Hiroshima

A seminal change in reporting style, the zoomed in view of a handful of people to represent the tragedies of the bombing has a very gripping narrative of the events and aftermath, but becomes increasingly diffuse as it continues to follow their lives long after the events of the bombing. It completes the stories of their lives and the rebuilding efforts, but at the same time dilutes the catastrophe of the bombing itself. Is it more honest to continue the story as life just goes on? Would it have been just gratuitous to linger? Certainly the report itself seems to conclude most people did not reflect deeply on the whys, and either dealt with the trauma and medical aftermath - or not.

The power of this short book grows out of the simple virtues of honest reporting and clear writing. Hersey does not sensationalize. He traveled, as an American, to Hiroshima within a year of the blast. To get a handle on an unprecedented event with an immense scale, the author focused on six survivors; most of the text recounts their experiences: what they saw, what they felt, what they thought. He constructs the narrative with skill, interweaving each of these six strands. In the course of the book, he brings in some of the larger picture, such as the number of the dead. Only at the end does he raise the topic of the morality of the act; even here, he reports what his six interviewees think.
In addition to the inherent emotional effect show more of the tale, there was an added poignancy for me. My copy is a first edition, inherited from my father, who bought it when it came out, shortly after his discharge. When the bomb was detonated, he was on Okinawa and knew that, just as when that island was taken, he would be in the first wave sent ashore when the invasion of the home islands began. The fateful decision to use this bomb, and a second one a few days later at Nagasaki, was taken on the basis of the number of likely casualties, American and Japanese, that such an invasion would bring. Which of these alternatives was the lesser evil is a question that can probably never be decided to the satisfaction of all. The only way to reframe it, as far as I can see, would be to ask whether the demand for unconditional surrender, an appropriate demand in the case of Nazi Germany, was as necessary in the case of Japan, and if this would have obviated the need to choose between invasion and the nuclear option. But of course, we can never know how the next decades would have unfolded if that had been tried. As I write, more than seventy years later, the United States remains the only power to employ an atomic weapon. It would be nice to be able to believe none will ever again be detonated. show less

I knew this would be a gut-wrenching read, which is why I put off reading it for so long, but it is our duty, just as with the Holocaust, to remember.

As for the book itself, and the writing thereof - it is a report on the event through the lives of six of those who survived, and their experiences. Each page is a blow to the guts, with only straightforward accounts; no sensationalism required. The almost monotone style is, I believe, what enabled me to endure. That and my sense of obligation to know.

What stood out for me was not the death and destruction; that was mind-numbing, but how quickly people resumed their lives in spite of the pain, sickness and loss. "Of a hundred and fifty doctors in the city, sixty-five were already dead, and show more most of the rest were wounded. Of the 1,780 nurses, 1,654 were dead or too badly hurt to work." In the largest hospital, which had six hundred beds, there were only six doctors out of 30, and ten nurses out of more than two hundred, left to care for 10,000 patients the first day. None of them knew what they were dealing with. They worked day and night doing what they could to relieve pain. Those who survived tried to help those who were injured in the city with almost no help from any government or agencies. Within a week, houses began to be rebuilt and life continued, in spite of radiation sickness, for those who were living.

The human spirit is amazing, in spite of all the horrors, people did what had to be done. show less

In the West our cultural products tend to focus disproportionately on our own tragedies. Our great battles from World War Two and the Holocaust have a special place. Canadians are periodically offered new treatments on Vimy, the Somme etc. All this is right and good. National imaginaries must be constructed. We must remember for never again to have meaning. And so while we recognise the Armenian genocide, Rwanda, Congo, colonialism etc, we don't hold them up with great pride of place in constant cultural reproduction and examination. And those dark-stained moments that shame the Western conscience tend to be examined even less.

So it was refreshing to read this treatment of the horror of the first atomic bomb attack. This little book has show more pride of place on the matter in English language bookshops. It is incredibly moving. But I only gave it four stars instead of five because there is something missing. What is it?

Surely so soon after the war, a Japanese perspective on Hiroshima would have been too much for The New Yorker to print. So Hershey takes a clinical journalistic approach. Without frills or melodrama. Without excessive personalisation. By preparing his treatment of the subject in such a way one assumes he is protecting himself from possible accusations of anti-American bias. Just the facts. A plain recounting. It reads like a case report for a judicial enquiry.

So moving as it is, it is because the plain facts are so moving. And this, of course, would easily serve as a narrative defence - that the facts are moving enough on their own, that they need no embellishment, etc. Thus avoiding completely the need to acknowledge that Hiroshima has been treated differently for not being anglo-saxon. The author even manages to cut himself out of the script, letting the subjects voices speak for themselves, we can imagine the argument. And yet they are not speaking for themselves. They are speaking through John Hersey's filter.

One wonders what the story could have read like if the author had personalised more, made more of a story, dramatise more; As if the victims were Westerners and those who launched the bomb from afar.

There is something limiting about this clinical factual reading. As compassionate and brave as Hersey is being, and this is perceived by his clinical approach, one would not need to be so consciously compassionate and brave if the victims were anglo-saxons.

This is fantastic gateway into Hiroshima, and yet it is as if there is no more archive. This book composes the entirety of the Western archive on Hiroshima. It seems strange it is so featured in out bookshops, but never alongside a Japanese voice. How many decades later I find it hard to believe there is no Japanese accessible personal voice on Hiroshima available in translation?

As good as Hersey is. We ought to be able to do better still. show less

Growing up, both in high school and college, I never learned much about the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If they were mentioned at all, it was either in a way that expressed that 1) it was completely unavoidable and/or saved numerous lives, or 2) should have been accompanied by chants of USA USA, WE'RE #1, USA USA. The mentions that fall under the first category were brief, and the instructors were quick to move on to another topic of discussion; the mentions that fall under the second category were rather scary, but, fortunately, usually also brief.

The book doesn't attempt to argue that the bombs weren't necessary, and so that isn't going to be part of my review, either. Instead, the book focuses on six people who show more were present in Hiroshima on the day that the atomic bomb was dropped, and for a variety of reasons, somehow survived to tell their stories. There's a German priest, two doctors, a Japanese Christian minister, a factory worker, and a widow who was at home with her children. Some suffered grave and lasting bodily injury; others were left remarkably unscathed, at least when it came to physical damage. Some lost their entire families; others had their whole families survive.

The common thread amongst them, of course, is that they saw damage on a scale that is really unimaginable, even once you've seen the pictures of a devastated Hiroshima. To have everything, and nearly everyone, you know wiped away in a single instant; to be left in a wreckage that was once your home and not able to even trust if the water is safe to drink now; to see so much suffering and death. Many of them had absolutely no idea what had happened for quite some time - one woman believed that she had been the cause of it, that something had exploded because she hadn't been shifting the train she was on correctly.

It's an eye-opening book, even now, many decades after the events. I can only imagine how much more eye-opening it was when it was first published. The book is a little dated, but that is easy to look past because, ultimately, people are people, even in different places and different times. There's also an update that took place forty years after the bomb was dropped, when the author followed up with all six people who were originally profiled in the book to see how their lives had, or had not, been affected.

Recommended. show less

After reading [b:Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World|52764193|Fallout The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World|Lesley M.M. Blume|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1576421390l/52764193._SY75_.jpg|73727728], I had to go back and read the book that it talked about. Somehow, I'd missed this book in all my years of reading.

I'm glad I corrected that.

This is a horrible book, but there's an undercurrent of tenaciousness and hope that carries it. There's so many enlightening, incredibly human moments, that make the book more bearable. And while there's not a lot of direct finger pointing at Americans, there is an incredible disparity between show more the reactions of those who survived the Hiroshima bombing, and those who were responsible for it.

Fantastic, important book. show less

Isn't it strange that in times of intense tragedy (like your country being at war), that one could be lulled into a false sense of security just because of the Boy Who Cried Wolf syndrome? When the village of Hiroshima was bombed many people didn't heed the warnings. Even those responsible for alerting others to oncoming attacks didn't see it coming. What are you supposed to do when the system you are taught to trust gives the "all clear" signal? How are you supposed to react?
Hiroshima follows the lives of six Hiroshima bombing survivors from the moments before the blast on August 6th, 1945 at 8:15 a.m. to the aftermath of the following year: Miss Toshiko Sasaki, Dr. Masakazu Fujii, Mrs. Hatsyo Nakamura, Dr. Terufumi Sasaki (no show more relation to Miss Toshiko), Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, and Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto.
Fair warning: you will be privy to excruciating details about their injuries and subsequent health issues. People with no outward visible wounds had a delayed response to radiation sickness with symptoms difficult to fathom. Your heart will break to read of their confusion when trying to understand what happened to them. Theories and rumors about the "strange weapon" abounded. For example, for a while people assumed powdered magnesium was dumped on power lines, creating explosions and subsequent fires. Survivors believed they were doused with gasoline. show less