Mankind has introduced the Atomic Bomb. "My God, what have we done?" (From log book entry by co-pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 which dropped the first A-Bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, August 6, 1945. 8:15 AM Japanese Standard Time.
Although only approximately 150,000 were killed within the first few days of this incident, the totality and swiftness of it, is arresting. Most of an entire city evaporated, burned, melted and or crystallized within seconds.
Ever since the start of the Iraq war I've heard the ridiculous idea of "small", "tactical" nuclear weapons. This is impossible. Can you only guarantee to vaporize a city block, one neighborhood or have you forgotten the on-going suffering of those who survived the blast? I am going to summarize some brief statistics and give a link to the book. I pray humanity isn't this stupid again.
No, not just "who started it?" (Japan) or "we ended it"(United States). All sides in a war are wrong when entire areas measured in square miles are destroyed with one weapon.
Chapter 2: Gathering Details. from: Hiroshima by John Hersey
Totals for Hiroshima:
150 Doctors before A-Bomb, 65 dead, 85 hurt
1080 nurses before A-Bomb, 1054 hurt after A-Bomb
Totals at The Red Cross Hospital:
6 out of 30 doctors survived
10 out of 200 nurses Survived
600 bed hospital invaded by 10,000 patients. There was just no way to save more people in the early days after the bombing.
Let's Personalize this, shall we?
These are rough figures, but, take a map out, or use google earth and put your home in the center of a circle with a radius of 2 miles. (Circle will be 4 miles across, with your house in the middle.) Within this area, everything was basically destroyed in varying degrees, from one bomb.
Area of our circle = pi(2 miles)(2 Miles) = (3.14)(4) = 12 .56 Square Miles of rubble!
Compared to what we have available today, this destruction is child's play!
Sadly, as a species, we have drenched the planet in our own blood. I respectfully remember the dead and pray for the living.
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