In the August of 1945, U.S. completed an attack on Japan that left a permanent stain in their culture that will never be forgotten. Japan learned from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the tragedy caused by nuclear weapons must never be repeated and that humanity and nuclear weapons cannot coexist. The U.S. along with other feuding countries have missiles pointing at one another, blaming each other for their poor fortune and tragedies. They don’t think about what could possibly come to scar the minds of upcoming generations and how we view our continental neighborhoods.
In Hersey’s Hiroshima, he tells the stories of six nuclear bomb survivors and what they seen on that fateful day and how they braved through the devastation that occurred. People going on about their usual daily tasks despite knowing that they could be bombed at anytime. Some moved furniture, lounged about on the veranda, took care of their children, and left to go to work like the Enola Gay wasn’t vastly approaching their homes. When you think about it you begin to question, what have these people done to have the United States destroy everything around them to the point of leveling the places they could call home? What have these children walking back home with their mother possibly done to call an air raid siren a “usual occurrence”? Hersey pointed out that despite Japanese rule the people who live there are effected the most, because they are the ones who must suffer for their governments decisions.
William Laurence, a writer for the New York Times, Special Consultant to the Manhattan Engineer District, and former Pulitzer Prize winner during 1945 wrote out a descriptive eyewitness account from the U.S. bomber over top of Nagasaki, Japan. He explains the crew in detail down to the state in which they reside in, what went on the day of the bombing. He wrote so you could close your eyes