Littleboy & Fatman in WW II

[Perfection]

17. A Girl's Epilation Caused By Acute Radiation Effects

This girl (11 years old) was on the second floor of a wooden house which was situated 2 kilometers from the hypocenter. Since she was indoors, she did not receive any burns, but about a week later, epilation started. She suffered from loss of appetite, bleeding from the gum, and fever. She was recovered a little when this photograph was taken.

Epilation is a characteristic external sympton of exposure to radiation. It can occur as early as 5 or 10 days after exposure, but in most instances the hair loss commenced in the second or third week. Fever begins a few days after the start of epilation and rises to about 40 degrees centigrade. Many people died in this condition.

Even those who were shielded and did not receive any external wound or burn suffered from symptons such as epilation, fever, bleeding and bloody excrement if they were within 1 kilometer of the hypocenter. Many of these victims died within 7 days.


18. HIROSHIMA Has Not Ended

Citizens who were able to escape from hell on earth that day evacuated to the suburban areas of Hiroshima City and took refuge at first-aid stations set up in public buildings. However, this provided only momentary relief. They started to die one after another at the first-aid stations, and cremation could not catch up with the rate of death, so many of them had to be buried togeter.

In July of 1952, seven years after the atomic bombing, 252 remains were dug out from five places in Saka township of Aki country, which is situated 8 or 9 kilometers from the hypocenter. In one location, 156 bodies had been buried together; in another location, the cremated remains of 36 people had been buried together. This photograph shows the remains in Saka township. In the same year, 43 bodies from a vacant lot which used to be the Yamanaka Girl's High School in Senda township of Hiroshima City, and 29 bodies from Kanawajima Island off Ujina, Hiroshima City, were also dug up.

Twenty years after the bombing, in the autumn of 1971, humanbones were accidentally found on the grounds of Ninoshima Junior High School on Ninoshima Island, where thousands of A-bomb victims dies. Believing these bones were remains of A-bomb victims, the Hiroshima municipality dug the area for about one month and recovered the remains of 617 bodies.

The remains of A-bomb victims are still being recovered scores of years after the bombing. Hiroshima, Nagasaki and surrounding areas are still the graveyards of the A-bomb victims.

19. The Dead And The Living

There was nothing burnable left near the hypocenter in Nagasaki around noon August 10th, the day after the bombing. In the report "Air Defense Information And The Extent of Damage Caused by Aerial Attracks" of Nagasaki Prefecture, the scene was descrived this way: "Buildings were almost all burnt down. All the area was reduced to ashes due to the fierce heat, and the casualties are as large in number as ever recorded."

What is this girl looking for, standing vacantly on the ruins swept by flames for a whole day, where embers are still smoldering? She is probably a student judging from her clothes. Is she at a loss, not finding the place where her house used to be? Her eyes, gazing into the distance, look vacant and exhausted.

At her feet lies a scorched corpse, but she does not even pay attention to it.

This person, the corpse who was squashed down and enveloped in flames in an instant, is so terribly scorched that it is impossible to distinguish if it is male or female. This person must have died screaming.

Meanwhile is this girl, who was lucky enough to escape death, still in good health after 50-odd years, or dose she carry the agony that comes with exposure to residual radioactivity?

In this photograph, the contrast of life and death is vividly shown. It was a sight seen at many places in Nagasaki then.

20. Abolishment Of Nuclear Weapons! Peace World!

These are photographs of the peace Memorial Ceremony held in Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively on August 6th and 9th.

The memorial Cenotaph in Hiroshima was unveiled on August 6, 1952. Under the Cenotaph, which is in the shape an ancient clay house, is a stone coffin. On its surface are inscribed the words, "Rest in peace, for the mistake shall not be repeated." The registers of the names of those who died by the A-bomb explosion are placed in the stone coffin, and people in Hiroshima (Aki) district call it "kako-cho" (death registers). The names of the dead are added to the registers every year. The total number, as of August 6, 1980, stands at 98,685, less than a half of the estimated 200,000 or more people who died by the A-bomb explosion in Hiroshima. In the case of Nagasaki, too, only half the dead have been identified.

The peace Statue was completed in 1955 by voluntary money raised from all over Japan. It has been made a custom to hold the Peace Memorial Ceremony by hanging a big curtain in front of the Statue. The photograph shows the 35th Ceremony. The design of the flowers placed in front of the Statue, represents pigeons with their wings outstretched toward the sun. They symbolize the figure is appealing for eternal world peace as well as consoling the souls of the dead.

The A-bomb did not simply and injure masses of people and destroy buildings. It destroyed all the living and the community of the living. The experience Hiroshima and Nagasaki underwent is not confined to damage by war. It represents genocide, the obliteration of the society, and devastation of the environment. Inaddition, it is the first experience in the history mankind which augurs the destruction of the earth.

According to the report made by the U.N. General Secretary in the autumn of 1980. There are 40,000 to 50,000 nuclear weapons stocked in the world today, a number equivalent to one million Hiroshima-type A-bombs.

It is certain that the nuclear weapons stocked today are enough to kill the whole population of the earth dozens of times. Thus, nuclear weapons have the power to hold sway over the fate of mankind, between survival and eradication.

We live in the age of nuclear horror whether we like it or not. Therefore in order to make our own lives secure and to ensure the perpetuation of mankind, we must abolish all nuclear weapons from the earth. Japan is in the forefront of this drive for peace.

The movement against nuclear weapons originated with the "Stockholm Appeal" in 1950. With the threat of the use of A-bombs in the Korean War, which broke out in June of that year, the Appel was promoted world-wide and 500 million signatories were collected. When a hydrogen bomb test was conducted at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954, a Japansese tuna fishing vessel, "Fukuryu Maru No.5", was covered with "deadly ashes" and Mr. Aikichi Kuboyama, one of the crew, died due to the radiation.

This triggered the signature-collecting movement against atomic and hydrogen bombs all over Japan, and thirty million signatures were collected in a year. This powerfull message was brought into full play in the First World Conference Against A-and H-Bombs held in August, 1955.

A global movement calling for the extinction of nuclear weapons was spearheaded by an organization called NGO and by the nonaligned neutral coungries, which comprise more than two-thirds of the countries in the world. NGO, an organization formed on the basis of Clause 71 of the U.N.Charter, has vigorously impeached the competition for nuclear development by holding the Hiroshima International Forum Commemorating the 30th Anniversary the Atomic Bombing in Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the summer of 1977; the NGO International Disarmament Conference in February, 1978. NGO has been pointing the way for protecting mankind from nuclear crisis.

Another blobal event to be noted was The U.N. Special Session on Disarmament, held for the first time from May 23 to July 1,1978. This gathering was the result of a joint proposal of the nonaligned nations made to the U.N. General Assembly in the autumn of 1976. Some important resolutions were made in terms of disarmament, including nuclear weapons. A Commitiee of Disarmament (CD) was to be formed with the participation of 35 nuclear and non-nuclear countries. In addition, a week beginning on October 24 every year was designated as "The U.N. Disarmament Week", a period of time during which each country would highlight the cause of disarmament.

At the 33rd U.N. General Assembly helf in the autumn of that year, the following recommendation was made after the Special Session: (1) The use of nuclear weapons violates the U.N. Charter. (2) An international agreement be made to protect non-nuclear countries. (3) Nuclear weapons must not be deployed in non-nuclear countries. (4) Nuclear tests must not be conducted. (5) An investigation must be made so as to terminate the production of nuclear weapons and nuclear test equipment.

The above recommendation have not been fully carried out. Therefore, it is necessary to mobilize public opinion all over the world. Endeavours for peace should be strengthened so that the second U.N. Special Session on Disarmament to be held in 1982 will be much more successful.

The devil's weapon made by man must be removed by the wisdom of man. We must strengthen our belief with one another, and define what we can do now and what we must do now. We must gather each and everyone's efforts into one big force for the abolition of nuclear weapons in order to secure eternal surbibal, prosperity and peace for all mankind.

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THE ATOMIC BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA
Hiroshima (August 6, 1945)
Events: Dawn of the Atomic Era, 1945

In the early morning hours of August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber named Enola Gay took off from the island of Tinian and headed north by northwest toward Japan. The bomber's primary target was the city of Hiroshima, located on the deltas of southwestern Honshu Island facing the Inland Sea. Hiroshima had a civilian population of almost 300,000 and was an important military center, containing about 43,000 soldiers.

The bomber, piloted by the commander of the 509 th Composite Group, Colonel Paul Tibbets, flew at low altitude on automatic pilot before climbing to 31,000 feet as it neared the target area. At approximately 8:15 a.m. Hiroshima time the Enola Gay released "Little Boy," its 9,700-pound uranium bomb, over the city. Tibbets immediately dove away to avoid the anticipated shock wave. Forty-three seconds later, a huge explosion lit the morning sky as Little Boy detonated 1,900 feet above the city, directly over a parade field where soldiers of the Japanese Second Army were doing calisthenics. Though already eleven and a half miles away, the Enola Gay was rocked by the blast. At first, Tibbets thought he was taking flak. After a second shock wave (reflected from the ground) hit the plane, the crew looked back at Hiroshima. "The city was hidden by that awful cloud . . . boiling up, mushrooming, terrible and incredibly tall," Tibbets recalled. The yield of the explosion was later estimated at 15 kilotons (the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT).

On the ground moments before the blast it was a calm and sunny Monday morning. An air raid alert from earlier that morning had been called off after only a solitary aircraft was seen (the weather plane), and by 8:15 the city was alive with activity -- soldiers doing their morning calisthenics, commuters on foot or on bicycles, groups of women and children working outside to clear firebreaks. Those closest to the explosion died instantly, their bodies turned to black char. Nearby birds burst into flames in mid-air, and dry, combustible materials such as paper instantly ignited as far away as 6,400 feet from ground zero. The white light acted as a giant flashbulb, burning the dark patterns of clothing onto skin (right) and the shadows of bodies onto walls. Survivors outdoors close to the blast generally describe a literally blinding light combined with a sudden and overwhelming wave of heat. (The effects of radiation are usually not immediately apparent.) The blast wave followed almost instantly for those close-in, often knocking them from their feet. Those that were indoors were usually spared the flash burns, but flying glass from broken windows filled most rooms, and all but the very strongest structures collapsed. One boy was blown through the windows of his house and across the street as the house collapsed behind him. Within minutes 9 out of 10 people half a mile or less from ground zero were dead.

People farther from the point of detonation experienced first the flash and heat, followed seconds later by a deafening boom and the blast wave. Nearly every structure within one mile of ground zero was destroyed, and almost every building within three miles was damaged. Less than 10 percent of the buildings in the city survived without any damage, and the blast wave shattered glass in suburbs twelve miles away. The most common first reaction of those that were indoors even miles from ground zero was that their building had just suffered a direct hit by a bomb. Small ad hoc rescue parties soon began to operate, but roughly half of the city's population was dead or injured. In those areas most seriously affected virtually no one escaped serious injury. The numerous small fires that erupted simultaneously all around the city soon merged into one large firestorm, creating extremely strong winds that blew towards the center of the fire. The firestorm eventually engulfed 4.4 square miles of the city, killing anyone who had not escaped in the first minutes after the attack. One postwar study of the victims of Hiroshima found that less than 4.5 percent of survivors suffered leg fractures. Such injuries were not uncommon; it was just that most who could not walk were engulfed by the firestorm.

Even after the flames had subsided, relief from the outside was slow in coming. For hours after the attack the Japanese government did not even know for sure what had happened. Radio and telegraph communications with Hiroshima had suddenly ended at 8:16 a.m., and vague reports of some sort of large explosion had begun to filter in, but the Japanese high command knew that no large-scale air raid had taken place over the city and that there were no large stores of explosives there. Eventually a Japanese staff officer was dispatched by plane to survey the city from overhead, and while he was still nearly 100 miles away from the city he began to report on a huge cloud of smoke that hung over it. The first confirmation of exactly what had happened came only sixteen hours later with the announcement of the bombing by the United States. Relief workers from outside the city eventually began to arrive and the situation stabilized somewhat. Power in undamaged areas of the city was even restored on August 7th, with limited rail service resuming the following day. Several days after the blast, however, medical staff began to recognize the first symptoms of radiation sickness among the survivors. Soon the death rate actually began to climb again as patients who had appeared to be recovering began suffering from this strange new illness. Deaths from radiation sickness did not peak until three to four weeks after the attacks and did not taper off until seven to eight weeks after the attack. Long-range health dangers associated with radiation exposure, such as an increased danger of cancer, would linger for the rest of the victims' lives, as would the psychological effects of the attack.

No one will ever know for certain how many died as a result of the attack on Hiroshima. Some 70,000 people probably died as a result of initial blast, heat, and radiation effects. This included about twenty American airmen being held as prisoners in the city. By the end of 1945, because of the lingering effects of radioactive fallout and other after effects, the Hiroshima death toll was probably over 100,000. The five-year death total may have reached or even exceeded 200,000, as cancer and other long-term effects took hold.

At 11:00 a.m., August 6 (Washington D.C. time), radio stations began playing a prepared statement from President Truman (right) informing the American public that the United States had dropped an entirely new type of bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima -- an "atomic bomb." Truman warned that if Japan still refused to surrender unconditionally, as demanded by the Potsdam Declaration of July 26, the United States would attack additional targets with equally devastating results. Two days later, on August 8, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and attacked Japanese forces in Manchuria, ending American hopes that the war would end before Russian entry into the Pacific theater. By August 9th, American aircraft were showering leaflets all over Japan informing its people that "We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2,000 of our giant B-29s can carry on a single mission. This awful fact is one for you to ponder and we solemnly assure you it is grimly accurate. We have just begun to to use this weapon against your homeland. If you still have any doubt, make inquiry as to what happened to Hiroshima when just one atomic bomb fell on that city." Meanwhile, Tibbets's bomber group was simply waiting for the weather to clear in order to drop its next bomb, the plutonium weapon nicknamed "Fat Man" (right) that was destined for the city of Nagasaki.

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The Man

Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr. was born in Quincy, Illinois on February 23rd, 1915. Later his parents moved to Florida where, at the age of twelve, Paul had his first airplane ride. As part of an advertising stunt, he threw Baby Ruth candy bars, with paper parachutes attached, from a biplane flying over a crowd gathered at the Hialeah horse track near Miami. From that day on, Paul knew he had to fly.

His teen years were spent attending Western Military Academy. Later he attended the Universities of Florida and Cincinnati in pursuit of a career in medicine, but his determination to fly was greater than that of a career both parents wanted for him. So, on February 25th, 1937, Paul enlisted as a flying cadet in the Army Air Corps at Fort Thomas, Kentucky. A year later he got his pilot wings at Kelly Field, Texas and was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant.

In February 1942, Paul became the Squadron Commander of the 340th Bomb Squadron, 97th Bombardment Group, destined for England. He flew 25 missions in B-17s, including the first American Flying Fortress raid against occupied Europe. In November of that year he was in Algeria leading the first bombardment missions in support of the North African invasion.

In March 1943, he was returned to the states to test the combat capability of Boeing's new Super Fortress, the B-29, an airplane plagued with problems. He taught himself to fly the airplane and subsequently flew it about 400 hours in tests. This eventually gave him more experience as to the capabilities and limitations of a B-29 than any other pilot at that time.

In September 1944, Paul was briefed on the Manhattan Project, the code name for the development of the atom bomb. It was to be his responsibility to organize and train a unit to deliver these weapons in combat operations. He would also determine and supervise the modifications necessary to make the B-29 capable of delivering the weapons, and for this, the unit had to be self-sufficient. Secrecy was paramount. The unit would support Los Alamos with flight test airplanes to establish ballistics and detonator reliability to explode the bombs. Paul was told, "You are on your own. No one knows what to tell you. Use normal channels to the extent possible. If you are denied something you need, restate your need is for "SILVERPLATE" (a codename) and your request will be honored without question."

Paul requisitioned 15 new B-29s and specified they be stripped of turrets and armor plating except for the tail gunner position; that fuel-injected engines and new technology reversible-pitch propellers be installed; and the bomb bay re-configured to suspend, from a single point, ten thousand pounds. Such an airplane would fly higher, faster, and above the effective range of anti-aircraft fire.

A B-29 bombardment squadron, the 393rd, in its final stage of training, and Wendover Army Air Base located on the Utah/Nevada border were selected by Paul for "starters". The 393rd was fully equipped and the base had a fully manned "housekeeping" group. Wendover was isolated but close enough to Los Alamos to work together. The Salton Sea was an ideal distance for bombing practice. Then on December 17th, 1944, formal orders were issued activating the 509th Composite Group, consisting of seven subordinate units. In March 1945 the First Ordnance Squadron, a unit designed to carry out the technical phases of the group responsibilities, became part of the 509th. The personnel count now exceeded 1500 enlisted men and some 200 officers. Then, quietly, the group started moving overseas to Tinian Island in the Marianas chain. On the afternoon of August 5th, 1945, President Truman gave his approval to use the weapons against Japan. By the time the plane left, it's familiar arrowhead tail motif had been changed on both sides to the letter "R" in a circle, the standard i.d. for the Sixth bomb group. The idea behind the change was to confuse the enemy if they made contact, which they did not. At 02:45 A.M. August 6th, the Enola Gay lifted off North Field with Paul Tibbets and his crew en route to Hiroshima. At exactly 09:15 plus 15 seconds the world's first atomic bomb used in combat. The course of history and the nature of warfare was changed.

The Enola Gay landed back at Tinian at 2:58 P.M. and the plane and crew were greeted by General Spaatz, a large contingent of brass, and jubilant GIs. General Spaatz decorated Tibbets with the Distinguished Service Cross and the other crew members with Air Medals. This tremendous accomplishment, which not only affected the outcome of World War II but altered the history of the world, was not merely a single event. Rather, it was a culmination of events throughout which Paul Tibbets played a pivotal role.

In 1946 Paul participated in the Bikini Bomb Tests as technical advisor to the commander of the air task force. Later, he was responsible for the Air Force's purchase of the B-47 six engine jet bomber and its service tests at the Boeing factory in Wichita, Kansas. He went on to command two of the Strategic Air Command's bomber organizations, did a tour with NATO in France, and was responsible for establishing the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon. Next, he headed a team of officers and civilians which analyzed the major commands' use of resources to accomplish their assigned missions. He then reported the team's findings to the Air Staff.

When Paul Tibbets retired from the U.S. Air Force on August 31st, 1966, he had completed more than 29 and one-half years of service, but he was not through flying. Initially he resided in Geneva, Switzerland, operating three Lear jets throughout central Europe. There, he helped to educate the air ministries about the jet's uses. He also advised the air ministries about the aviation controls and guidelines they later instituted within their countries. Back in Columbus, Ohio in 1970, Paul joined Executive Jet Aviation, an all-jet air taxi service company, where he served in different capacities. Paul rose up the corporate ladder to become Chairman of the Board in 1982. The company changed ownership in 1985 and Paul retired again. During his 15 years Paul Tibbets acquired almost 400 hours in Lear jets, flying with an Air Transport Pilot rating.

As pilot of one of the most famous flights of WW II, which brought about a quicker surrender from the enemy and a reduction in the loss of Allied lives, and for his leadership and skill with both airplanes and people in times of stress, Paul W. Tibbets, Jr. is enshrined with honor into the National Aviation Hall of Fame.