The combined death toll of the two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan was around 220,000. This is a truly terrible thing to do. What justification can there possibly be for inflicting this on a country? First place we visited in Hiroshima was a park close to the hypocentre of the explosion. There is a building here which was not completely flattened. It is now preserved as a monument called the A-Bomb dome. The park contains a variety of other plaques and statues commemorating the very first atom bomb used in anger. It is a good place to quietly ponder bombs and world peace and all that sort of thing.
After the park, we got to inspect the eternal flame. I mentioned to Bruce that I had once seen the eternal flame in Red Square by the Kremlin. So it would appear that eternal flames are not very effective at preventing wars. We walked around the museum. This was very dark inside and mostly contained old black and white photographs of injuries attributed to the bomb. It was a very depressing museum primarily dedicated to human suffering. We were pleased to get out and find coffee.
From Europe, I think there is a tendency to see the final stages of WW2 in the Pacific as a sort of addendum that began with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. A better view is to consider that Japan had been at war since 1895. They started a fifty-year period of being on a war footing by invading China in the First Sino-Japanese War. Remarkable success in the war proved to be a fundamental turning point. Japan shifted from a ‘suppressed nation’ to a ‘nation that suppresses others.’ Two decades of modernisation and industrialisation combined with the adoption of a Western-style military demonstrated the superiority of Japanese tactics and training. Japan’s prestige rose in the eyes of the world. Japan had only suffered a small loss of lives and treasure in return for the dominance of Taiwan, the Pescadores, and the Liaotung Peninsula in China. Its decisions of abandoning the policy of isolation and learning advanced policy from Western countries also became a good example for other Asian countries to follow. Japan rose to have equal status with the Western powers became the dominant power in Asia.
By the time WW2 kicked off in Europe, Japan was controlling a large section of the Asian Pacific. Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Indo-China, Borneo and the Philippines. They even had a pop at Australia. This was nothing nice about the Japanese Imperial expansion if you were not Japanese.
Another park. This time a more ornamental one. Shukkei-en Garden was created following the completion of Hiroshima Castle in 1620. Its name translates to ‘shrunken scenery garden’. It represents valleys, mountains and forests in miniature form. Unfortunately, it was very crowded. For me an enjoyable garden includes some element of peace and tranquillity. Here we had a rugby scrum to see each feature. We skipped though it quickly and efficiently. The highlight of the garden turned out to be some turtles in one of the ponds.
The Bushido Code is the traditional samurai “way of the warrior,” which evolved in feudal Japan and emphasises martial skill, honour, and deep moral duty. The importance attached to honour created a policy of no surrender. To surrender meant losing your honour and without that, your life was worthless. The list of Japanese war crimes is truly terrifying. POWs had no honour and hence no moral value. In Europe we were horrified by the Holocaust. 6 million Jews killed. Japan, meanwhile, accounted for 20 to 30 million deaths. Mostly Chinese. The Nazis had a reputation for torture and poor treatment of prisoners. They were complete amateurs compared to the Japanese. Torture, rape, medical experimentation, starvation, forced labour and summary executions were all regularly practiced. Biological and chemical warfare was often used. Cannibalism was widespread. There are stories of flesh being stripped from live prisoners and cooked. “Comfort woman” were kept to service the troops. Prisoners had no honour. No treatment was too bad for them. They had forfeited their right to life. Almost no-one survived being taken prisoner.
The 50 m Orizuru Tower is located beside the A-Bomb Dome and is one of the few tall buildings around the Peace Memorial Park. From up here I could take a few photographs. We were introduced to origami cranes. These have become a bit of a peace symbol. Everyone was given a piece of paper and then we sat in front of a video. Back when I was eight or something, I was quite keen on origami. At school there was a bit of a craze for it. We were all busy folding bits of paper in the playground when we should have been running around playing football. It all came back to me as we started folding. The most important thing is to make all your folds clean, sharp and precise. The crane is quite simple to make and we all ended up with a correctly folded bird.
The whole of Japan was on a war footing from 1895 to 1945. Three generations. Everyone was contributing to the effort. Munitions were manufactured in small factories mixed into the urban environment. Children were taught how to fight with sharpened bamboo. Women learned how to roll under a tank wearing an explosive vest. In 1945, there were plans for an allied invasion. The Russians were already moving into northern Manchuria. It was recognised that the Bushido code meant that the Japanese would fight to the last person, the last woman, the last child. Any invasion of Japan was going to be messy and drawn out. Loss of life on both sides would be enormous.
Against this background, the use of two atom bombs could possibly be one of the greatest acts of peace ever. It stopped the Japanese completely. They had an abrupt and dramatic change of attitude. Instead of trying to conquer the western world they chose to embrace it. Japan has not started a war since. They have become proponents of peace and apologised for many of the war crimes. The bombs also had a dramatic effect on the rest of the world. We had the cold war but there was truly little fighting war for decades and nothing on the scale of two world wars. We also split the atom and developed nuclear reactors. Some sort of fission or fusion is the only way we can power the post fossil fuel world for generations to come. Yes, I know we have photovoltaic panels and windmills but, in the coming decades, we are going to need orders of magnitude more clean power than they can ever provide.
Next day we began with a train ride to the famous Himeji Castle. This is a hilltop Japanese castle complex situated in Himeji, a city in Hyōgo Prefecture. The castle is regarded as the finest surviving example of prototypical Japanese castle architecture. Comprising a network of 83 structures with advanced defensive systems from the feudal period. The castle is frequently known “White Egret Castle” because of its brilliant white exterior and supposed resemblance to a bird taking flight. The day was hot and the castle was very crowded. We walked around the building for a while and then went for a look inside. To get inside, you need to remove your shoes. This is quite common in Japan when visited temples, homes and other places. Best to check that you have some respectable socks on before you set off in the morning. Inside was very dull. A lot of empty rooms. Wooden floors and crowds of people all in their sock. We gave up fairly quickly. There was genuinely nothing to see.
Back outside, we wandered the grounds a little more. The castle is highly photogenic from the outside even if there is little content inside. Eventually we had exhausted the wandering potential of Himeji Castle and headed back towards the coach. I had it in mind that we could find a coffee. Instead, we found a zoo. This seemed like a promising idea at the time, although we ended up regretting it. Some zoos clearly have the welfare of their animals in mind. Not this one. This was more like the classic zoos of my childhood. Cages of miserable looking animals. Crowds of children shouting at the animals. I found the sorry state of some lions in a heavily barred, small cage particularly depressing. The penguins looked like they really wanted to be somewhere with snow. Pacing and digging and other psychopathic trapped animal behaviours were in abundant supply.
Escaping the zoo, we met up with the others just in time to be shown to another garden. There were a lot of gardens on this trip. Some of them are rather lovely. Pools full of fish. Little bridges. Bonsai trees. They all had the same problem. At least as far as I was concerned. They were all crowded. We dutifully walked around and took a few photographs. Back at the wonderfully air conditioned coach we settled down for the drive to Osaka.
