Japanese Attitude Towards the Atomic

Japanese Attitude Towards the Atomic Bombings

Japanese Attitude Towards the Atomic Bomb Attacks on Hiroshima & Nagasaki

The atomic bomb has only been used twice against human beings. The first nuclear device was dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on the morning of August 6, 1945 and the second was detonated over the city of Nagasaki three days later. In both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 50% of all those located within 1.2 kilometers of the hypocenter died instantly, while 80 to 100% of those exposed at this distance eventually died from wounds or radiation released by the bomb. (Selden and Seldon xxi) It was the single most devastating attack on human beings by a man-made device in the history of mankind. The Americans' unapologetic attitude towards the attack is well-known and is reflected in the remarks made by two U.S. Presidents, 50 years apart. President Truman, justifying his decision to drop the bomb in a letter dated August 11, 1945 wrote: "When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast." Fifty years later, President Clinton said: "the United States owed Japan no apology for dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki...and that President Harry Truman had made the right decision to use the bombs." (Quoted by Hume) The subject of this research paper, i.e., the Japanese perspective of the horrifying events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is, however, shrouded in greater mystery. In order to get a greater insight on the Japanese perspective, this paper investigates the initial reaction of the Japanese government and the press to the nuclear attacks, and the perspective from the ground -- the mixed feelings of anger, survivor's guilt, resignation, and divine providence among the survivors of the attack. The paper also contains a review of the Japanese literature, art and films on the atomic bombings, as well as the peace movement started in the aftermath of the war that reflects the feelings of a majority of Japanese people about nuclear weapons and war in general.

Perspective of the Japanese Government and the Local Press

When the first atomic bomb was detonated over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the news was widely reported across the United States over the radio and in the newspapers. The situation, however, was completely different in Japan. For quite some time, nobody except those who were present in Hiroshima at the time knew about the catastrophe. The first reports about the bombing were sent to Tokyo about four hours after the explosion through a telegram by the Japanese news agency Domei. (Braw, 11) The same afternoon the managing editors of all the leading Tokyo newspapers and Domei were called to the Information and Intelligence Agency, the government office in charge of censorship, and instructed to bury the news of the bombing and to make it look like an ordinary air raid.

State of Denial: Hence, the next morning's newspapers in Japan, either completely blacked out the news of the nuclear bomb attack on Hiroshima, or severely downplayed its effect. By the next day, the Japanese government had received other reports about the destruction of Hiroshima by a "new type of bomb" but it continued to withhold its news from the general public. Professor Yoshio Nishina, Japan's leading nuclear physicist, was sent to Hiroshima to assess the damage. He reported back on August 8, confirming that the unprecedented destruction by a single bomb was the result of an atomic bomb (Ibid. 12). The Japanese government continued to hide the true extent of destruction caused by the bomb and, in fact, did not acknowledge that it was an "atomic bomb" in its official announcements about the attack for the next several days. Those who had survived the Hiroshima blast were too severely injured and shocked to travel. Hence, when the Americans unleashed the second atomic bomb over Nagasaki three days after the attack on Hiroshima, its resident were still unaware of the true destructive power of the atomic bomb and the extent of devastation it had caused in Hiroshima. Even after the Nagasaki attack the Japanese government policy of denial was immediately abandoned.

Reasons for Hiding the Effects of the Atomic Bomb: The most obvious reason why the Japanese government chose to hide the damage caused by the atomic bomb attacks was that they did not want to demoralize their public who had already been hit hard by the large scale fire-bombing of almost all their cities in the previous months and acute food shortages. The militarists and the "hawks" in the Japanese administration were determined to "fight to the death." Even after the dropping of the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan's Imperial Council was unwilling to accept defeat as the Minister of War, General Anami, the chief of the army general staff, and the chief of the navy's general staff believed that "it would be inexcusable to surrender unconditionally." (Quoted by Kagan 27) Moreover, on August 9, 1945, the Japanese authorities learnt of another bad news -- the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan and crossed the border into Manchuria. The news that Japan now faced one more formidable enemy in a war already going wrong for the country greatly unnerved the Japanese administration, which was uncertain about how to tackle the situation.

Apart from the censorship imposed by the Japanese government on reports on the atomic bomb attacks, people at large and the journalists in particular were used to conveying only the news that conformed to the official view. Hence, a report on the Nagasaki bombing in the newspaper "Asahi" inexplicably stated that the destruction was not so much due to the "new-type bomb" itself as "unfamiliarity" with it. Even a nuclear physicist interviewed on August 10 in the same newspaper assured that "there is absolutely no reason to fear the new-type bomb." He went on to advise that one way to be "absolutely safe from exposure to thermal rays was to refrain from wearing short-sleeved shirts and shorts!" (Quoted by Braw 14)

Use of the Bombings as War Propaganda: Even while hiding the true facts of the nuclear attacks from their own public and belittling the effect of the "new type of bomb," the Japanese authorities did not refrain from using it for propaganda purposes against the United States -- accusing it of cruelty and inhumanity for using the atomic bomb. It lodged an official protest to the U.S. On August 12, calling it "a bomb having the most cruel effects humanity has ever known" and accused the Americans for having "shown complete defiance of the essential principles of humanitarian laws, as well as international law...This constitutes a new crime against humanity and civilization" (Ibid. 15-16) Some of the Japanese newspapers now started to quote the condemnation of the use of the atomic bomb by others around the world and some of the restriction on reporting the destruction caused by the bombs was lifted in order to highlight the cruelty and "illegality" of the American act. The lifting of the censorship may also have been a deliberate policy to prepare the Japanese public for the impending surrender.

Decision to Surrender: The decision to surrender was finally taken by Emperor Hirohito himself who announced the news to his fellow citizens in a radio broadcast on August 15, 1945. His following remarks about the atomic bomb made it clear that the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were instrumental in forcing Japan to surrender:

the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and the obliteration of the nation but also it would lead to total extinction of human civilization. (Quoted by Braw 19)

In the days between the Emperor's broadcast and the actual signing of the surrender documents on September 2, 1945, the Japanese press enjoyed a period of freedom from censorship and restrictions. As a result, several stories were published in the Japanese newspapers about the effects of the bombings and the suffering of the victims.

Perspective from the Ground

In contrast to the ignorance of the destruction caused by the atomic bombs, the perspective of the people who directly suffered the bombings was completely different. Calm before the Storm: Prior to the attack on Hiroshima, its residents had wondered about the reasons why their city had been spared the merciless fire-bombing inflicted on other Japanese city. The city was certainly important strategically as it was a staging area for Japan's military operations in China and Southeast Asia, had a large military population, and contained a number of war industries (Lifton 13) Various rumors were in the air; most of them merely wishful thinking. It was said that Hiroshima was being spared by the Americans as large number of people had immigrated to the U.S.; that the city was so beautiful that the Americans wanted to build their villas there after its occupation; there was even a far-fetched rumor that President Truman's mother lived in Hiroshima (Ibid.) Some even thought (rightly) that it was being spared for something big. However, no one in their wildest imagination was anticipating an atomic bomb attack. Hence, on the morning of the fateful day, the residents of Hiroshima were completely unprepared for an atomic bomb explosion.

Painting of Hell":

Many survivors of the atomic explosion on Hiroshima have likened the experience of the blast and its immediate aftermath to mankind's common perception of hell. A young Japanese sociologist, for example, described the scene of a nearby park after the explosion: "The most impressive thing I saw was some girls, very young girls, not only with their clothes torn off but with their skin peeled off as well...my immediate thought was that this was like the hell I had always read about." (Selden and Selden, xix) Another eye-witness, twenty-year-old Shibayama Hiroshi, recalled entering Hiroshima on foot from his suburban workplace within hours of the bombing and encountering a scene reminiscent of "a painting of hell." Apart from the scores of dead bodies he saw floating in the Kyobashi River with "faces swollen to twice their normal size," there was one sight the young man believed he would never forget. He saw a man, his face burned and his blue clothes in shreds, riding along with what looked like black wood fastened to his bicycle with coarse straw rope. As the man on the bicycle came nearer, Hiroshi saw that what he had taken for wood was a stiff, blackened corpse -- probably the remains of a loved one. The man himself seemed crazed. To Hiroshi, all the inhabitants of Hiroshima appeared deranged in the aftermath of the explosion. (Ibid, xx)

Suppressed Feelings During the American Occupation

One of the main objectives of the American occupation government in Japan was to inculcate a sense of guilt for the war in the Japanese people and to snuff out any lingering ultra-nationalist feelings among the populace. It also took steps to ensure that no hatred towards the occupying force was spread through the media. To achieve these aims, a strict Press Code was immediately enforced that forbade any reference to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that could be interpreted as direct or indirect criticism of the Americans. As a result, any comments in the press that would describe the widespread suffering of the atomic bombs' victims or even imply that Japan would have won the war but for the atomic bombs were strictly forbidden.

For the next four years, any reports and information by the Japanese journalists from the bombed cities or discussions about the effects of the bomb were strictly checked, held-up or deleted by the American authorities. Hence the Japanese people and the victims of the bombings were prevented from expressing their true feelings about the bombings in the immediate aftermath of the nuclear holocaust. For example, a book "Masako taorezu" (Masako does not collapse), written by a fifteen-year-old survivor about her terrifying experience of the Nagasaki bombing was not allowed to be published by the censors in 1947 "at least for the time being" without giving any time-frame about when it would be allowed publication. (Braw 93)

Divine Providence

In an environment which forbade open outpouring of feelings about the bombings, many Japanese people adopted the belief that the bombings were an "act of divine providence." An early Japanese book about the atomic bombings, "The Bells Toll for Nagasaki," authored in 1946 by a doctor and a resident of Nagasaki -- Takashi Nagai -- is representative of this view. The book was an eyewitness account of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, especially the destruction of the Nagasaki Medical College where Nagai was working at the time. Apart from his interest as a doctor in the 'atomic sicknesses' witnessed in the victims of the bombings, Nagai -- a Catholic -- was particularly interested in the significance of the bombing for human morality. Nagasaki was the largest Christian city in Japan at the time of the bombing and the bomb had burst above a point only 500 meters from the Urakami Catholic Cathedral. Approximately 8,500 Catholics died from direct exposure to the bomb as most of the 12,000-strong population of Nagasaki's Catholics lived in the area around the cathedral (Kamata and Salaff, 43). Nagai found this fact to be of some significance. He put forward the idea of divine will in the suffering of the people of Nagasaki and wrote that the "only holy place in all [of] Japan" was chosen as a victim for some definite purpose -- "a lamb, to be slaughtered and burned on the altar of sacrifice to expiate the sins committed by humanity in the Second World War?" (Nagai, quoted by Braw 94)

Nevertheless, the censors were not prepared to allow even such relatively harmless depiction of the bombings and Nagai's book was not allowed to be published because, according to the occupation government, it vividly described "the scenes of horror, the great death toll, the painful injuries, the death of medical personnel, and the destruction of medical equipment" and could "invite resentment against the United States." The occupation authorities only permitted the publication of the book in April 1949 on the condition that a record of Japanese military cruelty in Manila, compiled by the intelligence division of U.S. General Headquarters, is included in the book. (Kamaata and Salaff, 44)

This "stoic" Japanese view of the bombings that considered them to be acts of a mysterious "divine providence" for the atonement of sins committed by the people during the War was representative of the feelings of a large number of the Japanese people at the time. Passivity in the face of suffering was not just a characteristic of the Catholics; the Buddhists had always interpreted suffering as an inevitable part of the evil of material being. They too, chose to remain largely passive in the aftermath of the bombing. Such passivity also sat well with the American occupation authorities, as the passive theories of 'divine providence' and 'glorification of suffering' did not directly blame the U.S. For the horrible effects of the bombing.

Feelings of Guilt

Another significant psychological effect on the victims of the atomic bombings was a profound feeling of 'survival guilt' -- the guilt for having survived the terrible ordeal while so many of their family, friends, and neighbors had perished. Many of the survivors felt that they had saved their own lives without stopping to help their neighbors and they were constantly haunted by that realization.

Dr. Robert J. Lifton, an American psychiatrist who was interested in the psychological consequences borne by the citizens of Hiroshima after the 1945 atomic attack carried out extensive research on the feelings of the "hibakusha" by interviewing a number of survivors of the Hiroshima bombing. He has published his findings in his book "Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima" (1967), which captures the powerful psychological impact of the bombing on the survivors, most of whom were overwhelmed by the guilt for having survived the almost unbearable ordeal.

Many of the hibakusha were racked with feelings of what Lifton called "death guilt" -- a form of delayed guilt at letting others die, while "selfishly" remaining alive; a feeling that can come back to haunt them in different forms such as the remembered voices of those left to die while one was being rescued. An elderly widow, who was rescued by her son after the explosion, was haunted by such voices:

heard many voices calling for help...even now I wonder what has happened to those people... I felt it was a wrong thing not to help them, but we were so much occupied by running away ourselves that we left them...Even now I still hear their voices... (Quoted by Lifton 36)

Lifton found that the intensity of such guilt was, as would perhaps be expected, all the more pronounced when it involved the death of a close family member such as a child or a parent their lives. Many of the survivors also complained about the selfishness displayed by the people during the ordeal; remarks like "every man thought of himself"; and "people behaved like animals -- even in the case of parents and children, they fought with one another to get their food" were common place. (Ibid, 45) Such remarks were also partly directed towards themselves by the survivors -- triggered by their sense of guilt.

Takashi Nagai, the Catholic physician of Nagasaki and author of "The Bells Toll for Nagasaki" expressed the guilt of the survivor in a most uncompromising manner: "...those who survived the bomb were, if not merely lucky, a greater or lesser degree selfish, self-centered, guided by instinct and not civilization...and we know it, we who have survived." (Quoted by Lifton 48)

Focus of Anger

The survivors of the bombings were so physically and emotionally overwhelmed that they had little capacity for focusing their anger at those who had dropped the bombs. Dr. Lifton found during his research that there was a relative absence of hostility among the survivors which was consistent with the "stunned" condition of victims of any disaster -- a condition known as "the disaster syndrome."

Nevertheless, a minority of the hibakusha did express feelings of hostility towards the people who were responsible for their suffering. There was a certain amount of resentment toward the pilots who dropped the bomb or toward "the Americans" in general. It has also been reported that there was a good deal of general antagonism among the Japanese public towards "foreigners" or Westerners right after the bombs fell. (Lifton 52) Such feelings, however, did not last for long or were not as intense as would have been expected. Some of the anger of the survivors was also directed toward Japanese military and civilian authorities for having deceived the public about the real state of the war and having ultimately brought them to ruin; for not having prevented the bombing or adequately preparing the population for a nuclear attack, and most of all -- for failing to provide adequate help to the victims of the bombing. Some of the people even reserved their ire for the Japanese scientists and physicians for not having developed adequate techniques for fighting the effects of the bomb. There was even resentment on the part of those severely injured toward those who were not (Ibid.).