Today marks the 64th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Earlier this year, I was in Hiroshima on a couple of different occasions and took some photos of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial (the A-Bomb Dome).

There isn’t really much I can add to the discussion on the bombing of Hiroshima, but I do think it is a day to be remembered and talked about, and I do think there are eye-witness stories that should never be forgotten. I remember reading John Hersey’s Hiroshima in Junior High School. Some of the descriptions of the condition of the survivors are so visceral that I can remember them today. Whether you believe or do not believe that the bombing itself was “justified” in the context of the conflict, it is, I think, very difficult to rationally justify the scale of the bomb and the human suffering that ensued.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my father was in the navy in the Asia-Pacific region throughout WWII and, although Japan was “the enemy” for several years of his life, he believed the dropping of the bomb was wrong, so perhaps that has also shaped my view.

Take 4 minutes and 36 seconds and watch the BBC’s 2007 reenactment:

A U.S. Government photo of the “Atomic Effects” – this is Hiroshima after the bomb:

The Peace Memorial as it stands today:

And,finally, a very moving story of a 90-year old A-Bomb survivor who has been carrying out the same ritual for the past 50 years:

(video and translation from Japan Probe)