Rememberthemall

Dear Editor

On August 6, 1945, a United States military aircraft dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, the first ever such attack in the history of warfare.

In the aftermath, despite an approach made and terms offered, the Japanese government gave no indication of surrender.

Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, a significant number of its population were of the Christian faith. It is possible that some, if not all of the bomber crew were also. Five days later, on August 14, Japan surrendered, thus bringing to an end World War Two, the most terrible in all history.

These attacks resulted in a colossal loss of life and casualties, military and civilian, including allied prisoners of war and destruction on a massive scale.

In 1945, Japanese cities and towns had few stone or concrete buildings, they were highly inflammable, perhaps they still are.

For the first time ever, victims were exposed to radiation. In the initial stage of the attack, lives lost and people wounded would be the result of heat and blast.

In the years that followed, radiation sickness would cause further deaths, miscarriages and other illness.

With the capture of Iwo Jima and Okinawa by US forces, the entire Japanese mainland was within reach of US military aircraft. In the taking of these islands, civilian lives were lost along with casualties.

From that point onwards, Japan was subject to round-the-clock bombing. Some 56 cities and towns were targeted with conventional bombs, high explosive and incendiary devices, resulting in high loss of lives and injury.

The Japanese in these cities and towns were like those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, mums, dads, brothers, sisters.

Human beings, they loved their children, just as much as American and British parents.

If then, we are to commemorate those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are those who suffered loss of life and burns and wounds elsewhere in Japan not worthy of commemoration also?

They were human beings too, as were those in London, Dresden, Hamburg, Clydebank, Greenock, the Clyde valley, Darwin, Singapore, Calcutta, Berlin, Ranggon and so many other places.

It was Benjamin Franklin who wrote: “There was never a good war, or a bad peace”.