HiroshimaEssay Preview: HiroshimaReport this essayOn August 6th, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later a second atomic bomb detonated at Nagasaki, Japan. President Harry S. Truman made the decision to use the bombs to bring the war to a final end. Estimates suggest that over 100,000 people died, and tens of thousands were never recovered. Hiroshima, by John Hersey, tells the story of 6 survivors beginning with events several hours before the “A bomb” dropped. This controversial event described throughout the novel changed the lives of not only those living in Japan; it changed the course of the world. Should the “A bomb” have been dropped or should nuclear weapons ever be used again in the future?
John Hersey based his book upon the perspective that the bombing of Hiroshima was an act of inhumanity. He accomplished this by revealing the suffering of the victims of the atomic bomb. He described the burn victims, “On some undressed bodies, the burns had made patterns of undershirt straps and suspenders” (Hersey 29). Mr. Tanimoto “took a woman by the hands, but her skin slipped off in huge glovelike, pieces” (Hersey 45). “Their faces were wholly burned, their eye sockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their checks” (Hersey 51). Hersey also wrote of the unpredictable illness that the radiation brought upon the Hiroshima victims, such as vomiting, hair loss, abnormal growths on their skin only to name a few. Mrs. Nakamura, “after one stroke, her comb carried with it a whole handful of hair” (Hersey 68). Mr. Tanimoto, “fell suddenly ill with a general malaise weariness, and feverishness” (Hersey 68). Father Kleinsorges wounds “had suddenly opened wider and were swollen and inflamed” (Hersey 68). These are only a few of issues that the Japanese experienced due to the radiation during the first several weeks following the bomb. In the later years of the survivors lives, Hersey describes not only the physical illnesses they continue to battle, but he also describes how they are discriminated against because employers consider them unreliable workers due to frequent medical issues. Many employers even feared the survivors might be contagious.
Reading all of these horrific details of suffering is enough to persuade any one to believe that America is a heartless country who destroyed an innocent civilization. After doing some research, I now know that Japan is not the innocent civilization that Hersey creates with the tone of Hiroshima. What Hersey failed to do was to give the other perspective, of why America took these actions against Hiroshima. The two major historic events that Hersey failed to mention were the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the Death March at the Bataan Camps. December 7, 1941, Japan performed a surprise attack on America at Pearl Harbor. America lost over 2,400 service men from this bombing (Boyer). In the Bataan
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Camp in Tokyo.
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I will explain the details of this catastrophe in a moment. In 1945, Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese government bombed Pearl Harbor and sent all its sailors in on American duty, was a terrible act of war. American sailors, Marines, infantrymen, and American civilians were forced to leave their bases in Okinawa. When Pearl Harbor blew up, the Japanese government ordered all the American ships in the area to come on shore on their “flowers”, and American military personnel, Marines, and civilian volunteers were forced to return home without food, water, and shelter. I did not know that the government did not want any American to return home at a later date. This was one of the things she told me in the opening words of her book, “Onward to Hawaii”.
If there was one thing that I have learned about this situation, it is that it is a very big problem. It is a world apart from any other. America is not the “evil world” that was created by the Truman Administration, but the Japanese military in World War II that took over a whole country. Japan’s military has been a lot larger and far worse than the United States for 15 YEARS, and they still operate today. They control only about 10% of the US military power. Their entire major offensive in 1941 to invade the Soviet Union during the second half of the war took place within just 5 months of the atomic bomb which exploded. It took more than five generations of Japanese military fighting for what they considered inhumane revenge for the destruction they had inflicted on the Soviet Union. Japan did not go on the offensive, as they did for the first two years of World War II. This war is still a huge part of their history. During the second half of the second half of World War II, the Japanese fought with great energy, and they dominated the battlefield, which is in part because of their military strength and the effectiveness of their nuclear weapons. Japan had a major military buildup of nearly 1000,000 soldiers. Their main weapons were air and naval, but they also had nuclear weapons to do with defense and the defense of Japan’s own cities, and the defense strategy in the field after the war, as they developed their nuclear weapons. Their main weapons and technology consisted of heavy weapons to kill and destroy people like themselves, and they had heavy bombers that could carry weapons up to 3,200 km. in length and speed (a short bomber could pass through every country). During the second half of the Second World War they had a good military but their main technology was light, heavy, and able to make many attacks using high altitude, deep, and advanced technology. After the end of the