We often hear about the American perspective of history, with self-proclaimed justifications on choices the States made. But the question I have today is can we justify what happened at Hiroshima? Was a nuclear bomb warranted in comparison to regular WWII bomb attacks? Nagasaki will be discussed later in the secondary paragraph.

2,403 US Personal (68 civilians) were killed, 19 Navy ships (8 battleships) were damaged or destroyed, around 1,143 were injured. This was our self-justification for launching a nuclear bomb on a Japanese island. Emiko Okada was eight years old at the time of the nuclear bomb, her older sister was 12. Her sister had left for the day, and had not returned home, her parents searched for months upon months but never found her remains. When they died they sent out an official search warrant in hopes their daughter was alive and healthy. Emiko had profuse vomiting after the incident due to radiation; her hair fell out, gums bled, and she was far too ill to attend school. Her grandmother often lamented the suffering of her children and grandchildren, she prayed things like “How cruel, how so very cruel, if only it weren’t for the pika-don.” (pika-don is the phonetic name for atomic bomb.)

Yasujiro Tanaka was a mere three years of age at the time of the bombs being dropped, Tanaka was buried underneath rubble, his uncle found him unconscious, his face misshapen, his uncle was sure he was dead. Tanaka managed to survive, however, mysterious scabs formed on his body after and he lost hearing in his left ear. Tanaka has a few survivors in his family: Tanaka’s mother had found glass growing out of her skin (it was debris, more than likely melted into the skin from radiation), his younger sister suffers from chronic muscle cramps, and her kidneys make it so she has a dialysis three times per week. (She often wondered “What did I do to the Americans?” and “Why did they do this to me?”)

In my opinion, despite what happened, using nuclear weapons is never going to be justifiable. Children, born or unborn, are affected. And survivors have to experience the most horrific things, things that are beyond our imagination. Humans are cruel, there is no justification for a large amount of the actions we perform. The source is not mine, but there are many more stories from those who experienced this.