The World at War (82 page)

McGEORGE BUNDY

Official in the US Facts and Figures Department

The committee studying the atomic bomb unanimously recommended that it be used as soon as possible without warning against a major Japanese military establishment. Only this, Foreign Secretary Stimson thought, would provide the psychological blow which might induce Japan to surrender, although he agreed with some of Truman's advisers that the Japanese should be given an ultimatum which made it clear that they could keep the Emperor.

ANTHONY EDEN

British Foreign Secretary

I'm not saying this to excuse our use of the atomic bomb, because I think we had no choice but to use it, but I am merely saying one must not forget how terrible the alternative must have been and how long it must have gone on and how much suffering it would have created. I can't strike a balance sheet between which method would have cost the more suffering in continuing by the orthodox methods, the ordinary war methods. I don't think that anybody could have voluntarily forgone this possibility of shortening the war, despite the horror of the weapon. We knew about the first and we were consulted, and Churchill and I agreed, and we share full responsibility. We were not, I think, informed about the second.

HISATSUNE SAKOMIZU

We don't expect they use that kind of cruel weapon. We are afraid that they may have atomic bomb but when they succeed to have the atomic bomb I thought they must tell something to us now they've finished the work but Hiroshima happened without warning. I thought that American people very cruel people.

COLONEL PAUL TIBBETS

Commander of the 509th Composite Bombing Group and pilot of the
Enola Gay.,
which dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima

In was a clear, sunshiny day and visibility was unrestricted so as we came back around again facing the direction of Hiroshima we saw this cloud coming up, two minutes and it was up at our altitude – we were at thirty-three thousand feet – and the cloud was up there and continuing to go right on up in a boiling fashion. The surface was nothing but a black boiling – like a barrel of tar, that's probably the best description I can give. Where before there had been a city, distinctive houses, buildings and everything, now you couldn't see anything except black-boiling debris down below.

MAJOR CHARLES SWEENEY

Pilot of the instrumentation-support aircraft at Hiroshima

It takes fifty-two seconds approximately for an object to drop from thirty thousand to one thousand five hundred feet and in that length of time we were able to get twelve slant range miles away from the explosion. A white light just obliterated the whole sky, I'll never forget it. My back was to the explosion of course; however, there was a man in the tail and shortly afterwards I heard him say something which was unintelligible. Shortly thereafter the plane was smacked on the bottom and my bombardier, Captain Clement Behan, turned to me and said 'flak'. There was a little bit of panic in his eyes but I could still feel the aeroplane flying well and we were hit again, and again, each time with diminished force. Inasmuch as Behan had been shot down four times over Europe I had some confidence in his description of flak, but fortunately it wasn't. The man in the tail was describing something that human eyes had not seen before, and these were concentric rings of hot air coming up toward the aeroplane, radiating from the explosion, and these were the things that caused the smacking on the bottom. Afterward we turned back and flew back towards our base fifteen hundred miles away and we saw, off our right wing, the cloud coming up from Hiroshima. This was a cloud that as it boiled up had every colour of the rainbow and at about twenty-five thousand feet the mushroom portion broke off and turned white. We couldn't see the city, it was covered in smoke and as I recall even reconnaissance aeroplanes that flew over there almost constantly for the next two days couldn't photograph the city.

KISHI MATSUKAWA

Hiroshima housewife

A couple of people say, 'Look, parachutes, parachutes!' I looked up and there I saw two boxes, something like boxes hanging from a parachute and coming down. And everybody said, 'Oh, they must either contain some cookies or some canned good – we hope that they don't fall into the sea or the river, we hope they will fall close beside us because if they fall in the sea or the river they will get lost and it would be a great shame to lose all these goodies.' Then in a twinkling of an eye there was a bomb burst and I hurt my head and became unconscious instantaneously. When I regained consciousness it was pitch dark all around me. I tried to stand but I found that my leg was broken. I tried to speak and I found that I had lost six of my teeth, six of my teeth had been broken. I found my face burned and my back burned and like a slash right across from one shoulder to the waist. I crawled to the river and when I got there I saw hundreds of students come floating down the river.

MAJOR SWEENEY

At that moment I felt that the mission had been executed properly and that this just might cause the Japanese government to say, 'We're willing to end the war.' That was what it was all about, ending the war. This was the first time it had ever been used and we knew that it was supposed to devastate a certain area. But in 1945, for example, we knew that Tokyo had been devastated to such a much greater extent that we were told not to even use it as a target of opportunity. So the thing about this weapon was that it did it in a very short period of time. It didn't do as much as Tokyo, but it did it in a much shorter period of time.

KIYOSHI TANIMOTO

Christian Hiroshoma resident

I saw strange flash of light coming through the air even in the bright morning sunshine without any noise. I took couple of steps into the garden and I lay on the ground between two rocks and felt a strong blast of wind, then I got up and found the house behind me was completely demolished and I saw a few people coming out of the ruins here and there. I took one of them to the first-aid station, there I saw many injured people and I began to wonder what happened. I went up to the hillside and took a view of the city and found whole city on the fire. Now I realise it was an attack and then I dashed into the street to get back to the church, which was located in the central part of the city. I encounter a long and terrible line of escapees, all around them they had no cloth whatever on their bodies and the skin from their faces, arms and breast come off and hanging loose.

COLONEL TIBBETS

I never let my personal feelings enter into it. I learned this back in the days when I was flying out of England and bombing targets in Europe. I knew there were people down below getting hurt and I felt that if I let my emotions get carried away and I got to worrying about who's going to get hurt by something like this, then I wouldn't be effective at all. So I had to school myself not to think about it. Now from this point of view I was not affected emotionally; I haven't been up to this day because it was something that had to be done. I was convinced that it had to be done and I was convinced that it was the right thing to do at that particular time.

MICHIKO NAKAMOTO

I knew something had happened to me but I was scared to find out what had happened. I knew one side of my face was injured but I couldn't put my hand to see how much it was injured, I was scared to find out and my arm was burned and my feet were burned and I was wearing a long-sleeved blouse, which we were required to wear during the war, but this was burned off and it left a mark on the arm. Then this lady told me it's better if I went down to the river and washed my burns so I tried to do this, but this burn was something that I could not touch it was so deeply burned and I just couldn't do anything. Until he spoke I couldn't tell which side was his front because he was just burned black and then I hear his voice and that was his front and he asked me what time it was and I think he died very shortly after that. His lips were all swollen and really I couldn't bear to look at him. I just answered what time it was, I thought.

MAJOR GENERAL
LEMAY

As far as casualties were concerned I think there were more casualties in the first attack on Tokyo with incendiaries than there were with the first use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The fact that it's done instantaneously, maybe that's more humane than incendiary attacks, if you can call any war act humane. I don't, particularly, so to me there wasn't much difference. A weapon is a weapon and it really doesn't make much difference how you kill a man. If you have to kill him, well, that's the evil to start with and how you do it becomes pretty secondary. I think your choice should be which weapon is the most efficient and most likely to get the whole mess over with as early as possible.

MARQUIS KIDO

In a way it could be said that the atomic bombings and Russia's entry into the war against Japan helped to bring about the end of the war. If those events had not happened, Japan at that stage probably could not have stopped fighting.

TOSHIKAZU KASE

We thought the last chance disappeared when the Russian Army invaded Manchuria, after we suffered destruction by the atomic bomb. The Russians did not declare war until their Army advanced deep into Manchuria, the Soviet ambassador came to hand over the declaration of war at that time. I interpreted the conversation and made vigorous protest against the conduct of the Soviet diplomacy because there existed the Neutrality Pact, which prohibited legally the Soviet Union to undertake an attack on Japan. He was crestfallen, he was cast in a very difficult role.

MARQUIS KIDO

The Cabinet felt that there was no way out but to accept the Potsdam Declaration. But the big question was how to reveal it to the nation. It would be such a shock to the people. Therefore it was announced in the newspaper that the government would disregard the Potsdam Declaration. It seems that this attitude provoked the United States very much.

TOSHIKAZU KASE

The High Command would not have heeded anybody except the Emperor to lay down arms. When Japan entered the war the Cabinet unanimously recommended the commencement of hostilities and in that case the Emperor had no choice but to accept the military commendation. When the war was terminated the Cabinet against itself, that gave the Emperor the chance to intervene and to command acceptance of the Potsdam Proclamation and for a final surrender.

MARQUIS KIDO

Immediately after this meeting [on 9 August] I had an audience with the Emperor; he told me that there was a heated debate between those in favour of continuing the war and those led by Foreign Minister Togo, who advocated a cessation of hostilities. As there was no agreement, Prime Minister Suzuki took the unprecedented step of turning to the Emperor to ask his opinion. The Emperor said he supported Minister Togo's opinion.

YOSHIHIRO TOKUGAWA

Chamberlain to Emperor Hirohito

There was a great deal of difficulty as to the choice of words that the
Emperor would use in his broadcast and a decision could not be reached very easily because, after all, the Emperor himself had his own thoughts on the surrender. For example, he felt sorry for the people in the Army and the Navy, who had worked so hard for their country. On the other hand it was felt that if the war were to continue even the Japanese race itself would be completely destroyed, that we would become extinct. It was not until nine in the evening of 14th August that a decision was reached on the message to be broadcast by His Majesty; however, just then the air-raid siren started to sound and it was decided that it would be dangerous for His Majesty to come to the temporary palace where the sound equipment was set up. However, His Majesty was becoming impatient because of the passage of time and we got a telephone call from the
Emperor's aide who said the Emperor felt he should come out and hurry up and make the broadcast. And so it was about eleven-thirty that the Emperor came by car to the temporary palace. The recording took thirty minutes but he repeated his recording, that is he made two recordings, so it was after midnight by the time His Majesty returned to the Fukiage Pavilion.

EMPEROR HIROHITO

Surrender broadcast, 15 August 1945

To my good and loyal subjects: after deeply pondering the general trends of the world and the current conditions of our empire, I intend to effect a conclusion to the present situation by resorting to an extraordinary measure. My subjects, I have ordered the Imperial Government to inform the four governments of the United States, Great Britain, China and the Soviet Union that our empire is willing to accept the provisions of their joint declaration. The striving for peace and well-being of our imperial subjects, and the sharing of common happiness and prosperity among tens of thousands of nations is the duty left by our Imperial Ancestors, and I am the one who has not forgotten about this duty. The Empire declared war against the United States and Great Britain for the desire to preserve, by ourselves, the Empire's existence in east Asia and for the region's stability. As to the infringement of other nation's sovereignty and invasion of other territorial entities, those were not my original intent. By now, the fighting has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the gallantry of our naval and land military forces, the diligence and assiduity of hundreds of civil-service officers, and the public devotion and service of one hundred million of our people, the situation on the war has not turned for the better, and the general trends of the world arc not advantageous to us either. In addition, the enemy has recently used a most cruel explosive. The frequent killing of innocents and the effect of destitution it entails are incalculable. Should we continue fighting in the war, it would cause not only the complete annihilation of our nation, but also the destruction of human civilisation. With this in mind, how should I save billions of our subjects and their posterity, and atone ourselves before the hallowed spirits of our Imperial Ancestors? This is the reason why I have ordered the Imperial Government to accept the joint declaration. I, from the start, have worked with our various Allied nations towards the liberation of east Asia, and I cannot refrain from expressing my deepest sense of regret to our Allies. The thought of our Imperial subjects dying in the battlefields, sacrificing themselves in the line of duty, and those who died in vain and their relatives, pains my heart and body to the point of fragmentation. As for the bearing of the wounds of war, the tragedies of war, and the welfare of those who lost their families and careers, it is the objects of our profound solicitude. From today hereafter, the Empire will endure excruciating hardships. I am keenly aware of the feelings of my subjects, but in accordance to the dictates of fate I am willing to endure the unendurable, tolerate the intolerable, for peace to last thousands of generations.