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Former Hiroshima Branch of the Bank of Japan
- GnarfGnarf 4y agohibaku: The term is from Japanese: 被爆, lit. 'bombed, A-bombed, nuked'
- alex_young 4y agoRelated: Hibakusha, 被曝者 - person affected by nuclear exposure. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibakusha https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibakusha
- typeofhuman 4y agoI wish I had more information on what the day was like for Japanese citizens. As a child in the US, my understanding was that we warned people to leave and anyone that stayed was considered an enemy combatant. Now that I'm older I doubt that narrative is true; especially given the endless lies and gaslighting the US Govt uses on its own people.
- pigsty 4y agoThe museum in Hiroshima specifically notes that the claim that America notified people in Hiroshima before dropping the bomb was 100% fiction. Nobody expected the United States to specifically target tens of thousands of innocent civilians instead of military targets in a single sweep. Papers were dropped across the entire country warning Japan to give up. But that’s like Russia warning the entirety of Ukraine that they’re going to destroy them then acting like nuking Kiev is justified because civilians had fair warning. It’s not hard to even find the papers online that were dropped, but there’s a lot of revisionism online that actively defends nuking civilian targets these days. Mentioning the fact the warning claim isn’t accurate gets immediate downvotes and angry comments everywhere online. Even Wikipedia specifically mentions Hiroshima wasn’t listed, and the papers are publicly available and mention only cities that aren’t Hiroshima, so I’m not sure why people get outraged.
- defrost 4y ago> Nobody expected the United States to specifically target tens of thousands of innocent civilians instead of military targets in a single sweep. The bald facts are the USofA had already performed overnight raids on 72 cities in Japan and completely levelled them. The Tokyo firebombing saw tens of thousands of civilian deaths, a similar number to the deaths in Hiroshima. In Japan at the time bombing raids were expected to strike anywhere and everywhere built up urban | industrial areas existed.
- pigsty 4y agoSo 72 cities got burnt down meaning no place is safe. That doesn’t seem like a fair warning and they could’ve avoided the bombing if they want to—that means civilians are being actively targeted and will be massacred no matter where they are. Japan is a very, very narrow country. “Cities” are basically just a naming convention. Everything from Nagasaki to Tokyo is, frankly, one continuous urban and industrial area. There’s no place that’s more than a brief drive from a dense populated area along that entire corridor.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago>Everything from Nagasaki to Tokyo is, frankly, one continuous urban and industrial area I don't know how true that was in 1940. My understanding is that much of that sprawl developed as they rebuilt all the cities that had been bombed.
- brigandish 4y agoYou seem to be overlaying a map of Japan now to a map of Japan then. For example, in 1945, Tokyo's population was 7.4 million, whereas it is now several times that. I can't confirm that it takes up a larger area now than it did then but I'd be willing to bet that it does, by quite a way.
- pavlov 4y agoThe US even changed its targets just weeks before the bombing. Originally the second bomb was meant for Kyoto instead of Nagasaki: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33755182 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33755182 This enormous cultural destruction was averted because the US Secretary of War had taken his honeymoon in Kyoto decades earlier. Presumably he had no such emotional connection to the innocents killed in Nagasaki.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoThe manga Barefoot Gen covers the experience of the locals, based loosely on the author's first hand experience, and was an interesting/enjoyable read for me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_Gen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_Gen
- FuriouslyAdrift 4y agoI also recommend In This Corner of The World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_This_Corner_of_the_World_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_This_Corner_of_the_World_(f...
- jamal-kumar 4y ago"interesting/enjoyable" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2g9QZvHTuk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2g9QZvHTuk hmm i dunno always considered it to be one of the most horrifying things i've ever seen
- wyum 4y agoI also grew up in the US. In my high school we read the book "Hiroshima" by John Hersey, which tells what happened that day, according to survivors. I recall it being a powerful read. Gave me a tremendous amount of perspective and empathy for the victims. There is some historical evidence that the US dropped leaflets warning about the impending bombings and the atomic bombs specifically. For info, Google "LeMay leaflets." It's also likely that the US made AM radio broadcasts about it. Even so, I'm sure the Japanese citizenry would have regarded it as the enemy propaganda it was and largely ignored the messages. And of course no one could have anticipated or imagined the atomic bombs.
- Waterluvian 4y agoIt’s interesting to see how propaganda can be so thinly veiled even in modern times. I had some American friends who said the 7th grade narrative on the War of 1812 was that it was a “tie.”
- boomboomsubban 4y agoI agree that public education US history is rather thinly veiled propaganda, but who would you say won the War of 1812? A tie seems like the best way to succinctly describe the war.
- Waterluvian 4y agoThe United States declared war and the war ended with a pre-war status quo with British North America intact. I imagine there’s a level of, “but if we didn’t invade, they would have attacked us.” But we hear that from every belligerent. This is sure to have potential to be a… fun conversation. So I’ll leave it at this: there is plenty of subjectivity in how one might decide to measure success. This might not be the best example. I’m not really interested to litigate this this morning. =)
- boomboomsubban 4y agoSure, but the stated goals of the end of impressment and the trade restrictions with France happened. Both were more because Napoleon lost, but those were still the stated US aims. I see it more as "let's attack Britain while they're busy in Europe" than offensive defense. The US banked on France winning in Europe, lost the bet, and still gained Florida in the deal. Not a win, but not really a loss.
- mytailorisrich 4y agoIt should also be remembered that the firebombings of Tokyo by conventional means caused perhaps even more damage and civilian casualties. So I think that in the context they simply didn't care about minimising casualties, perhaps even the opposite. They wanted to show that they now had a weapon that made annihilating a whole city much more efficient and practical, and that they were going to use it until Japan surrendered.
- twawaaay 4y agoI think it would be more accurate to say that the US government notified Japanese government but nobody expected the warning to be taken seriously. I personally believe doing this is morally no different from just dropping the bomb without warning. Because nobody expected the warning to be taken seriously. Because there was no precedent, because the bomb was developed in complete secrecy, because there was no proof or demonstration to the Japanese government that the claim is real for them to take it seriously. It is essentially just looking for an excuse for your actions without really honestly trying to avoid using the bomb and deter your enemy. There is a lot alternative ways US could use those bombs without dropping them on densely populated areas. They could drop it on an unpopulated area and tell "we have more of these". They could drop it on any military installation or grouping of forces that is a bit further away from a populated city. They could explain they have the bomb and invite a representative for a demonstration. At this point Japan had no capability to prevent US from overflying its territory so it is not like Japanese could do anything to prevent the bomb dropped. Knowing a bomb so powerful was developed and ready they would have no choice but surrender. Instead US chose to send a signal to everybody at the cost of tens of thousand of lives that were lost only for the purpose of making that signal so much more powerful. Telling Japanese to evacuate was really completely meaningless move with no moral implications.
- brigandish 4y ago> At this point Japan had no capability to prevent US from overflying its territory so it is not like Japanese could do anything to prevent the bomb dropped. Knowing a bomb so powerful was developed and ready they would have no choice but surrender. The counter argument would be that, if what you have written is true, then Japan would've surrendered before the dropping of the second bomb on Nagasaki. The surrender didn't happen till days after the second bomb, an invasion by the Soviets, and a coup d'état that, if it had succeeded, would've meant no surrender at all. Some of the "big six" in command of Japan's forces were either so delusional to think they could still win regardless of the situation, or that they didn't mind fighting until obliteration came. They were not rational actors.
- stametseater 4y ago
- burlesona 4y agoYou can read John Hershey’s account here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima
- zarzavat 4y ago[flagged]
- pxmpxm 4y agoThis feels like a facebook type of outrage engagement bait comment.
- hungryforcodes 4y agoHe's kind of right though.
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- Ekaros 4y ago[flagged]
- joemazerino 4y ago[flagged]
- joemazerino 4y agoIn world war 2 the concept of "war crimes" was nonexistent, or at the very least considered a normal part of the future of war. Both sides did horrible things to each other's civilians which was a new precedent and set the stage for the industrial-waging wars we saw in the latter half of the 20th century. Asking for a victor of a war to apologize is such a Western concept that I doubt the Japanese would appreciate it.
- localplume 4y agoAre you really saying "both sides did bad things" in the same context of the Holocaust and the atrocities committed by Japan? That is heavily historically revisionist and just plain offensive. Some comments here are nuts. Equating what the US and the Allies did during the war to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan is insane, and as a Jew just fucking disgraceful. People really need to get a history book. The link posted is interesting from a historical perspective, but the comments here just ragging on the US for the bombs and treating Japan like an innocent is just crazy to me. I guess thats what happens when you let war-crime denying Japan rewrite the history books. People here really don't grasp how truly _evil_ Imperial Japan was.
- forinti 4y agoThey reopened in two days! That's incredible. My country would have been stuck in the stone age forever. It's a good thing we don't start wars.
- ram4jesus 4y ago[flagged]
- zht 4y agoWere they baited into annexing Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria, and then the rest of China?
- lmz 4y agoI bet there are Chinese and Korean now who think Japan deserved to get nuked a few more times.
- andrepd 4y agoNone of that makes any sense, but the claim that the Japanese were "baited into war" by FDR is borderline lunatic. The Japanese state was already captured by ultranationalist military officers, and its project of expansionism ongoing, before FDR was even president.
- macintux 4y ago> The Japanese were baited into War by FDR. They invaded Manchuria in 1931 and were at war with China and Russia for years prior to Pearl Harbor. You’re blaming that on the U.S.?
- fosk 4y agoI think he is saying that FDR stopped selling oil to Japan, in such a way that Japan was provoked to attack the US. That’s why they attacked Pearl Harbor in the first place: to neutralize the US navy threat in the Pacific while seeking for new oil sources down South. They were at war with many countries, but they weren’t at war with the US specifically up until that point. And by the way the US sold oil to Japan to profit from their war machine in Russia, Manchuria and China. It wasn’t until the very end that they stopped selling it.
- diceduckmonk 4y ago
- burlesona 4y agoSince the comments are already filling with simplistic takes on the bombings, I would encourage anyone who is interested in a substantive discourse to listen to Dan Carlin’s excellent Hardcore History discussion on this topic[1]. I also recommend the book “The Story of World War 2” as likely the best single book to understand the tragedy and complexity of the war, as well as what the Allies fought for and against[2]. Let us hope humanity never fights such a war again. 1. https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-42-blitz-logical-insanity/ https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-42-blitz-... 2. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Story_of_World_War_II.html?id=49pmAAAAMAAJ https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Story_of_World_War_...
- jamal-kumar 4y agoIf you want an even more deep, first hand account of what happened contemporary to the time I suggest this: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima
- todd8 4y agoMy first hand accounts mostly come from my Father. He was a young Marine Corp officer on Okinawa during World War II. What a sad and terrifying time. He was stationed next to an air base on Okinawa and was issued a gas mask after the bombing of Hiroshima in preparation for the retalitory strikes they expected. After Japan surrendered, there was a sudden shift in roles as the soldiers packed up and prepared to return the the USA. At one point, with little to do, he was offered a ride on a plane that was heading over to the mainland of Japan for some reason. He got to see Hiroshima and Tokyo, spending some time on the ground and interacting with a few Japanese citizens there. My father passed away a couple of years ago and I wish that my brother and I could have recorded his accounts of some of these things.
- lqueenan 4y agoAnother great book (by an American but from the Japanese perspective) is The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 by John Toland. One of the books referenced by Dan in his podcast and contains many first hand accounts of Japanese soldiers, citizens, and leadership. Much more nuanced account of the history and mindset that lead to the war and sustained it than most of the responses here would indicate.
- pfannkuchen 4y agoI sometimes wonder how the Japanese American War would be regarded today if the war in Europe didn’t happen at the same time, and instead it was judged solely on its own merits. I’m guessing it would be very unpopular.
- Invictus0 4y agoYou think it would be unpopular to fight Japan after they bombed Pearl Harbor?
- pfannkuchen 4y agoAfter they bombed a military outpost in the middle of the Pacific, which only existed to project force towards them and their neighbors? Was the US response not insanely disproportionate to that?
- comicjk 4y agoIf Japan had just destroyed a US base, then it would have been proportionate to destroy a Japanese base in retaliation. In reality, Japan launched total war on all its neighbors, and Pearl Harbor was just the first part of this to touch the US directly. The scale of deaths was in the millions before the US entered the war, and there was no guarantee that it wouldn't get far worse. Calculating a proportionate response as if this were a little diplomatic incident just doesn't make sense in this context.
- pfannkuchen 4y agoYes this aligns with my point. This usual analysis has the US acting as a police force to prevent significant aggression, anywhere in the world. However, I believe the mainstream sentiment today is against the US taking on this role (consider the negative view on Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc). For some reason the critical lens of “anti police action” has not been applied to the Japan conflict, in the same way it has been to, say, Vietnam. This inconsistency is what I’m interested in. I speculate that if the pacific conflict was a standalone war that this lens would be more likely to have been applied by now.
- anovikov 4y agoImportant thing to take out of it: the volume of destruction in Hiroshima, and the mass fire, was due to shitty construction quality. It's like when a hurricane levels entire Puerto Rico once every 10 years but when a stronger hurricane happens in Florida, damage is very localised and not really a problem. Was it built like a normal European city with brick or reinforced concrete buildings and not enough combustible material for a mass fire, damage and losses could be an order of magnitude smaller. This is also why megaton range bombs are not at all an overkill. Unfortunately, spectacular volume of destruction due to unique circumstances of Hiroshima being widely popularised, created an inflated impression of power of nuclear weapons, stoking fears and preventing Cold War from being finished in a quick job 30 years earlier.
- pezezin 4y ago> was due to shitty construction quality That is still the case in Japan. There is a big fire in the news every single day, and when a house burns, they burn down completely, with only a smoldering pile of ashes remaining. I have never seen something similar in Europe.
- fomine3 4y agowood vs brick