Sunday, August 9, 2015

"The Irish eyewitness to the atomic bomb at Nagasaki"

"Dr MacCarthy survived the war and spent the rest of his life in London. He died in 1995. His autobiography A Doctor’s War was published in 1979. He is now the subject of an documentary entitled A Doctor’s SwordExtract from A Doctor’s War by Dr Aidan MacCarthy:"
On August 9th the day started bright and clear with only occasional clouds to the north. During a 10-minute break in our clearing work, round about 10.45am, some of our men had gone back to the camp which was close by, to get a drink of water or a cigarette.
High above us we saw eight vapour trails showing two separate four engine bombers, heading south. These were B-29 bombers, or B-NEE-JU-KU’s as the Japanese called them. They had been seen going north earlier that morning. Then they suddenly altered course and came back over Nagasaki.
This manoeuvre was enough to send us wildly dashing for the air-raid shelters. To dig our own graves with a view to being shot by the Japanese was one thing, but to be killed by our own allies was far too galling.
In the shelters we prayed that there would not be a direct hit. A couple of POWs did not bother to go into the shelters, staying on the surface and crouching on the ground in the shadow of the barrack huts.
They were gazing at the sky, watching the approaching vapour trails. One of them shouted to us that three small parachutes had dropped.
There then followed a blue flash, accompanied by a very bright magnesium-type flare which blinded them. Then came a frighteningly loud but rather flat explosion which was followed by a blast of hot air.
Some of this could be felt even by us as it came through the shelter openings, which were very rarely closed owing to the poor ventilation. The explosions we heard seemed to be two in number and this puzzled experts when later we were being debriefed.
One possible explanation is that the second sound was a giant echo from the surrounding hills. All this was followed by eerie silence. Then an Australian POW stuck his head out of the shelter opening, looked around and ducked back in, his face expressing incredulity. This brought the rest of us scrambling to our feet and a panic rush to the exits. The sight that greeted us halted us in our tracks.
As we slowly surveyed the scene around us, we became aware that the camp had to all intents and purposes disappeared. Mostly of wooden construction, the wood had carbonized and turned to ashes.
Bodies lay everywhere, some horribly mutilated by falling walls, girders and flying glass. There were outbreaks of fire in all directions, with loud explosions recurring as the flapping, live electric cables fused and flared.
The gas mains had also exploded, and those people still on their feet ran round in circles, hands pressed to their blinded eyes or holding the flesh that hung in tatters from their faces or arms.
The brick built guardroom had collapsed, and the dead guards lay almost naked. We could suddenly see right up the length of the valley, where previously the factories and buildings had formed a screen. Left behind was a crazy forest of discoloured corrugated sheets clinging to twisted girders.
Burst waterpipes shot fountains of water high in the air. The steel girders stood like stark sentinels, leaning over a series of concrete ‘tennis courts’ that had once been the floors of factories.
But most frightening of all was the lack of sunlight in contrast to the bright August sunshine that we had left a few minutes earlier, there was now a kind of twilight. We all genuinely thought, for some time, that this was the end of the world.
As I dashed through the shelter opening and scrambled onto the surface, my predominant thought was to get away as far and as fast as possible. I turned and ran. Others followed. The sea seemed to offer the most immediate prospect of safety, but as we ran towards it, we encountered another mob running towards us.
Everyone seemed to be looking for an intact bridge across the Urakami river. We were on the south side and to make our way to the sea and hills we needed to cross to the north bank. Unfortunately no bridge seemed to be available so I jumped into the cloudy waters and swam. Unwillingly the rest of the group joined me in the water.
On the opposite bank we stuck in the black glue-like mud and discovered that struggling only made matters worse. Eventually, muddy, smelly and exhausted, we got clear of the river and headed for the foothills to the north of the valley.
En route we were physically sickened by an endless stream of burnt, bleeding, flesh-torn, stumbling people, many unable to rise from where they had fallen. Others were still trapped under fallen debris. Occasionally someone had gone beserk.
The whole atmosphere was permeated with blind terror, and the macabre twilight was illuminated by numerous fires, the crackle of which mixed with the screams of the dying and injured. These sounded even more horrific because of the eerie overall ‘silence’.
Thousands of people scrambled, pushed, shoved and crawled across the shattered landscape in a crazed attempt to seek safety. At last we reached the foothills and the locals seemed quite pleased to see us, particularly when they discovered I was a doctor.
Immediately I set to work. Burns were the main problem and these were of two types – fire burns and flash burns. The locals used some native fern-like leaves to ease the pain-and this seemed to work. I was able to help by splinting and tying up broken bones.
Later that day the authorities began to set up first aid posts in caves which had been dug in the hillsides as air-raid shelters. Word soon spread amongst the wounded and injured and many were carried off on makeshift stretchers to these ‘hospital’ caves. Meanwhile, it began to rain. This helped to quell some of the fires.
The rain was black – which frightened everybody, including the Japanese. Not knowing until later anything at all about the effects of an atomic explosion, I seriously wondered whether we had finally arrived at Judgement Day.
An angry God was devastating the Japanese for their sins – and mistakenly including us in the holocaust.

9 comments:

ricpic said...

Not a scintilla of guilt here, Lem. Saved a million American lives.

edutcher said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
edutcher said...

I heard about a Catholic priest who was in Hiroshima (history class IIRC) when the bomb dropped.

He was a neutral and lying sick in bed in his rectory in a second floor room when it happened.

He said there was no sound, just a big light, and then he was picked up and thrown against the far wall by the concussion.

His staff managed to get him out of the building and carried him through the town where he saw the same sights described in the post.

A couple of interesting points - Ground Zero at Hiroshima turned out to be the parade ground of the headquarters company of the Japanese Second General Army, which was out doing their morning PT at the time. Probably never knew what hit them.

Nagasaki was not the primary target. I've seen material that said primary on both occasions was Kokura, but Wiki (I know...) says Hiroshima was always a primary. In any case, Kokura was the site of a huge arsenal and a necessary point to be eliminated prior to the invasion.

ricpic said...

Not a scintilla of guilt here, Lem. Saved a million American lives.

FWIW, the million casualties estimate was the Navy's, going on the many bloodbaths the Marines and Army had across the Central Pacific.

The Army's estimate was about 400,000 - 500,000, undoubtedly due to the fact Douglas MacArthur, and not Chester Nimitz and Howlin' Mad Smith, would be calling the shots in the ground war.

Either way, it would have been a very rough go.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Not a scintilla of guilt here, Lem. Saved a million American lives.

I though it might be relevant, considering Iran is going to have the bomb. Just so that we are aware, what Iran is going to be capable of.

Call it raising awareness ;)

edutcher said...

One other point that's fascinating.

More people died in the 5 months of fire bomb raids that preceded the A-bomb attacks. Most estimates say about 400,000 killed and another 500,000 wounded.

Damage on these cities (the A-bomb targets were almost all the cities left unscathed) was measured in square miles, usually 2 to 8.

More people died by fire in the first Tokyo raid than at any other time in history, Hamburg included.

And yet it took 5 days after the Nagasaki attack before Japan surrendered and there were several attempts after that to derail the surrender.

bagoh20 said...

It's a tough thing. We admire patriotism, and courage, and not backing down, but the Japanese should have realised it was over and surrendered earlier. I wish we would have demonstrated the power of the atomic bomb to the Japanese before using it on populations,and given them a chance to surrender, but it seems clear now that even after the horrible fire bombings and even after Hiroshima, they wouldn't do the wise thing. The very thing that made them such an oversized power was the thing that cost them so much in the end. After what they did in China, it's hard to feel bad for them.

There is a great documentary on Netflix reenacting the Japanese invasion of China. Absolutely the most despicable action of one nation on another in modern times. Disgusting.

edutcher said...

bagoh20 said...

It's a tough thing. We admire patriotism, and courage, and not backing down, but the Japanese should have realised it was over and surrendered earlier.

Interestingly, there was the beginning of a peace movement after Saipan fell (remember Tojo was dismissed as PM after that) and MacArthur, no mean judge of the Far East, voiced to his staff the Nips might be getting ready to pack it in.

I wish we would have demonstrated the power of the atomic bomb to the Japanese before using it on populations,and given them a chance to surrender

The idea of a demonstration was broached, but nobody was sure it would work.

One other thing to remember was that Japan was the Thousand Year Reich Hitler wanted Germany to be - homogeneous, militaristic, ethnocentric, committed to a code of martial toughness. They could not have given up unless they were convinced it was over.

virgil xenophon said...

People also forget that fully one-half of Japan's Army was still in China! An entirely separate operation equally as large and bloody as the invasion of the home islands was going to be required to dislodge them if they had not surrendered when they did. (My father was on a troop train with the HQ elements of an entire division taking him to the West coast after coming home from the war in Europe to form up the China invasion force. They were idled at Union Station in St. Louis for a brief re-fueling layover when VJ Day was announced over the loud-speakers and they all knew they were all going to live now)

Also little known is the fact that the British also planned a six Division invasion of Japanese-held Singapore at the same time (itself bigger than D-Day alone)

It was all going to be damned bloody and long drawn-out with IMMENSE casualties had not we dropped the bomb. Born just before my Father shipped out to Europe, I was lucky he survived that combat unscathed...the second time around? I might never have known my Father but for the atomic bomb..

edutcher said...

virgil xenophon said...

People also forget that fully one-half of Japan's Army was still in China! An entirely separate operation equally as large and bloody as the invasion of the home islands was going to be required to dislodge them if they had not surrendered when they did. (My father was on a troop train with the HQ elements of an entire division taking him to the West coast after coming home from the war in Europe to form up the China invasion force.

The US 5th and 9th Armies were assigned to China (maybe 20 divisions), one Taking North China (the Tientsin-Peking axis), the other South China (the Shanghai-Nanking axis), and another 10 divisions were going to Korea with US 10th Army.

MacArthur was also toying with the idea of a US Army (probably 3rd or 7th) to land on Hokkaido. That was seen as requiring another 5 divisions.

There was also a 21 division strategic reserve in the US.