78 years today a bomb was dropped on Nagasaki

[thecaretaker]

I have just watched a documentary on NHK News channel. It was originally made for the 75th anniversary of the first bomb and it was called "Searching for The Standing Boy of Nagasaki"

A man called Sgt Joe O'Donnell was sent to record (photograph) the efforts of the 110,000 US occupying troops who had landed on the South Island.

He died in 2003, but among his belongings in a suitcase, his wife found many photos and memories which her husband rather wanted to forget about. Accept for one photo of a 10 year old boy which he had spoke about to her and wondered what had happened to the boy.

The iconic photo which Pope Francis had distributed when he visited Nagasaki in 2020, shows a boy with his dead brother strapped to his back. In a cassette recording with the photo, O'Donnell said he stood to attention for 10 minutes waiting his turn to cremate his brother on a funeral pyre. He watched his brother burn with the burning flames reflected on his face. He then turned around and walked away.

The documentary covers the exhaustive efforts to try to work out the identity of this boy and exactly where the photo was taken.

But the sad fact, 40,000 people died instantly and 70,000 people were injured in the explosion which left 100's of orphaned children with no parents or relatives to care for them. Those adults who survived had issues of their own and were unable to help any orphans. The orphans had to fend for themselves. With nowhere to sleep, unable to wash or change cloths and with nothing to eat many of them died. The full death toll from the bomb will never be known as many people died years later from its effects.

The programme showed horrific scenes that I was not expecting to see on TV. Survivors said there were so many dead people on the ground that to get away from the area, they had to walk over the dead bodies. One women explained they tried to just walk on the arms and legs out of respect.

It is something that Japan is still trying to come to terms with today.

The picture of the standing boy who we still don't know who he was or if he survived says everything about war. And I feel sad that some countries who still use nuclear weapons as a threat haven't learnt any lessons from the mistakes of the past. I think we have all been shielded to some degree in seeing the real horrors of a nuclear war.

If NHK News repeat the programme, it is one hell of an eye opener and I recommend that everybody should watch it just once. I have recorded it but can't put it on Youtube or the like due to copyright.

This is: The Standing Boy of Nagasaki. Mankind should never forget him or what this photo represents.

Screenshot 2023-08-05 215344.jpg

[magpie]

A very powerful evocative photo CT, Like the one of the Vietnamese girl during the 70s

[Keyolder]

Pictures like that one suggests to me certain songs from back in the day, Imagine by John Lennon is one such song:

“Imagine all the people, living life in peace, you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one, someday I hope you will join us, and the world will be as one”.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugrAo8wEPiI

[thecaretaker]

I've found the programme on the NHK website...

A young boy carries on his back the lifeless body of his younger brother, in the devastated city of Nagasaki after the atomic bomb. An American military photographer, Joe O'Donnell, took a picture of him standing stoically near a cremation pit. No one knows the boy's name, but the photo has become an iconic image of the human tragedy of nuclear war. This program follows the continuing efforts to deepen understanding of the photograph, while exploring the fate of thousands of "atomic-bomb orphans" and their struggles to survive the aftermath of World War II.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/onde ... o/5001311/