Tsutomu Yamaguchi

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This man died today, the only known survivor of the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.

Rest in peace. You deserve it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi

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20 years 11 months

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How very sad indeed..the event will probably go unrecognised which makes it even sadder

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How do you qualify to be a survivor?

Is there a certain radius within which you are classed as a survivor, and outside of which you were merely a resident of Japan at the time the bomb fell?

Moggy

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16 years 4 months

Posts: 2,101

How do you qualify to be a survivor?

Is there a certain radius within which you are classed as a survivor, and outside of which you were merely a resident of Japan at the time the bomb fell?

Moggy


Ha ha ha, yeah. I bet he's dined out on that for many a year.

Mustn't speak ill of the dead though, he was possibly a civvy and thus didn't take part in the torture etc.

Member for

16 years 7 months

Posts: 2,820

How do you qualify to be a survivor?

Is there a certain radius within which you are classed as a survivor, and outside of which you were merely a resident of Japan at the time the bomb fell?

Moggy

From the Wikki link :

Second World War
Yamaguchi "never thought Japan should start a war". He continued his work with Mitsubishi, but soon Japanese industry began to suffer heavily as resources became scarce and tankers were sunk. As the war ground on, so despondent was he over the state of the country that he considered killing his family with an overdose of sleeping pills in the event that Japan lost.

Hiroshima bombing
Yamaguchi lived and worked in Nagasaki, but in the summer of 1945 he went to Hiroshima on a business trip.On 6 August he was preparing to leave after three months in the city. At 8:15 he was making his way towards the docks when the American bomber Enola Gay dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb near the centre of the city, only 3 km away.The resulting explosion ruptured his eardrums, blinded him temporarily, and left him with serious burns over the left side of the top half of his body. Along with some colleagues he spent a night in an air-raid shelter before returning to Nagasaki the following day.In Nagasaki he received treatment for his wounds, and despite being heavily bandaged he reported for work on 9 August.

Nagasaki bombing
At 11 am on August 9, Yamaguchi was describing the blast in Hiroshima to his supervisor, when the American bomber Bocks Car dropped the Fat Man atomic bomb onto Nagasaki. His workplace again put him 3 km from ground zero, but this time he was unhurt by the explosion.[2] However, he was unable to seek treatment for his now ruined bandages, and suffered from a high fever for over a week

Closer than I would ever want to get.....

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He seems to have led a charmed life.

Moggy

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In later life a vocal supporter of the abolition of atomic weapons.

"In an interview he said "The reason that I hate the atomic bomb is because of what it does to the dignity of human beings.""

Bataan, Changi, the Maru's, the Phillipines, the railways and countless other places. What gives him the right to talk about the dignity of human beings?

Regards,

kev35

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I'll assume that question is rhetorical Kev :)

Moggy

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I would have thought their dignity was pretty irrelevant given the phyisical effect of an atomic bomb on a human being. You get a sense that old Tsutomu's view is a tad one-sided.

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I would have thought their dignity was pretty irrelevant given the phyisical effect of an atomic bomb on a human being. You get a sense that old Tsutomu's view is a tad one-sided.

As evidenced by his consideration of killing himself and all his family should Japan lose the war. No mention of being so appalled by war per se that he would kill them all if Japan won.

Regards,

kev35

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Bataan, Changi, the Maru's, the Phillipines, the railways and countless other places. What gives him the right to talk about the dignity of human beings?

Presumably you'll be providing evidence of Mr Yamaguchi's personal resonsibility for, or participation in, those atrocities, Kev?

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No need to Lance. He was a citizen of a Country which even now fails to recognise properly the horror they instigated. Successive Prime Ministers have apologised and then gone back on that. Japan as a Nation believes to this day that the atomic bombings of Japan were carried out for no reason. They still believe they are the victims.

I suspect Lance that you are of an age where you might have met victims of places like Changi. I've seen what it has done to those I have spoken to. Only recently I was at the NMA at Alrewas when a man in his mid eighties broke down by the lych gate. Sixty odd years of pent up emotion was released in a flood. He described things which made those of us present feel physically sick. Japan, as a Nation, brought unimaginable horror to the Far East and the Pacific. People will talk about it being a different time and how we as Westerners fail to understand the codes and morals of the time.

Anyway, that's enough ranting from me.

Regards,

kev35

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That wasn't a rant, Kev - that's how it is.

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No need to Lance. He was a citizen of a Country which even now fails to recognise properly the horror they instigated. Successive Prime Ministers have apologised and then gone back on that. Japan as a Nation believes to this day that the atomic bombings of Japan were carried out for no reason. They still believe they are the victims

That is all a given, Kev. A Maths teacher of mine was a prisoner of the Japanese and the trauma of his sufferings was a daily reality to him even almost thirty years after his liberation.

But I still do not see how it disqualifies this individual, who had no hand in the atrocities that you mention, or in shaping post-war Japanese official policy, from voicing his opinions on human dignity.

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I am unclear as to the availability of any alternative way in modern times of slaughtering more of the enemy than they are slaughtering of you that carries with it even a hint of dignity

Moggy

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But I still do not see how it disqualifies this individual, who had no hand in the atrocities that you mention, or in shaping post-war Japanese official policy, from voicing his opinions on human dignity.

Lance, you're right of course. He did however, have a hand in perpetuating the war, as he was involved in the design of oil tankers with Mitsubishi who I believe used PoW's as slave labour. How can we celebrate his good fortune in surviving two atomic bombs when his own Country has not nor will never accept responsibility for their actions? I may be unable to explain fully why I feel the way I do. It may be irrational, but my emotions are only eveidence of my understanding of that dreadful war. I bear no malice to the Japanese of today, but that generation which saw the Chinese and Koreans as nothing more than creatures to be toyed with and killed, which saw PoW's as nothing more than cowardly slaves, which thought so little of their own people that they urged mass suicide, I have nothing but contempt and hatred for. I'll add here some thoughts I wrote on another forum. It's not eloquent, but it is what I believe.

I'm minded of something which happened perhaps thirty years ago when I was a callow and insensitive youth ( as opposed to a callow and insensitive adult.) My Uncle Jim was a lovely, kind, caring, compassionate and gentle soul, one of life's real gentlemen who had almost single handedly bought up two sons while caring for a mentally ill wife and holding down a full time job. He had fought against the Japanese in Burma. We were in the garden and he was cutting some vegetables for my Mom and Aunt, his sisters. He was crouched down with his back to me when I recalled a programme about the dropping of the atomic bombs and asked what he thought about it. He visibly stiffened as he stood and I still remember how his knuckles had gone white from gripping the knife so hard. Through eyes which for the first time in my experience showed incredible sadness, he looked at me and simply said "two were nowhere near enough." On another occasion, near the end of his life, I took him to the Motor Show. All his working life he had spent building chassis frames for Rolls Royce. I mentioned this to the people on the Rolls Royce stand and we were treated like Royalty. They showed us all their cars, fed us and even took us for a ride. It was one of my most abiding memories of this wonderful man. Yet it was soured as we moved on from the RR stand. A very polite, well dressed, Japanese representative of one of the Japanese car firms approached from behind and touched uncle Jim on the shoulder. He turned, saw the man and recoiled in absolute horror. I escorted him away trembling. He never talked about it but what must this mild mannered and affable man have endured to make him react in such a manner? We who haven't experienced such horrors cannot ever understand no matter how hard we try.

Yet today, revisionist historians seem happy to forget and to forgive the atrocities committed by the Japanese whilst ostracising the Allies for the use of the bomb. Japan prosecuted the war to it's fullest extent, militarily and by the extensive use of both forced and slave labour. Why then are the Allies vilified for bringing the war to an end in the manner they did?

Japan also, as a Nation, still seems confused about their role and responsibilities regarding the conduct of the war. If we look at the issue of comfort women.....

On January 17 (1992), Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa presented formal apologies for the suffering of the victims, during a trip in South Korea. On July 6 and August 4, the Japanese government issued two statements by which it recognized that "Comfort stations were operated in response to the request of the military of the day", "The Japanese military was, directly or indirectly, involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and the transfer of comfort women" and that the women were "recruited in many cases against their own will through coaxing and coercion".

Compare that with the following statement made in 1997.....

On 2 March 2007, the issue was raised again by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, in which he denied that the military had forced women into sexual slavery during World War II. He stated, "The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion."

Both of those statements, it should be noted, were made by Prime Ministers of Japan.

Regards,

kev35

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Moggy, because we did it in a civilised way. Bang.
You are well read enough to know that nothing the Japs did in WW2 had any dignity for their opposition. Their behaviour makes the Gas chambers look like a cream tea.
It's a pity the US only had two ready weapons.

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I totally agree. I think Tokyo well deserved a couple.

Moggy

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16 years 4 months

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I totally agree. I think Tokyo well deserved a couple.

Moggy

The fire bombing was just target practice.