Japan remembers the Hiroshima atomic bombing 70 years on

By the end of the year, 140,000, including tens of thousands of Koreans and other non-Japanese, had died because of the bombing and its after-effects.

ReutersLocal residents walk past the gutted Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall (L), which is now called the Atomic Bomb Dome or A-Bomb Dome, on Aioi Bridge in Hiroshima after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

Paul Wittjung of Syracuse is in his 70’s, and says he’s marched in many of these processions. They urged him to withdraw new legislation allowing the Japanese military to fight wars overseas for the first time since the end of WWII. In fact, the Soviets attacked the Japanese in Manchuria on the same day as the Nagasaki bombing and overwhelmed them.

“While the war ended with the defeat of Japan, about 20 million people in several Asian/Pacific countries including Japan were victims”, the NSKK House of Bishops said in a statement.

Within a half-mile of the target – much of downtown, in this case – 90 percent of people would have died by heavy fire. It is scary to know that nine countries in the world today still have more than 16,000 nuclear weapons.

In contrast to the Enola Gay US bomber that flew over the site back then, white doves were released into the sky and bells rang out across the area.

Chisako Takeoka, who was 17 when the bomb dropped, told CNN she remembered the rivers through Hiroshima filled with burned bodies and the necessary removal of her mother’s eye, which she said had been blown out of its socket by the explosion. At least not if its aim was to get Japan to surrender. “Having found the bomb we have used it”, Truman declared. The U.S. has said the bombings hastened Japan’s surrender and eliminated the need for a U.S. invasion that would have cost many more lives. 70 years after the deadliest nuclear bombing in history, one of the strongest opponents to nuclear disarmament is the country that carried it out.

“We have strived to establish collaborative relationships with Asian churches, especially the Anglican Church of Korea and the Episcopal Church in the Philippines”, the bishops say, “and have committed to support the Okinawan struggle for peace and human rights”.

The impact of Hiroshima and Nagasaki lives on.

The new “reinterpretation”, accomplished without amending the Constitution, holds that Japan can maintain land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, and that Japan will use war or threaten war to defend itself, to defend any of its allies, or to take part in a U.N.-authorized war anywhere on earth.

Matsuyama, the survivor who visited Baltimore on Thursday, said he treasures his opportunity to advocate against nuclear weapons and war in general. “So, we’re at a point where things are not quiet on the nuclear front at all”.