Overcoming Modernity: Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan Book

"My God, what have we done?" Robert Lewis, the pilot

Hiroshima after the bombing

On August 6 1945 a quiet hysteria buzzed through Hiroshima. The Americans had been firebombing Japan for weeks, and it was one of only two key cities they had not yet hit. "A rumour was going around that the Americans were saving something special for the city." The citizens heard the bombing alarm at 7am, which wasn't unusual, or indicating a severe attack. However the "All clear" sounded at 8am and people relaxed, started to read their newspapers and cooked breakfast. Then at 8.15am "Little Boy" was dropped over Hiroshima. The bomb kills nearly 100,000 people and injures 100,000 more, from the 250 000 that were living in Hiroshima.

Atomic bomb mushroom cloud.Hiroshima (left) and Nagasaki (right)

In Hiroshima Hersey traces the lives of six survivors'two doctors, two women, and two religious men'from the moment the bomb drops until a few months later. In 1985 he added a postscript that forms the book's fifth chapter. In this chapter, Hersey reexamines these six individuals' lives in the forty years since the bomb.

Starting with the "noiseless flash" I was surprised to learn, that the people in the city didn't hear an explosion and saw nothing more than a flash of bright light. The typical atomic mushroom and the noise, could only be experienced from the outside.

Over 90% of the population of central Hiroshima perished, almost all the families of evacuated six to 11-year-olds died. Back in the city, most of the orphan children died within months of starvation

In the days after the bombing, nobody knows what caused such destruction. Theories are developed, but people are left with ignorance and confusion for an entire week, until the news spreads that it was an atomic bomb and they started to remove the dead bodies from the streets. At first everyone thought that just their building had been hit and were irritated to see that the entire city was destroyed and on fire. The skin of the people in the inner circle basically evaporated, many were severely burned, causing the people to believe, that the Americans had covered them with toxic gas or gasoline, that they had set on fire.

Between life and death

Part of John Hersey's goal was to show that there was no unified political or national response by the people of Hiroshima, but that they came together as a community. But despite the community spirit, they suffered alone as victims. People had severe injuries but did't complain or cry out; they suffered silently, which Hersey suggests is a uniquely Japanese characteristic; that it's important to the individual not to disturb the larger group and call attention to their own needs or pain. Thousands of people die all around, but no one expresses anger or calls for retribution. As Mr. Tanimoto ran unharmed through the city he apologized to the masses of injured people he passes, for not suffering more himself. Thirteen-year-old girls, died with noble visions that they were sacrificed for their country, and were not concerned for themselves or bitter over their fate. This stoicism becomes a major source of pride for them'they could be strong and supportive of their country and receive whatever hardship they were given with powerful silence.

". . . the silence in the grove by the river, where hundreds of gruesomely wounded suffered together, was one of the most dreadful and awesome phenomena of his whole existence."

Distinctive scaring

The water in Hiroshima is a cause of death and disease. When Mrs. Nakamura and her children drank from the river, they vomited the rest of the day because it has been polluted, other died from drinking it. Mr. Tanimoto spend all his energy transporting injured people across the river, but many of them drown in the rising tide. Floods from a terrible storm wash away hospitals, houses, and bridges that had survived the bombing.

The bomb turns day into night, conjures up rain and winds, and destroys beings from the inside as well as from the outside. When the Japanese learn how the bomb was created'by releasing the power inside an atom'they call it the "genshi bakudan", or original child bomb, emphasizing that when men made this bomb they were dealing with forces far beyond their own power. The narrative conveys the unsettling sense that the creation and use of the atom bomb crosses an important line between the natural and unnatural world.

Severe burnings, acute radiation syndrome and children born with malformations

Weeks after the explosion, after Japan capitulates and Hiroshima begins to rebuild, a new terror strikes: radiation sickness, which can be separated into three stages. The first stage is a drop in the number of blood cells, causing an anemia, extreme hair loss and the death of bone marrow. The second stage is gastrointestinal, causing extreme nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In the third stage then, the victims experience dizziness, headaches and loose consciousness. This neurological stage is invariably deadly, even though every one of the stages can cause death. It can occur within minutes or hours - people were just dropping dead or fell asleep out of nothing. Beyond that men became sterile and women experienced miscarriages. Even today people still die from leukemia, babies are born with malformations and other disabilities, caused by the radiation.

Removing keloids from a child

Dr. Sasaki spends a lot of his time trying to remove the thick, ugly scars called keloids that have grown over burns, suffered by the victims, without realizing, that much of their work has done more harm than good. The keloids also play an important role in the the lives of the young, scarred women who are taken to the U.S. to get plastic surgery. When they return to Japan they became objects of "public curiosity" as well as "envy and spite." Employers wouldn't hire people with such scars, and people didn't want their children to marry people who suffered from symptoms of radiation sickness. The keloids mark people as survivors of the attack, and are a glaring physical symbol of both the damage inflicted by the bomb and the naivety of those who tried to heal Japan's wounds after the war.

Every character we meet inevitably has to deal with the death of close family members and friends, as well as being surrounded by death on a massive scale. Mrs. Nakamura's neighbor is there one minute, and gone the next. The severely burned people that Mr. Tanimoto helps to the shore one night are drowned by the next morning. But even though Hersey does not give the reader many direct views of death, there is a constant, oppressive, and almost suffocating feeling that death is all around.

John Hersey

Hiroshima was first published by Hersey in "The New Yorker" and hailed as one of the greatest pieces of journalism ever written. It had a massive impact, revealing the full horror and effects of the bombing, which had been kept secret by the US government before. People all over the world began to understand what really happened not just to the city but to the people. It was a radical piece of journalism that gave a voice to those who only a year before had been mortal enemies. John Hersey combined all his experience as a war correspondent with his skill as a novelist to demonstrate the enduring power of storytelling, while revealing pictures that have been hidden away.

This is why we need journalists.