I know there is terrible atrocities taking place right now all over the world. From the ethno-religious concentration camps, to human trafficking and slavery, forced prison labor etc. My comment was in context of the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and nuclear war, and how, as the United States enters into what many are calling Cold War 2, we should learn the lessons from the first Cold War and the realities of nuclear war. These major anniversaries provide a lot of news stories for all of humanity to take a moment to pause and reflect on.
  - googthrowaway42 6y ago
    Seems to me that in order to take away any truly valuable lessons from some historical event, you have to understand the context in which it occurred. Generally speaking, humans are very bad at actually understanding how they themselves would actually feel, react, or behave in a similar situation. It's kind of like people who talk all the time about entrepreneurship or starting their own company but then never actually quit their jobs because the reality of handing in your resignation and going off on your own is quite different than the intellectualization of it.
    - 6y ago

lordgeek 6y ago

great story, thanks for finding this!

freeopinion 6y ago

I grew up with a cold war era US-centric understanding of why Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to happen. I get those arguments, Later I was taught a very different, also compelling, rationale for Nagazaki from a Japanese perspective. I get that argument, too. I'm USian, so of course I like any argument that puts the US on the right side of history. But as that moment gets more and more into the past, and we lose the context of culture, etc of that time, what is left is that the US intentionally killed thousands of civilians to demonstrate military prowess and intimidate the opposition. I've been taught the nuances. I've accepted them and perhaps even clung to them. As time passes, even USians might feel less need to keep the memory of those nuances alive. But the horror of that action doesn't go away. I grew up learning about Christopher Columbus, and Pocahontas and Thomas Jefferson, and all the narrative we learned decades ago. Especially lately there has been a lot different version of much of those stories. Some see people and actions of the past as heroic, others see them as hideous. I do not personally condemn decision makers of WWII. I am grateful for the sacrifices of past generations. But the fact remains that the US is the only country in the history of the world that has ever used a nuclear weapon in anger. That is extremely humbling.

MangoCoffee 6y ago
Imperial Japan during WWII deserved getting atomic bomb drop on them. Those nuke doesn't even come close to what they have done to the Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese and every Asian countries they have invaded. Imperial Japan should get 10 atomic bomb drop on them for Nanjing Massacre. Imperial Japan use Chinese as test subject for bio and chemical weapon. They have committed far greater crime against humanity than Nazi.
- GolDDranks 6y ago
  What if you don't believe that Hammurabi kind of thinking? (Especially when it comes to bombing civilians.) Japan had already lost the war.
  - barrenko 6y ago
    The bomb, while vicious, probably stopped the war on many more fronts than just in the Pacific.

082349872349872 6y ago

Some discussion of nuclear targeting criteria (with refs): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24072478 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24072478

hhua_ 6y ago

One less known fact is that one of the advisors to US army back in WWII is Dr Liang Sicheng https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liang_Sicheng https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liang_Sicheng. He is the father of modern Chinese architecture. He recommended that the Americans military authorities spare the ancient Japanese cities of Kyoto and Nara. He married with another legend Lin Huiyin, whose niece Maya Lin later designed Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Lin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Lin

someperson 6y ago
The fact this claim has been at the top of this Hacker News thread for hours piqued my interest. So I did some research. I read the New York Times "Overlooked" obituary for Dr Liang Sicheng but found no reference to this event. [1]. The closest thing I could find was [2] which writes the following (and links to a currently-unavailable article hosted on the government of China mouthpiece China Daily): > During World War II, as Japan occupied Beijing and most of coastal China, Liang Sicheng was working in Sichuan. According to Luo Zhewen, a former student who frequently assisted Liang Sicheng in his research, Liang heard that the Allied forces were planning on bombing Japan and Japanese-controlled areas in China. Liang began drawing up a map of the major Chinese cities occupied by Japan as well as Japan’s former capitals, Nara and Kyoto to help American military planners avoid destroying important historic sites and buildings. Liang then traveled to Chongqing, the wartime capital of the Republic of China, and passed the maps to the US Army liaison stationed there. The NYT article suggests Dr. Liang Sicheng was later in life sent to re-education as a counterrevolutionary of Maoist China, but that he has had his reputation revived by the CCP which turn him into a folk hero. I don't doubt that he passed on maps and messages to the US Army in the hope of sparing culturally important sites from bombing, but without further evidence the claim that he was an advisor to the US military that convinced them to spare Kyoto and Nara appears overblown. I am happy to be convinced if independent historians believe Liang Sicheng had a part to play in the decision, but right now this claim feels like highly-upvoted CCP propaganda. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/obituaries/overlooked-lin-huiyin-and-liang-sicheng.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/obituaries/overlooked-lin... [2] https://radiichina.com/did-chinese-architect-liang-sicheng-save-the-historic-sites-of-kyoto/ https://radiichina.com/did-chinese-architect-liang-sicheng-s...

Hokusai 6y ago

I see how hard we are still trying to rationalize such a despicable act as the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "We choose not to destroy cultural value" seems a compassion argument until one realizes that the atomic bomb murdered more civilians that a conventional attack would have killed. To try to justify the attack, to talk about the process, the decisions, removes a very important part of the discussion. And that is the consequences on the civil population. I accept that talking about strategies and politics make sense. But, to remove any human consideration from the discussion only makes us one step closer to repeat the horrific acts of the past. As we have seen so recently, facts do not change people's minds, but feelings do. To talk about the effects on the population, to talk about the suffering will help people to change their minds about using atomic bombs.

redis_mlc 6y ago
> the atomic bomb murdered more civilians that a conventional attack would have killed. That's false. More Tokyo residents died from incendiary bombing. The alternative to the two nuclear bombs was to use 10,000 bombers with napalm to literally incinerate every village and town in Japan. Because of the failure of the Treaty of Versailles in WW1 due to no occupation of Germany, in WW2 the only acceptable outcome was occupation and unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan. (An exception was made for Japan to keep the Emperor.) The Japanese military were end-of-the-world type leaders, same as in Germany, so no negotiated surrender was possible. And calling the USA murderers after Japan declared war on them is absurd. The Japanese population got off easy compared to their butchery in China, which they still deny (because they have to - there was no honor in their conduct and no excuse.)
slightwinder 6y ago
> until one realizes that the atomic bomb murdered more civilians that a conventional attack would have killed The conventional bombings on Tokyo killed more people than any atomic bomb.
- Hokusai 6y ago
  > The conventional bombings on Tokyo killed more people than any atomic bomb. Tokyo had at the time a population of 1.1 million and 90,000 to 100,000 dead on the bombing of March 10th 1945. Hiroshima had at the time a population of 255,000 and 66,000 dead caused by the atomic bomb. You are right. It would have been way worse if the USA has attacked a more populated area. The situations is no less horrific because it.

cageface 6y ago

Even overflowing with tourists Kyoto is a magical place. I'm not religious at all but standing in those beautiful temples and shrines I can't help but be moved by them. Destroying them would have been a tragic mistake.

brzezmac 6y ago

Japanese did their fair share of disgusting things during WWII and occupation of China, Korea, but the article sounds like and old joke about a mugger who says he saved a girl today. He didn't mug her, so that counts as a save.

toto444 6y ago

An interesting fact that you may not know about is that Von Neumann was involved in the decision : "Von Neumann, four other scientists, and various military personnel were included in the target selection committee that was responsible for choosing the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the first targets of the atomic bomb. Von Neumann oversaw computations related to the expected size of the bomb blasts, estimated death tolls, and the distance above the ground at which the bombs should be detonated for optimum shock wave propagation and thus maximum effect. The cultural capital Kyoto, which had been spared the bombing inflicted upon militarily significant cities, was von Neumann's first choice,[131] a selection seconded by Manhattan Project leader General Leslie Groves. However, this target was dismissed by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson.[132]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

postit 6y ago

“Saved” - I love how American portraits their war crimes.