Hiroshima bombing
I would not be here to write this letter without the bombing of Hiroshima. My father was near death when that essentially abrupt end to the war (and the kind ministrations of an excellent Dutch doctor) saved his and many other lives.
So when I look at my beautiful children and contemplate the beauty, the mystery and the improbability of their existence in the light of my father's POW experience, I thank God...and the bomb.
Of course it is a dreadfully unfair trade of thousands of Hiroshima's innocents for our existence. But it is another example of how one's perspective influences one's actions, thoughts and appreciation of history. The safety, the distance and, one hopes, the clarity of hindsight should make the slaughter in Hiroshima, and more so that from the second bomb in Nagasaki, impossible to contemplate.
However, war is made up of a series of tragic events selected from an array of usually equally appalling alternatives...sometimes by hazard, but usually by a group of people (mostly men) who, under incredible pressure, are seduced by the hope that yet another senseless act of violence will end it all.
In this case it did.
As we now select the appropriate snippets of history to support our particular point of view, it is worth trying to imagine the states of mind of those chosen by circumstance to play God 50 years ago.
They had not witnessed, nor had 50 years to live with, consider and review the devastation from their response to the situation confronting them.
They had witnessed, lived with, considered, reviewed and participated in five years of slaughter.
Faced with the facts of millions dead (Chinese, Koreans, Indonesians, Australians, British, Dutch, Americans and others including Japanese), of an incredible fanaticism based on bushido and the dubious divinity of an evil phenomenon, or kamikaze pilots who best exemplified that blind stupid faith had replaced common sense and courage for many Japanese, and of the certainty of many more deaths no matter what course was taken, those thrust forward had to choose.
Their choice then would, I hope, not now be ours.... nor perhaps theirs if they now could choose again. But then is then.....and I for one cannot condemn.
It also bears considering that, however, their judgment was perhaps subconsciously impaired by revenge or even moral superiority (particularly with Nagasaki) for American/Allied actions could not have been worse than those of Japan or Germany had their lunatic leaders had it first.
One thing is certain. The horrific fate of others gave many the opportunity of life.
GRAEME ST. JOHN
Jakarta