Peace Begins in Nagasaki

On Saturday I did my first real bit of sightseeing in Nagasaki. For me, the only place to start was the Hypocentre Park. As it's name suggests, it marks the point above which the atomic bomb exploded at 11:02 am on August 9th 1945. In a word, it was... haunting. I am very glad that I have now seen it, but it was quite an emotional experience and one I don't want to repeat any time soon.

Here it is, the hypocentre. The 4.5 ton 'Fat Man' plutonium bomb exploded 500m above this column.

There are thousands upon thousands of these origami cranes – the symbol of peace - dotted around the park in displays such as these.

This is the Atomic Bombing 50th Anniversary Commemorative Projects Monument and it sits about 20m from the hypocentre. A section of the explanatory plaque reads, “...the child is like Japan on the day of the atomic bombing, while the mother represents the support provided by the countries of the world in Japan's efforts to build the peaceful nation it has become today”.

The Urakami cathedral suffered a near-direct hit by the blast, but still a small portion of its walls remained standing. This was moved to right next to the hypocentre, and included these gnarled dragons at its base.


From the Hypocentre Park I moved onto the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. It was a relief to discover that photography was not allowed inside the museum; In some ways I don't want to remember what I saw, and even if I did, photographs would never do some of the artefacts and exhibits justice. The 'before' and 'after' aerial photographs of Nagasaki were just shocking. I recognised the landmarks I was seeing in them! This was the city I am currently living in! It felt horribly real. This was made worse when I learned that within 1.2km of the hypocentre the death rate for anyone out in the open was 100%. My apartment, the hospital I work at, the track I run at, all lie well within that radius. Yeah, that was a pretty scary realisation. I don't want to try and summarise the museum here because you really do have to see it to grasp just how devastating the bomb blast was. I will mention though, that the exhibits where separated out into categories including the build up to the attack, the bomb itself (including the science of atomic bombs), the immediate after-effects on the city and it's residence, the relief efforts, the injuries sustained by people and the long-term human cost, and also the state of the world today in terms of nuclear weapons. It really was a fantastic museum.

By now feeling understandably depressed, I headed over to the Peace Park in the hope of finishing the day's sightseeing on a positive note. There I saw the famous Peace Statue:

There was also a collection of other, smaller statues that had been donated from other countries around the world, and the Peace Fountain.

It was all very beautiful. And heart-warming. It certainly proved to be the right order to see these three sights in. I walked home feeling, surprisingly, hopeful and optimistic.

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As a Westerner, I have to admit that I felt some guilt as I walked around these sights. We study all the awful things that Hitler and Stalin did, call them barbarians, but honestly, what we did was just as bad. The atomic attacks on Japan have been justified by the West, calling them 'a quick end to the war', a 'way of saving our soldiers' lives', but at what cost? The vast majority of the victims in Nagasaki were women, children and the elderly. How were their deaths any less important than those of our soldiers?

If nothing else, I learned on Saturday that we have an incredibly distorted understanding of modern world history in Britain. I wonder if and when that will ever change.