THE FORGOTTEN BOMB - PART 1

My time in the Navy took me to many of the scenes of the Pacific War only 18-19 years after the events. When I walked the ground in southern Okinawa, where the fighting happened, there was no place one could step without disturbing the detritus of the war that was underfoot. Of all my experiences in the Far East, where one could easily find the reminders of war nearly everywhere from Japan through Okinawa to the Philippines, nothing has remained with me more strongly than the memory of visiting Nagasaki.

In the popular imagination of the war, Nagasaki is almost forgotten while Hiroshima stands center stage. That may well be because at the time of the attack, the Americans did not know what they had destroyed. It is a supreme irony that Nagasaki was (and is) the most pro-Western, anti-Imperial city in Japan, the center of Christianity in that country since its introduction by the Dutch and Spanish in the 16th century and because of that fact the center of resistance to the Tokugawa Shogunate when Japan was closed to the outside world for 200 years commencing in the 17th century. The city was where Giacomo Puccini wrote the opera “Madame Butterfly” while he lived there in a beautiful cottage on a hill overlooking Nagasaki Bay (which I visited).

Ground zero for the atomic bomb was not the Mitsubishi war factory that was the designated drop point. It was instead the Urakami Catholic Church, the largest Christian church in Asia, built entirely by the subscriptions and donations of parishioners following the decision to end the persecution of the religion following the Meiji Restoration. The only thing still standing after the bomb went off was the bell tower, which was directly beneath the explosion. When one entered the museum, the first artifact was a Japanese soldier’s helmet, turned upside down. When I looked inside, like others my first thought was “What is that ivory doing in there?” And in the next instant, I realized it wasn’t ivory.

An American who visits Hiroshima will to this day be made to feel uncomfortable by the citizenry and how they choose to remember the event. The situation in Nagasaki is the exact opposite. After the war, the citizens of Nagasaki determined to find a way to insure such a catastrophe never happened again. They concluded that the only way this could happen was to spread international peace and brotherhood. Nagasaki dedicated itself to that cause. Unlike many cities where the populace has no idea of any “higher purpose” the city might be dedicated to, the people of Nagasaki not only know this, they practice it.

My ship visited Nagasaki 19 years after the attack. As we came in to the pier, we saw a large crowd of young Japanese students there waiting for us. At the time, there were large anti-American demonstrations in the country over the security treaty, and we thought this might be connected to that. No. These young people were there to greet us, to offer to take us to a restaurant, to offer us a guided tour of their city. They were there to promote international peace and brotherhood, as the city had decided its residents should do. Nagasaki is the one place where I have ever seen the Christian concept of forgiveness truly put to action.

This is the story of the bombing of that city and its aftermath, excerpted from my book “Tidal Wave: The Pacific War from Leyte Gulf to Tokyo Bay”:

Originally a small fishing village in a secluded harbor, Nagasaki was of little significance in the history of Japan prior to the arrival of Portuguese explorers in 1543. The central government feared too-close involvement with the gaijin Westerners, and limited their port of entry to Nagasaki. The Portuguese were followed by the Spanish. Trade expanded and the city grew.

The samurai warrior feudal society of Japan originally had little interest in western goods until they discovered the power of firearms. A brisk trade developed and the use of muskets expanded among the Samurai. At this time, Japan was entirely feudal in its political structure, and there were many military expeditions undertaken between the warring lords, or Daimyo. Firearms tipped the military scale in favor of the stronger Daimyo, who could afford them.

In 1549, the Jesuit missionary St. Francis Xavier arrived in Kagoshima, South Kyushu. He began a campaign of evangelization throughout Japan, which saw the conversion of several of the southern Daimyo, before leaving for China and martyrdom in 1551. The most notable among the converted Daimyo was Sumitada Omura, who controlled most of Kyushu. In 1569, he granted a permit that allowed the establishment of a port in Nagasaki, which was finally established in 1571 under the supervision of the Jesuit missionary Gaspar Vilela and Portuguese Captain-Major Tristão Vaz de Veiga, with the personal assistance of Lord Omura.

The insignificant fishing village grew quickly into a diverse and cosmopolitan port city. Use and consumption of Portuguese products such as tobacco, bread, textiles and a Portuguese sponge-cake called castellas spread and were soon assimilated into the popular culture. (Tempura was derived from a Portuguese recipe originally known as peixinho-da-horta; the Japanese name comes from the Portuguese “tempero.”)

Politically, Japan was unstable in the Sengoku period. Jesuit Alexandro Valignano was able to pass administrative control of Nagasaki to the Society of Jesus before the death of Lord Omura, rather than see what was now a Catholic city fall to the domination of a non-Catholic Daimyo and Nagasaki became a Jesuit colony in 1580 and a place of refuge for Japanese Christian refugees from maltreatment in other regions.

Hideyoshi Toyotomi’s campaign of national unification arrived in Kyushu in 1587. He ordered the expulsion of the Jesuits, and put the city under his direct control. Toyotomi left soon after to continue his military campaign and the expulsion order went largely unenforced with the majority of the population remained openly-practicing Catholics.

Following the wreck of the Spanish ship San Felipe off the coast of Shikoku in 1596, Toyotomi learned that the Spanish Franciscans planned to land in Japan and contest for followers with the Jesuits. In response, he the crucifixions of 26 Catholics in Nagasaki on 5 February 1596 who became known as the "Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan." However, the Portuguese traders were allowed to remain since they were the source of the weapons Toyotomi needed, and the city continued to thrive. In 1602, Augustinian missionaries arrived.

In 1603 Ieyasu Tokugawa wrested control of the country from Toyotomi in Japan to become Shogun. Because his victory rested on the support of the Catholic Daimyos who had been his critical allies at the Battle of Sekigahara, Tokugawa could not move against them until the fall of Osaka Castle and the subsequent murder of the children of Toyotomi assured the Tokugawa dominance. By now, Dutch and English traders had arrived, who were not interested in bringing their religions with them, which meant trade could continue if a move was made against the Christian forces.

In 1614, Shogun Tokugawa officially banned Catholicism and ordered all missionaries to leave. In the face of the Tokugawa Shogunate’s military power, most of the Catholic Daimyo abandoned the religion and forced their subjects to follow. Those who refused left the country for the Portuguese colony at Macau or the Spanish colony of Luzon and founded “Japantowns” which spread in European-dominated areas of Southeast Asia. In Kyushu, a brutal campaign of persecution saw thousands of converts throughout the country killed, tortured, or forced to renounce their religion.

The Shimabara Rebellion of 1637 was the last major military action in Japan until the Meiji Restoration in 1880, and resulted in the death of several hundred thousand Catholics on Kyushu and the banning of the religion throughout the country. At its conclusion, the Shogunate closed Japan to the outside world, other than a single Dutch ship that was allowed to come to Nagasaki. The Dutch traders were removed from their base at Hirado and confined on a specially constructed island-prison in Nagasaki harbor called Dejima, following the expulsion of all Portuguese.

In 1720, the Shogunate’s ban on Dutch books was lifted, with the result that hundreds of scholars came to Nagasaki to study European arts and sciences, with the result that the city became the center of rangaku, or "Dutch Learning.” Thus, throughout the 200 years of the Edo period, Nagasaki maintained its western traditions and outward focus, unlike the rest of the country. Catholicism continued underground throughout the period, though the form of worship changed without the guidance of western priests and the followers became known as Kakure Kirishitan. Nagasaki was known throughout the rest of Japan in contemporary art and literature as a cosmopolitan port that brimmed with the exotic products of the West. Opposition to the Tokugawa Shogunate also continued as an underground resistance throughout the period, and the tradition of opposition to imperial power remained after the opening of Japan to the West and 1854.

The Meiji Restoration in 1880 saw Japan open once again to diplomatic relations with other nations and foreign trade. In 1859 Nagasaki became a free port, with modernization starting in earnest in 1868. Christianity was once again legalized and Nagasaki returned to its earlier role as a major center of Roman Catholicism in Japan. The city was proud of the fact that a visit to Nagasaki by Puccini, which led to a prolonged residence, resulted in the renowned opera “Madame Butterfly.” During this period, the Urakami Catholic Cathedral was built in the city. Throughout the period between the Meiji Restoration and the outbreak of the war, however, the city and its citizens, with their Westernized cultural views, were viewed with suspicion by Japanese nationalists.

As a result of the forced modernization that resulted from the overthrow of the Shogunate, Nagasaki became a center of heavy industry with its main industry centered on ship-building. The dockyards built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries became a prime contractor to the Imperial Japanese Navy. Nagasaki harbor was an anchorage controlled by the nearby Sasebo Naval District. Nagasaki was important as an industrial city, which was home to factories of the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works, the Akunoura Mitsubishi Arms Plant, Mitsubishi Electric Shipyards, Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works, and Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works as well as numerous other small factories and most of the port storage and trans-shipment facilities. These industries employed about 90 percent of the labor force.

Southern Japan had first come within range of the B-29s that operated at first from western China. Beginning in August 1944, there had been five small air attacks by a total of 136 aircraft which had dropped 270 tons of high explosive, 53 tons of incendiaries and 20 tons of fragmentation bombs on Nagasaki. A raid on 1 August was the most effective, with bombs hitting the shipyards and dock areas and the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works.

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