Writings - A-bomb Anniversary
Memories of A-bomb still vivid
Three people with a special insight share their feelings on the impact of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima that occurred 50 years ago today
Sunday, August 6, 1995
TRAVERSE CITY - Lee Truax, stationed on an island in the Pacific in the summer of 1945, had no idea what the soldiers were unloading from the cruiser Indianapolis as it swung on its anchor offshore.
But he knew it must be important—each shipment was accompanied by an armed guard.
Truax was to learn shortly that the shipments were pieces of "Little Boy," the atomic bomb dropped from the B-29 bomber Enola Gay and detonated over the bustling port and industrial city of Hiroshima 50 years ago today. With the explosive power of 20,000 tons of TNT, the bomb ignited a radioactive firestorm that claimed at least 140,000 lives by the end of the year.
Three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, a second atomic bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" was dropped on Nagasaki. Nine days later, Japan surrendered.
Truax, now 75, helped lay the groundwork for the Enola Gay's most famous mission as a member of a naval construction battalion on Tinian, an island 1,200 miles south of Tokyo. His battalion built the airstrip used by the B-29 bomber and the docks onto which the pieces of "Little Boy" were unloaded.
"All day long, they brought pieces of that bomb in, and each time they did, it was with an officer with a sidearm," Truax recalled. "Of course, we didn't know really what was going on."
When news of the Hiroshima bombing reached Truax, he and other bored battalion members were building a baseball diamond with the help of Japanese prisoners of war.
"We told them (about Hiroshima) but they didn't believe it," he said. "It was the day after they dropped the bomb, and we got a half a day off and a can of beer."
'My brothers are coming home'
Tom Shea, a dispute mediator in Traverse City who has been active in peace movements, was celebrating his sixteenth birthday with his father at a downtown Cleveland restaurant when the world learned about the bombing of Hiroshima. With three older brothers stationed overseas, two in the South Pacific, Shea was thrilled by the news.
"Here was the Cleveland Press with these big headlines, 'Bomb Dropped on Hiroshima,' " Shea recalled. "I thought 'Does this mean the end of the war? My brothers are coming home. Yay!' "
Shea's feelings about Hiroshima began to turn as learned more about the bombing and the Cold War that the atomic bomb project spawned. He still remembers air raid drills in the 1950s when people protesting the bomb refused to clear the streets and take to the fallout shelters.
"They were put in jail just for being out on the streets," he said.
Shea also argues that World War II in general, and the atomic bombings in particular, ushered in a brutal new type of warfare where civilian populations were targeted along with military sites.
"Whether we introduced it or Hitler did, it doesn't matter a whole lot," he said. "We were part of it."
He worries that the United States is still unable to come to grips with its use of the atomic bomb, as illustrated by the recent flap over a proposed Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution.
"The Germans have put up shrines in places like Dachau," Shea said. "We couldn't even adequately deal with the Enola Gay."
Shea also warns that people are becoming complacent with the end of the Cold War. While the overall number of nuclear weapons may be dropping, he said, there are still enough left to destroy the world several times over.
"I have an analogy I've used for years," Shea said. "Two boys are standing around a pool. One has 28 matches, the other has 20. The swimming pool is filled with gasoline. Does it make a difference?"
'l think about his future'
Linda Viswat was not yet born when Hiroshima was bombed, but she has seen the results many times. A Michigan native who summered with her family in Maple City, Viswat, 47, has spent the past 20 years teaching in Japanese universities. She now teaches intercultural communication and English as a second language at Himeji Dokkyo university. She often takes visitors to the Peace Memorial Park in nearby Hiroshima, where the skeleton of the former Industry Promotion Hall has been preserved near ground zero along with a museum displaying articles destroyed by the blast.
"It's a pretty profound experience to go there even now," Viswat said. She was visiting family in the area recently. "When you look at the pictures and you go through the museums and you see the devastation that was wrought by that one bomb ... you think, 'My God, this is what happened in just a moment of time.' "
While the number of nuclear arms is dropping, Viswat still fears the effects of nuclear material leaking out of the former Soviet Union and the Russian empire's top nuclear scientists looking for work.
"I'm sure that there are people who would use nuclear weapons if they had them at their disposal," she said. "The frightening part is not governments like the United States or Russia, it's terrorist groups."
Viswat's fear is heightened by concerns for her 5-year-old son Jonathan.
"I think about him and think about his future, wondering and worrying what the future holds for him," she said. "Hopefully, more people will become more global in their thinking. We still are so nationalistic in our view of the world, and we have to think in terms of the whole world, not just our own community."
'It scares the hell out of me'
Looking back on the bombing now, Lee Truax is still proud of the role he played in the dawn of the atomic age.
"I thought it was great," he said. "That's an awful thing to say, I guess, but I spent about four years over there, from Guadalcanal all the way up into the Leyte Gulf. We all thought previous to this bomb that we were going to make an invasion into northern Japan. But thank God it didn't happen, because if we'd got in there we'd have never got out."
While he applauds the decision to drop the bomb, Truax still wonders about the wisdom of letting the nuclear genie out of its bottle.
"It scares the hell out of me to think that other people have got this thing," he said. "I'm 75 years old and I probably won't see it, but I'm sure some day somebody will pull the trigger on one of those things.
"It's not a pleasant thought."