Quincy, Illinois: 1915

When her waters broke, on the morning of 23 February 1915, Mrs E. G. Tibbets was not to know the destiny of her baby boy, born at home and in obscurity. Nor could Mrs Tibbets imagine, as the midwife placed the child in her arms, that a fleeting decision of his, thirty years later, would write his mother’s name into history.

Hiroshima, Japan: 2025 & 1945

I arrived by bullet train to Hiroshima. An audiobook of the same name – a celebrated piece of post-war journalism by Hersey (1946) – had been blasting in my earbuds in preparation.

The A-Bomb – its meaning, its lessons –  lies at the essence of its post-war existence. The ‘A’ euphemism is utilised all over town, as though the word ‘atomic’ were too brutal for visitors’ delicate sensibilities. But the contraction seems misplaced. There ain’t nothing wrong with atoms.

No such concision occurs in Japanese. One of the major railway stations here is called Genbaku station, or Atomic Bomb Station. The word ‘genbaku’ literally translates as ‘foundational explosion’, referring to the unique role of the atom as the building block of all matter.

Having wandered about for a couple of days, I grabbed a cup of tea in the corner of one of the new city’s highest buildings. This is story best told from on-high.

***

The first atomic bomb exploded 600 metres above Hiroshima, Japan at 08:15am on Monday August 6, 1945.

It was a clear, hot morning.

When three planes were spotted in the area, locals assumed they were on a reconnaissance mission, and had little cause for concern. As a result, the population truly did not know what hit them.

Survivors, from their personal standpoint, long assumed they were victims of an insidious but localised attack. What else would explain the lack of aircraft, and the lack of noise?

Eyewitness accounts describe a flash of the whitest light, succeeded by a thermal pulse, later measured at 4,000 degrees Celsius. The A-Bomb delivered a shock, accompanied by heat. The former wrought familiar destruction; the latter – far hotter than any fire – pulverised all it met, before any sound could reach them.

Of a population of 250,000, more than 100,000 died. More than 95% of the city’s buildings were razed.

***

I wonder what the dozen crew members, led by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, thought as they approached. They were in the air for over six hours, having departed an American base on Tinian Island, in the middle of the Great Pacific Nowhere.

What was their reaction on sight of Hiroshima’s Ota River, splitting into seven tributaries before meeting the sea? How did they think of the rich greenery, the bright sparkle, and the myriad traditionally-built wooden homes on that sunny morning?

Such late-summer beauty hardly went unnoticed by them.

The game-changer weapon his B-29 aircraft carried had been named ‘Little Boy’ by its developers. The desire of Occidental men to engrave witticisms onto their instruments of death has long roots. Of all Japanese weaponry, only the Samurai sword has borne engravings – Courage, Loyalty, Protection. It is notable that these are messages of fortitude to the warrior, not derision to the foe.

***

I consulted original military sources to answer the simple question: why Hiroshima?

The answer is expressed as if it were a maths problem to be solved. Such cold analysis was needed, because dropping the bomb was both an act of war, and also a live experiment and performance.

In short, Hiroshima fit the bill. It was a military command-centre for Southern Japan; it had not been attacked before and therefore the appraisal of any damage would be accurate; there was a sufficient population to make it ‘worthwhile’; its flat delta and surrounding hills would amplify the A-bomb’s effects; it was easy to accurately target from the sky. One document states that the objective was “to produce a profound psychological impression on as many inhabitants as possible”.

It was nothing personal.

***

The city has several museums dedicated to marking what happened here. The framing is consistent, and consistently lacking.

Official Japan depicts the A-Bomb as the creator of a towering, indiscriminate human tragedy. Consequently, it pledges a commitment to peace, and to champion the eradication of nuclear weapons.

There is almost no exploration of why the A-Bomb was utilised.

Yet it is the why that is most pertinent to human learning.

In fairness, the context is complex.

By August 1945, Japan had invaded or occupied 20 countries, killed 6,000,000 people, was holding 35,000 POWs, and had famously instigated war with the USA by way of Pearl Harbor. All of this is summarised in surely the most parsed sentence of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

“We recall with great sorrow the many lives sacrificed to mistaken national policy.”

For their part, the Americans were keen to foreclose the war. Japan’s ‘death before dishonour’ combat culture meant that an invasion of the home islands would be a costly affair. But the Yanks also wished to announce the opening salvo of the Cold War to the Russians. And, while at it, ‘Little Boy’ would surely declare to the world in general that a new bully had entered the schoolyard.

The message of Hiroshima is not that nuclear weapons are bad, but rather that the politics of warfare means human cataclysm can easily seem like the rational, functional thing to do.

Addressing this meaningfully will likely lead to better outcomes than piously championing peace and disarmament.

Tinian Island, North Pacific: 1945

It fell to that 30-year-old commander of the mission to name the B-29 aircraft which would drop the A-bomb. A graphics artist was ready to take instruction, and paint whatever name the commander chose onto the side of the plane.

In the hours before they went airborne, Colonel Paul W. Tibbets made his decision.

He wanted the aircraft to be a symbol of gratitude to the person who supported him most. And so he chose the given names of his mother, Mrs Enola Gay Tibbets.