Tag Archives: Hiroshima

If There is Hell, it Must Be Like This

Leave a reply

On 6 August 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing 80,000 people in a single day, and tens of thousands more in the subsequent months. “If there is a hell,” survivor Ōiwa Kōhei recalled thinking of the aftermath, “it must be just like this.” Kōhei, 13-years-old at the time, was plagued for months by radiation poisoning, and forever by the psychological trauma. The hibakusha — the Japanese term for atomic-bomb survivors — “will not be with us for much longer, so it is essential that their irreplaceable living testimony should continue to be diligently and accurately recorded while it is still available”, writes historian Mordecai Sheftall. Their testimony must be preserved not for historical record, but so that current and future generations will take the lessons of their experiences to heart, says Sheftall.

Excerpt from Mordecai Sheftall, The Sun had fallen to Earth’ — a survivor’s recollection of the Hiroshima bombing, Nature, August 5, 2025

Survivable Nuclear Weapons: Count on Them

Leave a reply

The U.S. Defense Department said on February 4, 2020 the Navy had fielded a low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead, something the Pentagon believes is needed to deter adversaries like Russia but which critics say lowers the threshold for using nuclear weapons.  Low-yield nuclear weapons, while still devastating, have a strength of less than 20 kilotons. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, in August 1945, had about the same explosive power.

“This supplemental capability strengthens deterrence and provides the United States a prompt, more survivable low-yield strategic weapon,” John Rood, the under secretary of defense for policy, said in a statement.  “(It) supports our commitment to extended deterrence; and demonstrates to potential adversaries that there is no advantage to limited nuclear employment because the United States can credibly and decisively respond to any threat scenario,” Rood added….

“The administration’s decision to deploy the W76-2 warhead remains a misguided and dangerous one. The deployment of this warhead does nothing to make Americans safer,” Democratic Representative Adam Smith, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.  The United States already has air-launched, low-yield nuclear weapons and critics say that should be sufficient….

Excerpts from Idrees Ali U.S. deploys ‘more survivable’ submarine-launched low-yield nuclear weapon, Reuters, Feb. 4, 2020