I thought scientists were going to find out exactly how everything worked, and then make it work better. I fully expected that by the time I was twenty-one, some scientist, maybe my brother, would have taken a colour photograph of God Almighty — and sold it to Popular Mechanics magazine. Scientific truth was going to make us so happy and comfortable.What actually happened when I was twenty-one was that we dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima.
I come and stand at every door But none can hear my silent tread I knock and yet remain unseen For I am dead for I am dead I'm only seven though I died In Hiroshima long ago I'm seven now as I was then When children die they do not grow My hair was scorched by swirling flame My eyes grew dim my eyes grew blind Death came and turned my bones to dust And that was scattered by the wind I need no fruit I need no rice I need no sweets nor even bread I ask for nothing for myself For I am dead for I am dead All that I need is that for peace You fight today you fight today So that the children of this world Can live and grow and laugh and
Historically, the Germans had a habit of associating the names of objects with the sounds they made. After bell makers-turned-cannon-makers learned that by closing off the mouth of the cannon before lighting the fuse, the entire cannon could be made to explode, the device they invented became known as the 'bum' (for boom!). In keeping with this tradition, the first one-thousand-pound bomb was dubbed 'ein laussen bum' (meaning, "a loud boom"). After the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, they called the fission device 'ein grossen laussen bum' (or, "a big loud boom"). The next obvious step was the fusion, or H-bomb, which was pronounced 'ein grossen laussen bum all ist kaput!
I cannot conceive that the man who dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a machine. He also had a heart, just like you. He also had his wife and children, his old mother and father. He was as much a human being as you are—with a difference. He was trained to follow orders without questioning, and when the order was given, he simply followed it.
Not every environment accepts the dream shaping progress you want to put across. Take a second look at what you dream about, be sure it can progress very well where you are; Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not fertile grounds for a farmer’s dream seeds. Go and relocate!
35. Not every environment accepts the progress you want to put across. Take a second look at what you dream about, be sure it can progress very well at where you are; Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not fertile grounds for a farmer’s dream seeds. Go and relocate!
Above all, the sense of personal responsibility was reduced by the way agency was fragmented. Among the airmen who obeyed the order to drop the bomb, the many scientists who helped to make it, the President, the many political and military advisers involved in the decision, who killed the people of Hiroshima? No one seems to have felt that the responsibility was fully his.
For ten years after the atomic bomb was dropped there was so little public discussion of the bomb or of radioactivity that even the Chugoku Shinbun, the major newspaper of the city where the atomic bomb was dropped, did not have the movable type for 'atomic bomb' or 'radioactivity'. The silence continued so long because the U.S. Army Surgeons Investigation Team in the fall of 1945 had issued a mistaken statement: all people expected to die from the radiation effects of the atomic bomb had by then already died; accordingly, no further cases of physiological effects due to residual radiation would be acknowledged.
When the Russian delegate this summer indicated the Soviet Union's interest in sending medical equipment, Dr Shigeto went right away to see the delegate and settle the matter tactfully. He is careful to steer clear of the superficial swirl of political maneuvering, but never misses any opportunity to improve the capability of the A-bomb Hospital or to enhance concretely the welfare of the patients. In that sense, he sometimes refers to himself as a 'dirty handkerchief.' That is, he serves to filter political purposes out of relief efforts so that the effect on patients is purely and concretely humane.