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Photo gallery: Ground zero Nagasaki

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2016

Akitoshi Nakamura
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Abstract

This selection of photos is meant as an appeal from the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum to remember the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. It was compiled by museum director Akitoshi Nakamura based on the collection at the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum.1 Readers are invited to visit the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum and spend some time viewing its collection of over 1,000 photographs and remnants from the city at that time to get a sense of what happened before and after the atomic bombing that summer seventy years ago, and how devastating the atomic bomb's destructive effects were.

Type
Voices and perspectives: Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 97 , Issue 899: The human cost of nuclear weapons , September 2015 , pp. 543 - 552
Copyright
Copyright © icrc 2016 

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References

1 For more information, see the museum's website, available at: www.city.nagasaki.lg.jp.e.jc.hp.transer.com/sisetsu/5090000/p011036.html (all internet references were accessed in November 2015).

2 Nagasaki wa Kataritsugu (digest version of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Damage Records), Nagasaki City, 1991, pp. 40–45. There is a similar description in the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Damage Records (General Analysis Version), Vol. 1, Nagasaki City, 2006, p. 166. These records are currently in the process of being translated to English.

3 Records of the Nagasaki Atomic Bombing and Wartime Damage, Vol. 1, Part 4 (Nagasaki City Hall Version), 1984, p. 5; Samuel Glasstone (ed.), The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, revised ed., US Atomic Energy Commission, 1962; John A. Auxier, Ichiban (Radiation Dosimetry), Energy Research and Development Administration, 1977; Auxier, John A., Cheka, J.S., Haywood, F. F., Jones, T. D. and Thorngate, J. H., “Free-Field Radiation Dose Distribution from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombings”, Health Physics, Vol. 12, No. 3, 1966Google Scholar; Penny, Lord, Samuels, D.E.J. and Scorgie, G. C., “The Nuclear Explosive Yields at Hiroshima and Nagasaki”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 266, No. 1177, 1970Google Scholar.

4 There figures were released in July 1950 based on the estimation carried out by the Nagasaki City Atomic Bomb Records Preservation Committee. The City of Nagasaki has officially referred to these numbers since then. According to this estimation, 73,884 were dead and 74,909 were injured. Among the dead, 17,358 were autopsied right after the atomic bomb was dropped. Records of the Nagasaki Atomic Bombing and Wartime Damage, Vol. 1, Part 1 (Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum Version), 2006, p. 710.

5 Ibid., Vol. 4, pp. 13, 28.

6 “Supported by Christians in Urakami, the construction of the cathedral was completed in 1925. The brick neo-Romanesque building was the largest Catholic church in East Asia, with twin spires that stood 26 metres high. The atomic bomb destroyed the dome in a fraction of a second, and only the brick walls remained. The resultant collapse and heat-wave burned and buried all those present in the cathedral, including a few dozen parishioners and two priests, Mr Saburo Nishida and Mr Fusayoshi Tamaya. 2,482 hyos of rice (one hyo is 60 kilograms) and 1,000 boxes of noodles stored in the church as emergency food were also assumed to be burned instantly.” Records of the Nagasaki Atomic Bombing and Wartime Damage, Vol. 1, Part 1 (Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum Version), 2006, p. 710. Francis Xavier, Jesuit missionary, arrived Japan in 1549 to spread Christianity. Soon after, Portuguese ships started coming to Japanese ports. Opened in 1571, the Port of Nagasaki was developed as a trade centre with Portugal and was the base of the Japanese Christians. Although a part of Nagasaki was donated to the Jesuit Society, it was later disendowed by Hideyoshi Toyotomi, who longed to bring an end to the Warring States Period by unifying the country. While the entry of Portuguese ships was banned, the Tokugawa Shogunate in the Edo period permitted trade with two countries, the Netherlands and China, handled at the Port of Nagasaki. The Purge Directive Order to the Jesuits was issued by Hideyoshi Toyotomi to limit missionary activities in Japan and was further reinforced during the Tokugawa Shogunate, which completely banned Catholicism. As a result, many Japanese Christians were persecuted and became hidden Christians. Those hidden Christians were driven underground for about 250 years in Urakami. Urakami at that time was the so-called heart of hidden Christians. Records of the Nagasaki Atomic Bombing and Wartime Damage, Vol. 1, Part 1 (Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum Version), 2006, pp. 4–6.

7 Out of 20,000 of Christians who lived in the city of Nagasaki, around 15,000–16,000 lived in Urakami. Among them, 10,000 were victims of the atomic bomb. Ibid., p. 308.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid., p. 710.

10 Peter Townsend, The Postman of Nagasaki, Harper Collins, London, 1984.

11 For more on the number of nuclear weapons in existence today, see the article by Hans M. Kristensen and Matthew McKinzie in this issue of the Review.

12 Tomihisa Taue, “Nagasaki Peace Declaration”, Nagasaki, 9 August 2014, available at: http://nagasakipeace.jp/english/appeal.html.