APOCALYPSE OF AUGUST

 

APOCALYPSE OF AUGUST

With the Japanese people patriotism was a passion, and soldiery was a great virtue. “Thou shalt honour the Gods, love thy country and fight for the country.”-was what Japanese religion called ‘Shintoism’ taught. Hideki Tojo led Japan was unwilling to surrender. Japan in the World War years was a formidable power. United States of America desperately wanted to end the World War, which was only possible by complete destruction of Japan.

On August 6^th, 1945, at 2:45 A.M. local time, a B-29 bomber of Group 509 of the United States Army Air Force lifted off from Tinian Island in the Marianas and headed out into the night over the Pacific Ocean. The aircraft, commanded by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets’ , was going to drop a new kind of bomb, more destructive than any, on Japan. The bomber was not alone on its mission. Three planes flew in advance to report the weather conditions over Japan.  At 6:30 A.M. Japanese time, the massive bomb was primed. At 8:30 A.M. Tibbets ordered his crew to wear a Polaroid goggles to protect their eyes. By these stages of the War, Japan had virtually no air bases. The Enola Gay  flew at a speed of 200mph and approached Aioi Bridge in the centre of Hiroshima. A minute later the Little Man devoured the Sun completely. Three days after Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (E=mc²) was applied, Truman ordered a second application on Nagasaki. In the Enola Gay, co-pilot Robert Lewis asked the question that would be repeated around the world, ”Oh God! What have we done?”

On the day of the catastrophe, Hiroshima, a war untouched important city housed 320,000 people. The streets were busy as usual with people walking and cycling to work. Soldiers were doing physical exercise out in the open. Many schoolgirls were outdoors playing with their pals. The explosion was as bright as a thousand suns. Those near the explosion were vaporised within a second into cinder. The blast was of such a huge magnitude, that trains and trams were tossed from  the tracks. It seemed as if doomsday had arrived.  Among some survivors, a Japanese woman, Futaba Kitayama, who was in Hiroshima during the explosion shared her experience, “ The sky turned black…I lost consciousness..on gaining consciousness I found my skin coming of from my hands…” It is often said that along with innumerable loss of lives, harmful radiations destroyed the genetic structure of the people. The deadly incidents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are examples of such sins which are a shame to humanity.