Nagasaki

Today marks another sad aniversary as the 63rd aniversary of the Atomic bombing of Nagasaki Japan. Nagasaki was a target thanks to its shipyards and a large torpedo factory. However, it was not the original target of the "Fat Man" plutonium device. Kokura was the original target but was obscured by clouds. Nagasaki was alos obscured by clouds, but there was a sufficient break to drop the device which detonated almost 3 km northwest of the planned target. It did however, damage most of the industrial valley of Nagasaki.

Thanks to a raid earlier in the week where conventional device were used, most children of the city were evacuated. Unfortunately this did not include several groups of POW's and the enormous Christian population of Nagasaki.


Thanks to its status as an open port in the 1700's and 1800's, Japanese Christianity was allowed to only flourish in this area. In between massacres of Christians by various Japanese leaders, (due to the fact that Christianity was perceived to be a tool for western domination) there were churches constructed in Nagasaki, including the largest cathedral in the the Eastern Hemisphere. More Christians were killed by the atomic bombing of Nagasaki than all the Japanese emperors ever accomplished.

Eight POWs were known to have died in the bombing. Fortune saved the remainder, working in coal mines deep underground emerging to find devestation.

Thirty-Two Hundred American citizens were also killed. Some were Japanese-American, others Caucasians trapped in the city during the war. Nagasaki's status as a open city also led it to have a large population of expatriate citizens. Large numbers of these populations were undoubtedly killed as a result of the bombing.

Nagasaki is really the forgotten bomb, the one they don't really talk about. However, all of what happened here is bad and should be remembered, lest we repeat the mistakes of that time.