The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 (Modern Library War)

by Toland, John

  All over town, charcoal braziers full of hot coals (housewives had been preparing breakfast) ignited the tinderbox rubble. These thousands of small fires were whipped into fury by a cyclonic wind that was sucked in toward the hypocenter with such force that large trees were uprooted. Blasts of flame—they could have come from monster blowtorches—erratically ripped off corrugated roofs as if they were cardboard, blasted houses apart and twisted metal bridges. Telephone poles ignited explosively.

  Near the site of Hiroshima Castle four men staggered through the burning streets with a massive portrait of the Emperor; they had rescued it from the inferno of the 2nd General Army communications center and were trying to get it safely out of the city. At the sight of the picture, lines of apathetic refugees broke into cries of “The Emperor’s portrait!” The burned and bleeding saluted or bowed low. Those unable to get to their feet clasped hands in prayer. As the picture was trundled through Asano Sentei Park to a waiting boat moored on the river, towering pine trees flamed into torches. Wounded soldiers on the banks, waiting to be rescued, struggled to attention and saluted as the boat headed upstream for safety through a shower of flaming debris.

  Their commander, General Fujii, was incinerated in the first minutes at his quarters near the castle but Private Shigeru Shimoyama, who was closer to ground zero, was still alive even after being impaled on the spikes of a roof beam. He painfully pulled himself free from the spikes, and using his head as a battering ram, relentlessly slammed at the roof, blinded by streams of blood, until he broke through. Thick stifling clouds of dust swirled about him, but he could tell that some irresistible force had swept across the city like the hand of a vengeful giant. At the river he watched scores of wounded making the long frantic leap from its banks. What did they think they were doing? The surface of the water was covered with carmine scum. From blood? Shimoyama kept telling himself to remain calm. He was no stranger to disaster; he had almost been killed in the earthquake of ’23, the Doolittle raid and the Tokyo fire bombing of April 13. He started up the river against the wind; it would help keep the fires behind him.

  Directly in his path was a cavalry horse standing alone. It was pink; the blast had seared off its skin. It looked at him pleadingly and followed with a few faltering steps. The pitiful sight fascinated Shimoyama, and he had to force himself to press on (he would dream about the pink horse for years afterward). Half a dozen other soldiers were also purposefully following the bank north, but it was as if each man was solitary, preoccupied with his own survival. Civilians, some almost naked, tried to keep up with them, but as the dull rumble of flames behind grew louder, the soldiers quickened their pace, leaving the others far behind.

  Several miles upstream Shimoyama forded the river where the water only came up to his neck. As he proceeded into the suburbs where the havoc of the bomb had not reached, he was obsessed by one thought—that it was an atomic bomb. He must get home and see his daughter before he died of the effects. In 1943 a brother-in-law of his had informed him that the Japanese were working on one and for the past few days, oddly, there had been so much talk in his barracks about such a bomb that if a man lost his temper someone would say, “He’s like an atomic bomb.” He passed scores of high school girls, horribly burned, sprawling on either side of the road. Long strips of skin hung in ribbons from their faces, arms and legs. They reached out in supplication for water. But what could he do? Farther up the road, villagers were laying sliced cucumbers on the burns of other survivors and carrying those most seriously hurt to first-aid stations in vegetable carts.

  The first fragmentary reports that came into Tokyo indicated simply that Hiroshima had suffered an unprecedented disaster. Imperial Headquarters could not raise the 2nd General Army communications center for fuller details.

  Marquis Kido immediately informed the Emperor that Hiroshima had been laid waste by some secret weapon. “Under these circumstances we must bow to the inevitable,” said His Majesty. He could not hide his anguish. “No matter what happens to me, we must put an end to this war as soon as possible. This tragedy must not be repeated.” But both agreed that the psychological moment had not yet come for the Emperor to take personal action.

  • • •

  In the dying light of dusk the fires began to subside and from a distance Hiroshima looked peaceful, like the gigantic encampment of a quiescent army on the plain. And high overhead, stars appeared startlingly bright against the darkening sky. The flow out of the city had been reversed as the first trickle of help entered from the outside.

  Dr. Shigeto of the Red Cross Hospital, who had fled the holocaust, was back. Going from one first-aid station to another, he was told that water was harmful for those suffering burns. On the contrary, he announced, it flushed the poison from burns out of the system. He had signs put up: YOU MAY GIVE WATER. DR. SHIGETO, VICE DIRECTOR, RED CROSS HOSPITAL.

  As he penetrated deeper into the ravaged city, he found his way blocked by smoldering rubble. Although there seemed to be no passable road, he saw to his astonishment a large charcoal-burning truck come rumbling, out of the smoke, its cab crowded with men. He recognized the driver, a sake manufacturer from his suburb. He had braved the inferno to carry emergency food and sake to his customers, but found their stores burned down. Shigeto started past the truck. “There’s not a living soul in there!” the driver called out. “Not an animal. What use is a doctor?” Shigeto was forcibly lifted into the truck.

  The doctor had to borrow a bicycle to cover the last mile home. He came unexpectedly upon a woman, a baby on her back, wandering on the dark road. When she saw him she began to weep hysterically. It was his wife, and in his memory, she had already placed a burning candle on the family Buddhist shrine.

  Outside the city, first-aid stations were powerless to help the hundreds dying every hour. Seven-year-old Shizuko Iura was close to death but no one had heard her cry or complain. She continually asked for water, which her mother gave her against the advice of attendants. Why not ease her dying? “Father [he was a sailor on some Pacific island] is far away from home in a dangerous place,” Shizuko said as if she saw him in a vision. “Please stay alive, Mother. If both of us die, he will be very lonely.” She mentioned the names of all her friends and relatives. When she came to her grandparents she added, “They were good to me.” She cried “Papa, Papa!” and died.

  That day perhaps 100,000 human beings perished in Hiroshima, and an equal number were dying from burns, injuries and a disease of the atomic age, radiation poisoning.§

  3.

  At 2:58 P.M., local time, Enola Gay touched down on Tinian’s North Field. Several hundred officers and men rushed to surround the aircraft as the crew emerged. General “Tooey” Spaatz strode up and pinned a D.S.C. on Tibbets, who embarrassedly poked his pipe up a coverall sleeve as he stood at attention. The crew was interrogated in the officers club, a Quonset hut, over lemonade laced with bourbon. An intelligence officer asked Navigator Van Kirk for the exact drop time. He replied, “At 091517K”—seventeen seconds past schedule.

  “Why were you late?”

  Everyone laughed. General Farrell left the interrogation to send his first full report (an earlier bulletin had been transmitted based on the initial reports radioed from Enola Gay) to General Groves:

  … FLASH NOT SO BLINDING AS TRINITY BECAUSE OF BRIGHT SUNLIGHT. FIRST THERE WAS A BALL OF FIRE CHANGING IN A FEW SECONDS TO PURPLE CLOUDS AND FLAMES BOILING AND SWIRLING UPWARD. FLASH OBSERVED JUST AFTER AIRPLANE ROLLED OUT OF TURN. ALL AGREED LIGHT WAS INTENSELY BRIGHT.…

  ENTIRE CITY EXCEPT OUTERMOST ENDS OF DOCK AREAS WAS COVERED WITH A DARK GRAY DUST LAYER WHICH JOINED THE CLOUD COLUMN. IT WAS EXTREMELY TURBULENT WITH FLASHES OF FIRE VISIBLE IN THE DUST. ESTIMATED DIAMETER OF THIS DUST LAYER IS AT LEAST THREE MILES. ONE OBSERVER STATED IT LOOKED AS THOUGH WHOLE TOWN WAS BEING TORN APART WITH COLUMNS OF DUST RISING OUT OF VALLEYS APPROACHING THE TOWN. DUE TO DUST VISUAL OBSERVATIONS OF STRUCTURAL DAMAGE COULD NOT BE MADE.

  JUDGE [Parsons] AND OTHE
R OBSERVERS FELT THIS STRIKE WAS TREMENDOUS AND AWESOME EVEN IN COMPARISON WITH TR [Trinity]. ITS EFFECTS MAY BE ATTRIBUTED BY THE JAPANESE TO A HUGE METEOR.

  In Washington, Groves had received the preliminary message just before midnight, August 5. Because of the hour he did not awaken General Marshall; he went to sleep in his office to be on hand when the more detailed report came in. It arrived at 4:15 A.M., and three and a half hours later Chief of Staff Marshall transmitted the information by scrambler telephone to Stimson at his home on Long Island. The Secretary of War agreed that Truman’s prepared statement concerning the bomb should be released to the press that morning.

  It announced that a revolutionary bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, which was described as an important Army base. “It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.” America was prepared to obliterate all Japanese factories, docks, communications. “It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.”

  Truman was aboard Augusta on his way home from Potsdam. Army Captain Franklin Graham interrupted the President at lunch in the after mess hall to hand him a short dispatch from Stimson saying that the “big bomb” had been dropped on Hiroshima, apparently with success. Truman looked up. “Captain Graham,” he remarked, “this is the greatest thing in history,” and lapsed into silence. Within minutes another message arrived. It quoted the report from Parsons that the results had been “clear cut, successful in all respects.”

  Truman had kept the first dispatch to himself. Now he brusquely shoved his chair back and strode over to Byrnes at a nearby table. “It’s time to get on home!” he said cryptically. He picked up a fork and rapped it sharply against a glass. The room went silent and he told the sailors about the new weapon. The President left for the officers wardroom, the cheers of the enlisted men following him down the companionway. “Keep your seats, gentlemen,” he told the startled officers. “We have just dropped a bomb on Japan which has more power than twenty thousand tons of TNT. It was an overwhelming success. We won the gamble!”

  At his home in Tokyo, Cabinet Secretary Sakomizu was in bed half asleep when the Domei News Agency phoned about the Truman announcement. The words “atomic bomb” brought him wide awake. He was shocked, but realized at the same time that this was the “golden opportunity” to end the war. No nation could defend itself against atomic bombs. It wouldn’t be necessary to blame the military or the munitions makers for losing the war. He picked up the phone to call the Prime Minister.

  * After the war Major Eatherly was exploited by a number of “Ban the Bomb” groups which claimed he was a martyr, an “American Dreyfus,” jailed and hounded because of expressed guilt for his part in the Hiroshima bombing. A rash of books and articles made numerous false claims (at least one of which originated with Eatherly himself): that he personally selected Hiroshima as a target; that he was given the D.F.C.; that he flew through the bomb cloud at Hiroshima; that he commanded the bombing of Hiroshima; that he participated in the bombing of Nagasaki.

  † Kimura developed the films himself at home. They were overexposed but usable, and one is reprinted in the picture section of this book. Waldman’s film was ruined when it was processed in the well-equipped photo laboratory at Tinian. The equipment had to be kept at 70 degrees but the refrigeration unit malfunctioned, subjecting the film to excessive heat stripping the emulsion. The pictures in Lieutenant Gackenbach’s little camera were excellent.

  ‡ Miraculously the entire family, except for the boy who was never found, survived with few ill effects. Hiroko was nicknamed “Pikako” (little pika), and grew to be an attractive, healthy young woman—a local tennis champion. The Tomitas rebuilt on the ruins of their former home.

  § Professor Shogo Nagaoka, the first curator of the Peace Memorial in Hiroshima, concluded that at least 200,000 died as a result of the bomb. This figure was corroborated by Drs. Naomi Shohno and K. Sakuma after an extensive study.

  Twenty-two of the victims were American prisoners of war, and included several women. This was revealed to a Japanese newspaper in July 1970 by Hiroshi Yanagida, a kempei warrant officer, who had guarded the Americans. There were twenty-three prisoners in all. The twenty-third, a young soldier, was pulled out of the rubble alive, but he was killed by an angry mob of Japanese survivors.

  34

  … and Nagasaki

  1.

  In Hiroshima the mysterious effects of radiation were making themselves known at dawn on August 7. Shogo Nagaoka, formerly a geologist at the university, was trying to get through the rubble to the campus. A recent draftee, he had deserted his Army unit out of concern for the fate of the university and had been traveling for hours. He could hardly fathom the endless devastation. At the Gokoku Shrine near the hypocenter he slumped exhausted at the foot of a stone lantern. He felt a stinging sensation—it was radiation—and sprang to his feet. Then he noticed a strange silhouette on the lantern and that some of its surface was melted. An awful and sudden realization came to him: an atomic bomb! Japan had to surrender at once.

  At scores of aid stations doctors were mystified. Their patients’ symptoms were so bizarre that it was suspected an acrid poison gas had been used to spread bacillary dysentery. Some victims were scorched on just one side of the face; oddly, some had the shadow of a nose or ear stenciled on their cheek. Like Nagaoka, Dr. Shigeto of the Red Cross Hospital had heard of atomic energy and guessed that the victims were suffering from primary radiation. He checked the walls of the hospital with a simple X-ray indicator. The count was so low, however, that he concluded it was safe to remain.

  The aftereffects were unpredictable. Private Shimoyama, one of those closest to ground zero, had been near-sighted before the pika. Now as he peered through his glasses everything seemed slightly blurred to him. Was he going blind? When he finally removed his glasses he discovered that he had regained perfect vision. But his hair was falling out and he was suffering from the same sickness that had struck thousands of others. First they felt nauseated and vomited; diarrhea and fever followed. Other reactions were erratic. Some victims were covered with brilliant spots—red, green-yellow, black and purple—and lived; others whose bodies had no apparent marks died abruptly. One man escaped with a slightly burned hand and ignored it until he began vomiting blood. He put his injured hand in water for relief and “something strange and bluish came out of it, like smoke.”

  Terror of the unknown, intensified by vague feelings of guilt and shame, swept over the survivors: they were alive because they had ignored pleas of relatives and neighbors for help and left them trapped in burning wreckage. The anguished voices of those who had died kept haunting them. Parents who had lost children blamed themselves, and children who had lost parents felt this was punishment for some wrongdoing. The tragedy had cruelly shattered the intricate and intimate structure of Japanese family life.

  In Tokyo the Army’s fanatic reluctance to accept the responsibility of surrender led them to question the significance of the complete destruction of a major city. They saw no merit in Foreign Minister Togo’s suggestion that Japan accept the Potsdam Proclamation even when he pointed out with logic that the bomb “drastically alters the whole military situation and offers the military ample grounds for ending the war.”

  “Such a move is uncalled for,” War Minister Anami countered. “Furthermore, we do not yet know if the bomb was atomic.” They only had Truman’s word for it. It might be a trick. Dr. Yoshio Nishina, the nation’s leading nuclear scientist, should be sent at once to investigate Hiroshima.

  As Dr. Nishina and Lieutenant General Seizo Arisue, chief of Intelligence, were about to board a plane at Tachikawa Air Base, an air-raid siren began its bans
hee howl. Arisue ordered Dr. Nishina to wait until the All Clear sounded, but he and several subordinates took off immediately. Their plane arrived over Hiroshima just before dusk. The general had seen many cities laid waste by fire bombings—usually there was smoldering debris, smoke from emergency kitchens and some signs of human activity—but below him stretched a lifeless desert. No smoke, no fires, nothing. There wasn’t a street in sight.

  The pilot turned and shouted, “Sir, this is supposed to be Hiroshima. What should we do?”

  “Land!”

  The plane touched down on a sod strip near the harbor. As Arisue descended he noticed that the grass, a strange clay color, was leaning toward the Inland Sea; it looked as if it had been pressed by some giant hot iron. The party was met by a lieutenant colonel who saluted smartly. The left half of his face was severely burned, the right half untouched. Arisue was taken by motorboat to Army Maritime Transport Command. At the dock he was greeted by Lieutenant General Hideo Baba, a friend since the Military Academy, who reported that there was no water or electricity in Hiroshima. The two generals sat in the open at a long wooden table lit by candles. Baba had difficulty controlling his voice. He described how his daughter had perished on her way to high school. “Not my daughter alone, but thousands of other innocent children were massacred. This new bomb is satanic, too atrocious and horrible to use.” He covered his face with his hands.

  Arisue put his arm around his friend. “Please remember that we are military men,” he finally said. Baba apologized for breaking down. He told Arisue that there was “a persistent rumor” that the Americans were going to drop another of the new bombs on Tokyo.*

  People were returning to the city in ever-increasing numbers. Work groups began collecting bodies and incinerating them with whatever wood they could find. The stench was nauseating, somewhat like broiled sardines, but some of the workers had developed a perverse craving for the smell; it actually stimulated their appetites.