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75 years ago—after a swift, secret & costly scientific/industrial endeavor—the U.S. dropped a crude, untested atomic bomb over Hiroshima. It contained 141 lbs of concentrated uranium. Only about 2 lbs underwent fission; the rest fizzled. This, from my book, is what happened next.
Howard Kakita, an American from California, was there.
“We are the living guinea pigs ... I am at that twilight zone where I am one of the youngest guys who remember the experience of the Hiroshima bombing, and after me, there is probably no one else.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/history/howard-kakita-hiroshima-atomic-bomb-survivor/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_hiroshimasurvivor-755pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans&itid=hp_rhp__hp-more-top-stories_hiroshimasurvivor-755pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans
“We are the living guinea pigs ... I am at that twilight zone where I am one of the youngest guys who remember the experience of the Hiroshima bombing, and after me, there is probably no one else.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/history/howard-kakita-hiroshima-atomic-bomb-survivor/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_hiroshimasurvivor-755pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans&itid=hp_rhp__hp-more-top-stories_hiroshimasurvivor-755pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans
The U.S. military censored reports from Hiroshima & relied on false accounts from the New York Times claiming that no radiation sickness resulted from the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombs.
Enter John Hersey: movie-star handsome, self-effacing, clear-eyed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/08/06/john-hersey-hiroshima-anniversary-japanese-suffering/
Enter John Hersey: movie-star handsome, self-effacing, clear-eyed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/08/06/john-hersey-hiroshima-anniversary-japanese-suffering/
The 75th anniversary of Nagasaki — a larger explosion than Hiroshima — is in about 9 hours. Takashi Nagai, a Catholic doctor of radiology, was a half mile from ground zero. After recovering from his injuries, he treated survivors. His writings addressed the non-physical damage.
Mid-thread on Nagasaki. One of the most interesting aspects of the bombs: how bureaucratized, silo’d & automated the process was. https://twitter.com/wellerstein/status/1159799385628319749?s=21 https://twitter.com/wellerstein/status/1159799385628319749
