On Aug. 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., the Enola Gay, a U. S. B-29 bomber, dropped and detonated an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, a city of approximately 255,000 in western Japan. Three days later, on Aug. 9, a second bomb was dropped over Nagasaki, where some 40,000 people were likewise incinerated.
Temperatures from the blast at ground level were over 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit. (For reference, iron melts at 2800 degrees.) The wind velocity seconds after the blast was more than 1,000 feet per second, rendering the city's mostly wooden structures – and the people living in them – as vulnerable as butterflies in a tornado. A third bomb was readied, but Japan's leaders, understanding the futility of resistance to the opening of Hell, surrendered its army.
America and its allies soon were dancing in the streets and immediately began censoring all information about the bombs' impact on the civilian population in the destroyed cities. Initial death toll estimates at the Hiroshima site were under 30,000. Later estimates put the immediate death toll more accurately at 150,000. But even these numbers raised eyebrows.
In 1945, journalist, songwriter and peace activist Vernon Partlow, a native of Bloomington, wrote the satirical song "Old Man Atom," in which he posits that unless there is an international ban on nuclear weapons, "all men may be cremated equal." The song received significant airplay and was recorded by Pete Seeger and by The Sons of the Pioneers before it was branded as communist propaganda. Partlow and Seeger were blacklisted and Partlow was fired from his job for having leftist leanings. You can hear the song on YouTube, as well as Seeger's recording of the Japanese song "Genbaku O Yurusumagi" "Never Again the Bomb." It's tame stuff.
The blacklisting and censorship continued for decades and was only slightly lifted in May 2016, when President Barack Obama became the first sitting president to visit Hiroshima and associated memorials. This year's commemoration of the bombings will likely go unnoticed in this country, except by the usual suspects, i.e., the "liberal" media, and that's a shame.
While in Japan, Obama visited the memorial to Sadako Sasaki, who was 2 years old when the bomb exploded not far from her home. She, like other children in her neighborhood, seemed to have escaped the blast but not the whirlwind. As she grew into adolescence she excelled in school and athletics and was known by her schoolmates as a good dancer and fast runner. But at the age of 10 she developed leukemia from the effects of the bomb's radiation and began to decline.
There is a folk legend in Japan about the spiritual powers of the crane, that if one masters the art of folding cranes out of paper – origami art – your wish may be granted. Sadako's wish was for healing, for she wanted to live her life to the fullest. She began the task of folding 1,000 paper cranes. Some say she completed her goal but, seeing no positive results, began folding 1,000 more cranes from her hospital bed. In the song "Cranes Over Hiroshima" by Fred Small, a Unitarian minister, she folds 644 before her death on Oct. 25, 1952, and in the third verse we are told
"Her friends did not forget her
crane after crane they made
until they reached 1,000
and laid them on her grave
People from everywhere gathered
together a prayer they said
and wrote the words in granite,
So none would ever forget.
This is our cry, this is our prayer: Peace in the world."
Shinobu Sato, a Japanese American from Evanston and a marvelous musician, recorded "Cranes Over Hiroshima" on his album "Little Signs of Autumn," way back in the 1990s, and performed the song in Springfield soon after. His version still brings me to tears. Nowhere in the song does he mention Sadako by name, but once you know the story, she will be forever in your heart.
When President Obama visited Hiroshima, he folded two paper cranes (with help, he said) to honor the little girl whose courage and determination will, someday, teach us to disarm. May your commemoration of the bombings in Japan 79 years ago this week give you occasion to fold a couple of cranes, and say a prayer for peace.
William Furry of Petersburg, a musician, sometimes preacher and a former editor of Illinois Times, is a member of First Church of the Brethren, Springfield..
