Wilfred Burchett: The Atomic Plague

BY WILFRED BURCHETT AUGUST 27, 2014  https://www.fairobserver.com/region/north_america/wilfred-burchett-atomic-plague-99732/

Wilfred Burchett was the first reporter to enter the city of Hiroshima after the bombing in 1945.

Wilfred Burchett’s “The Atomic Plague” is often referred to as “the scoop of the century.” He was the first correspondent to enter the city of Hiroshima after the bombing, arriving with the first wave of US Marines on the USS Millett that landed in Japan on August 14, 1945. Armed with a pistol, a typewriter and a Japanese phrasebook, he traveled through scenes of unparalleled destruction caused by US air raids, onto “where Hiroshima used to be.” “There was devastation and desolation and nothing else.”

Burchett was the first to expose the devastating effects of radiation that was being denied by the Allied forces at the time. His dispatch conveys the harrowing confusion and ignorance of the victims as to what was done to them — it was thought the bombs contained a poisonous gas, perhaps, and doctors hoped the Americans would provide an antidote. By the end of 1945, some 140,000 were dead in Hiroshima and a further 70,000 in Nagasaki — a number that will continue to grow over the course of the century.

Despite the Allied officials’ attempts to censor the story, Burchett’s dispatch was published in The Daily Express on September 5, 1945. It is a piece of journalism that should be read over and over again — “as a warning to the world” — because like no other account, it brings home the inhuman reality of a nuclear holocaust.

“I Write This as a Warning to the World”

The Daily Express, London, September 5, 1945.

Express Staff Reporter Peter Burchett [sic] was the first Allied staff reporter to enter the atom-bomb city. He travelled 400 miles from Tokyo alone and unarmed carrying rations for seven meals — food is almost unobtainable in Japan — a black umbrella, and a typewriter. Here is his story from —

HIROSHIMA, Tuesday.

In Hiroshima, 30 days after the first atomic bomb destroyed the city and shook the world, people are still dying, mysteriously and horribly — people who were uninjured by the cataclysm — from an unknown something which I can only describe as atomic plague.

Hiroshima does not look like a bombed city. It looks as if a monster steamroller had passed over it and squashed it out of existence. I write these facts as dispassionately as I can in the hope that they will act as a warning to the world. In this first testing ground of the atomic bomb I have seen the most terrible and frightening desolation in four years of war. It makes a blitzed Pacific island seem like an Eden. The damage is far greater than photographs can show.

When you arrive in Hiroshima you can look around and for 25, perhaps 30, square miles you can hardly see a building. It gives you an empty feeling in the stomach to see such man-made devastation.

And so the people of Hiroshima today are walking through the forlorn desolation of their once proud city with gauze masks over their mouths and noses. It probably does not help them physically. But it helps them mentally.

I picked my way to a shack [sic] used as a temporary police headquarters in the middle of the vanished city. Looking south from there I could see about three miles of reddish rubble. That is all the atomic bomb left of dozens of blocks of city streets, of buildings, homes, factories and human beings.

Still They Fall

There is just nothing standing except about 20 factory chimneys — chimneys with no factories. I looked west. A group of half a dozen gutted buildings. And then again nothing.

The police chief of Hiroshima welcomed me eagerly as the first Allied correspondent to reach the city. With the local manager of Domei, a leading Japanese news agency, he drove me through, or perhaps I should say over, the city. And he took me to hospitals where the victims of the bomb are still being treated.

In these hospitals I found people who, when the bomb fell, suffered absolutely no injuries, but now are dying from the uncanny after-effects.

For no apparent reason their health began to fail. They lost appetite. Their hair fell out. Bluish spots appeared on their bodies. And the bleeding began from the ears, nose and mouth.

At first the doctors told me they thought these were the symptoms of general debility. They gave their patients Vitamin A injections. The results were horrible. The flesh started rotting away from the hole caused by the injection of the needle.

And in every case the victim died.

That is one of the after-effects of the first atomic bomb man ever dropped and I do not want to see any more examples of it. But in walking through the month-old rubble I found others.

The Sulphur Smell

My nose detected a peculiar odour unlike anything I have ever smelled before. It is something like sulphur, but not quite. I could smell it when I passed a fire that was still smouldering, or at a spot where they were still recovering bodies from the wreckage. But I could also smell it where everything was still deserted.

They believe it is given off by the poisonous gas still issuing from the earth soaked with radioactivity released by the split uranium atom.

And so the people of Hiroshima today are walking through the forlorn desolation of their once proud city with gauze masks over their mouths and noses. It probably does not help them physically. But it helps them mentally.

From the moment that this devastation was loosed upon Hiroshima the people who survived have hated the white man. It is a hate the intensity of which is almost as frightening as the bomb itself.

“All Clear” Went

The counted dead number 53,000. Another 30,000 are missing, which means “certainly dead”. In the day I have stayed in Hiroshima – and this is nearly a month after the bombing – 100 people have died from its effects.

They were some of the 13,000 seriously injured by the explosion. They have been dying at the rate of 100 a day. And they will probably all die. Another 40,000 were slightly injured.

These casualties might not have been as high except for a tragic mistake. The authorities thought this was just another routine Super-Fort raid. The plane flew over the target and dropped the parachute which carried the bomb to its explosion point.

Many people had suffered only a slight cut from a falling splinter of brick or steel. They should have recovered quickly. But they did not. They developed an acute sickness. Their gums began to bleed. And then they vomited blood. And finally they died.

The American plane passed out of sight. The all-clear was sounded and the people of Hiroshima came out from their shelters. Almost a minute later the bomb reached the 2,000 foot altitude at which it was timed to explode – at the moment when nearly everyone in Hiroshima was in the streets.

Hundreds upon hundreds of the dead were so badly burned in the terrific heat generated by the bomb that it was not even possible to tell whether they were men or women, old or young.

Of thousands of others, nearer the centre of the explosion, there was no trace. They vanished. The theory in Hiroshima is that the atomic heat was so great that they burned instantly to ashes – except that there were no ashes.

If you could see what is left of Hiroshima you would think that London had not been touched by bombs.

Heap of Rubble

The Imperial Palace, once an imposing building, is a heap of rubble three feet high, and there is one piece of wall. Roof, floors and everything else is dust.

Hiroshima has one intact building – the Bank of Japan. This in a city which at the start of the war had a population of 310,000.

Almost every Japanese scientist has visited Hiroshima in the past three weeks to try to find a way of relieving the people’s suffering. Now they themselves have become sufferers.

For the first fortnight after the bomb dropped they found they could not stay long in the fallen city. They had dizzy spells and headaches. Then minor insect bites developed into great swellings which would not heal. Their health steadily deteriorated.

Then they found another extraordinary effect of the new terror from the skies.

Many people had suffered only a slight cut from a falling splinter of brick or steel. They should have recovered quickly. But they did not. They developed an acute sickness. Their gums began to bleed. And then they vomited blood. And finally they died.

All these phenomena, they told me, were due to the radio-activity released by the atomic bomb’s explosion of the uranium atom.

Water Poisoned

They found that the water had been poisoned by chemical reaction. Even today every drop of water consumed in Hiroshima comes from other cities. The people of Hiroshima are still afraid.

The scientists told me they have noted a great difference between the effect of the bombs in Hiroshima and in Nagasaki.

Hiroshima is in perfectly flat delta country. Nagasaki is hilly. When the bomb dropped on Hiroshima the weather was bad, and a big rainstorm developed soon afterwards.

And so they believe that the uranium radiation was driven into the earth and that, because so many are still falling sick and dying, it is still the cause of this man-made plague.

At Nagasaki, on the other hand, the weather was perfect, and scientists believe that this allowed the radio-activity to dissipate into the atmosphere more rapidly. In addition, the force of the bomb’s explosion was, to a large extent, expended into the sea, where only fish were killed.

To support this theory, the scientists point out to the fact that, in Nagasaki, death came swiftly, suddenly, and that there have been no after-effects such as those that Hiroshima is still suffering.

Postscriptum 

“It so happened that step by step and almost accidentally, I had achieved a sort of journalistic Nirvana, free of any built-in loyalties to governments, parties, or any organizations whatsoever. My loyalty was to my own convictions and my readers. This demanded freedom from any discipline except that of getting the facts on important issues back to the sort of people likely to act — often at great self-sacrifice — on the information they received. This was particularly so during my reporting from Vietnam, the most important of my career, far too important to be swayed by dictates from outside or above. Over the years, and in many countries, I had a circle of readers who did not buy papers for the stock market reports or strip cartoons, but for facts on vital issues affecting their lives and their consciences. In keeping both eyes and both ears open during my forty years’ reporting from the world’s hot spots, I had become more and more conscious of my responsibilities to my readers. The point of departure is a great faith in ordinary human beings and the sane and decent way they behave when they have the true facts of the case.”

— Wilfred Burchett, At the Barricades

 

August 6, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Like ‘the tolling of a distant temple bell’, Ibuse Masuji’s Black Rain remembers the horrors of Hiroshima and warns of the inhumanity of war

Jindan Ni, August 4, 2023  https://theconversation.com/like-the-tolling-of-a-distant-temple-bell-ibuse-masujis-black-rain-remembers-the-horrors-of-hiroshima-and-warns-of-the-inhumanity-of-war-205837?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%202700227280&utm_content=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%202700227280+CID_e1af8a5e068132789cd3bffaecf54867&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Like%20the%20tolling%20of%20a%20distant%20temple%20bell%20Ibuse%20Masujis%20Black%20Rain%20remembers%20the%20horrors%20of%20Hiroshima%20and%20warns%20of%20the%20inhumanity%20of%20war

In May 2023, almost 80 years after its devastation by an atomic bomb, Hiroshima again became the focus of world attention as the host city for the 49th G7 Summit.

On the summit’s official website, Hiroshima is presented as the exemplar of Japan’s postwar success. It is described as an “international city of peace and culture” and “resolute postwar advancement”. There are photos of its serene landscapes, its local delicacies and sake, and its modern sports and street culture.

The bombing of Hiroshima at the conclusion of World War II is mentioned just once. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial, according to the site, “speaks to the horrors of nuclear weapons”.

Hiroshima has more than this to tell us. But its stories, its “several pasts”, have been constantly abridged – or “refashioned”, as Michel Foucault would say. They have been adapted to serve political agendas.

On August 6, 1945, after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, President Harry Truman released a statement that praised the scientific achievement:

“Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base […]

It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East […]

What has been done is the greatest achievement of organized science in history. It was done under high pressure and without failure”.

The atomic bomb was something altogether different for Japan. After the bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese emperor Hirohito broadcast his “jewel voice” to make the announcement of Japan’s surrender to his subjects. He spoke in an opaque, classical language almost incomprehensible to ordinary Japanese:

“The enemy has for the first time used cruel bombs to kill and maim extremely large numbers of the innocent and the heavy casualties are beyond measure; if the war were continued, it would lead not only to the downfall of our nation but also to the destruction of all human civilization.“

In these statements, we can see Truman and Hirohito attempting to justify their actions. We can see interpretations of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki taking different tracks. Such modified national memories install a kind of forgetting. They are ways of marginalising or erasing individual experiences of the war.In these statements, we can see Truman and Hirohito attempting to justify their actions. We can see interpretations of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki taking different tracks. Such modified national memories install a kind of forgetting. They are ways of marginalising or erasing individual experiences of the war.

During the postwar occupation of Japan, from 1945-1952, the Allied occupiers sought to remould the Japanese minds. The “horrors of nuclear weapons” could not be mentioned. Pictures and narratives about the atomic bombs were subject to strict censorship.

Only after the easing of censorship could Japanese writers begin to reveal the details of the horrendous suffering that occurred in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These works became collectively known as genbaku bungaku, or “atomic bomb literature”. The explorations of the destructive power of war and institutionalised violence have left their mark on contemporary Japanese literature.

Ibuse Masuji’s Black Rain, which won the prestigious Noma Literary Prize after its publication in 1965, epitomises atomic bomb literature. It is now considered a classic of modern Japanese literature.

Black Rain records the scorching memories of the hibakusha – atomic bomb survivors – of the bombing and its aftermath. More significantly, it critiques the brutality of war, the militarised state, and the purposeful forgetting of history. Ibuse based his novel on journals and interviews with the bomb survivors, writing against amnesia using what he called the “crudest kind of realism”.

Forgetting and stigmatisation

Black Rain begins four years and nine months after the war. Shizuma Shigematsu and his family live a seemingly quiet and normal life in the village of Kobatake, about 100 kilometres from Hiroshima city. But the fact that they once lived and worked close to Hiroshima is still a weight upon their lives.

Shigematsu is vexed about his niece Yasuko’s poor marriage prospects. There are rumours circulating in the village that Yasuko was near the epicentre of the explosion and now has radiation sickness. As her guardian, Shigematsu is agonised with guilt, as it was at his instigation that Yasuko came to Hiroshima city, so as to avoid the army’s conscription of young women to work in the factories that produced military supplies.

During the war, “irresponsible talk” was strictly forbidden by the army. But after the war, Shigematsu laments, rumours stigmatising people like Yasuko are by no means under control. To prove that Yasuko was not exposed to radiation, Shigematsu decides to copy Yasuko’s wartime diary entries and show them to the village matchmaker.

For the survivors of Hiroshima, memories of the bombing return unbidden. The misery of past has to be revisited to ease their present predicament.

Initially, no one knew what happened when the bomb fell. It was beyond everyone’s comprehension. And it is this horror of not knowing that Black Rain agonisingly depicts. Because of this, people who were not at the epicentre went towards it. They went in search of their families and were thus unnecessarily exposed to radiation.

Yasuko was one of these victims. She was 10 kilometres from the epicentre, but became caught in the radioactive “black rain” on the way to find her uncle and aunt. The rain leaves ominous strange black stains on Yasuko. Her dread is heartwrenching:

I felt horrified, and then awfully sad. However many times I went to the ornamental spring to wash myself, the stains from the black rain wouldn’t come off.

Despite Shigematsu’s efforts to prove that Yasuko is free from radiation sickness, she develops symptoms eventually, almost five years after the bomb. There is no cure for this condition and the doctor asks Shigematsu to report Yasuko’s case to the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC), which was established by the Allied occupation in 1947 with “the highest ideals” in order to collect data of the victims.

The commission only documented cases like Yasuko’s; it provided no treatment for the victims.

Tradition versus modernity

In Black Rain, Ibuse boldly challenges the modernisation which Japan has been determined to achieve since the Meiji Restoration, which began in 1868.

His critique of modernity is highly nuanced, with a tinge of humour. For example, when Shigematsu decides to copy Yasuko’s diaries, his wife Shigeko asks him to use Chinese brush ink instead of ordinary pen ink which does not last. To convince him, she shows him a letter which was sent to his great-grandfather from Tokyo in 1870.

The letter sender proudly concludes his letter by emphasising “this letter, in accordance with my promise to you at the time, is written in the ‘ink’ commonly in use in the West.” But the ink has “faded to a pathetic light brown colour”.

Shigematsu agrees to his wife that they should use the traditional brush ink so that their diaries and memories can be well preserved.

In the introduction to his English translation of Black Rain, John Bester writes that Ibuse shows “infinite nostalgia” towards “the beauty of the Japanese countryside and the ancient customs of its people”. For Ibuse, it is only through traditional food and medicine that the damages brought by science and modernity, exemplified by the atomic bomb, can be eased and soothed.

Appeal to nature, humanity and peace

Black Rain dwells on the atrocity of war as it affects people, but it also documents damage that war inflicts on nature. Shigematsu recalls the massive gingko tree he liked to play under, which stood outside his friend Kōtarō’s place. It was cut down for the “national interest” during the war.

Similarly, the novel records that villagers were ordered to dig pine-tree roots to extract oil for “the engines of the planes whose job it was to shoot down B-29s”.

Animals also suffered as a result of the atomic bomb, just as people did. The fish in the lake died. Like the bomb survivors who lost teeth and hair, they lost their scales and could not swim normally.

In Black Rain, the collective forgetting of the direct experiences of the victims leads to systematic stigmatisation and bias against them, which exacerbates their struggle. Shōkichi – Shigematsu’s friend who also survived the bomb – stridently announces:

Everybody’s forgotten! Forgotten the hellfires we went through that day – forgotten them and everything else, with their damned anti-bomb rallies. It makes me sick, all the prancing and shouting they do about it.

Shōkichi’s visceral repulsion to the anti-bomb rallies speaks of a collective forgetting, in which the enduring sufferings of the “precious victims” have been deployed as convenient narratives to serve the “national interest”. As the historian John Dower succinctly puts it, the rallies and memorial activities conformed to the state’s need of “nuclear victimization”, which aimed to shape “new forms of nationalism in postwar Japan”.

One of the maimed survivors in Black Rain writes in his journal that he now has permanent ringing in his ears: “it persists in my ear day and night, like the tolling of a distant temple bell, warning man of the folly of the bomb”.

Black Rain calls for a proper remembering of the war. In Ibuse’s documentary novel, Hiroshima is allowed to speak more and remember more. Through Shigematsu’s voice, Ibuse expresses the anger and despair of the people forced to endure the war:

I hated war. Who cared, after all, which side won? The only important thing was to end it all soon as possible: rather an unjust peace, than a “just” war!

August 6, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Those who will fire the nuclear weapons are thoroughly trained to have no hesitation. We must stop them.

SCOTT RITTER: The Atomic Executioner’s Lament

Consortium News, August 2, 2023

While the world focuses on the trials and travails of the scientists who invented the atomic bomb, little attention is paid to the hard positions taken by the nuclear executioners, the men called upon to drop these bombs in time of war.

“…………………………………………………………………………… Formed on March 6, 1945, the 1st Ordnance Squadron, Special (Aviation) was part of the 509th Composite Group, commanded by then-Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tibbets. Prior to being organized into the 1st Ordnance Squadron, the men of the unit were assigned to a U.S. Army ordnance squadron stationed a Wendover, Utah, where Tibbets and the rest of the 509^th Composite Group were based.

While Oppenheimer and his scientists designed the nuclear device, the mechanism of delivery — the bomb itself — was designed by specialists assigned to the 509^th. It was the job of the men of the 1^st Ordnance Squadron to build these bombs from scratch.

………………………………..the decision was made that the final assembly of the bomb would be done only after the Enola Gay took off.

One of the 1^st Ordnance Squadron technicians placed the uranium slug into the bomb at 7,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean.

The bomb worked as designed, killing more than 80,000 Japanese in an instant; hundreds of thousands more died afterwards from the radiation released by the weapon.

For the pilot and crew of the Enola Gay, there was no remorse over killing so many people………………………………………..Tibbets told Terkel. “If the newspapers would just cut out the shit: ‘You’ve killed so many civilians.’ That’s their tough luck for being there.”

Major Charles Sweeney, the pilot of Bockscar, the B-29 that dropped the second American atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945, held similar convictions about his role in killing 35,000 Japanese instantly.

……………………………………………………………….While the world focuses on the trials and travails of Oppenheimer and Sakharov, they remain silent about the hard positions taken by the nuclear executioners, the men called upon to drop these bombs in time of war.  There have only been two such men, and they remained resolute in their judgement that it was the right thing to do.

The executioner’s lament is overlooked by most people involved in supporting nuclear disarmament. This is a mistake, because the executioner, as was pointed out to Oppenheimer by the men of the 1^st Ordnance Squadron, is in control.

They possess the weapons, and they are the ones who will be called upon to deliver the weapons. Their loyalty and dedication to task is constantly tested in order to ensure that, when the time comes to execute orders, they will do so without question.

………………………………………………………… Those who will execute the orders to use nuclear weapons in any future nuclear conflict will, in fact, execute those orders. They are trained, like Tibbets and Sweeney, to believe in the righteousness of their cause.

Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian prime minister and president who currently serves as the deputy chairman of the Russian National Security Council, has publicly warned the Western supporters of Ukraine that Russia would “have to” use nuclear weapons if Ukrainian forces were to succeed in their goal of recapturing the former territories of Ukraine that have been claimed by Russia in the aftermath of referenda held in September 2022………………………………………………………..

The Russians who would execute the orders to launch nuclear weapons against the West would be operating with the same moral clarity as had Paul Tibbets and Charles Sweeney some 88 years ago. The executioner’s lament holds that they will be saddened by their decision but convinced that they had no other choice.

Proving them wrong will be impossible, because unlike the war with Japan, where the survivors were given the luxury of reflection and accountability, there will be no survivors in any future nuclear conflict.

The onus, therefore, is on the average citizen to get involved in processes that separate the tools of our collective demise — nuclear weapons — from the those who will be called upon to use them.

Meaningful nuclear disarmament is the only hope humankind has for its continued survival.

The time to begin pushing for this is now, and there is no better place to start that on Aug. 6, 2023 — the 78^th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, when like-minded persons will gather outside the United Nations to begin a dialogue about disarmament that will hopefully resonate enough to have an impact of the 2024 elections.  https://consortiumnews.com/2023/08/02/scott-ritter-the-executioners-lament/

August 6, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Pacific anti-nuclear groups condemn Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka for backing Fukushima wastewater stance

Kelvin Anthony, RNZ 4 Aug 23

Pacific anti-nuclear advocacy groups and campaigners have condemned the Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s backing of Japan’s plans release over one million tonnes of treated nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean.

On Thursday, Rabuka announced he was “satisfied” with Japan’s efforts to demonstrate that the release will be safe………………………………..

the Alliance for Future Generation Fiji [https://www.afgfiji.org/post/afg-condemns-fijipm-support-for-fukushima-wastewater said it was “deeply concerned” and “condemned” Rabuka’s stance.

The group is urging Rabuka to reconsider “and take a stronger position” on the issue.

AFG Fiji said releasing treated nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean would have “far-reaching consequences for the entire Pacific region and beyond”.

“This action has the potential to inflict lasting damage to marine ecosystems, threatening the livelihoods of countless communities that depend on the ocean for sustenance and economic well-being. Our concerns regarding this matter are deeply rooted in the Pacific Ocean as a source of identity for all Pacific communities,” it said.

“We urge the Fiji Prime Minister and by extension, his government, to reconsider its stance and take a stronger position in advocating for the implementation of alternative, safe, and sustainable solutions for the Fukushima nuclear wastewater.

“We also urge Pacific leaders to trust the independent panel of scientific experts, appointed by the Pacific Islands Forum to review the data and information provided by Japan. As members of the global community, it is our collective responsibility to uphold principles of environmental stewardship and to prioritize the health and safety of our oceans and the lives they sustain,” the NGO said.

The campaigners are also calling on the international community to show solidarity and “demand that Japan seeks alternative solutions to handle its nuclear waste responsibly”. https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/495162/anti-nuclear-group-condemns-sitiveni-rabuka-s-fukushima-wastewater-stance

August 6, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment