Voices Against War by Lyn Smith

Author:Lyn Smith [Lyn Smith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mainstream Publishing
Published: 2011-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

When atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, killing 150,000 Japanese civilians and maiming thousands, initially the exact nature of these weapons was not apparent. But, in effect, it marked the end of conventional warfare and the opening of the nuclear age. It presaged a new, terrible dimension to warfare and was to have a great effect on the next stage of the anti-war movement.

Kazunori Yamane, soldier in Japanese Imperial Army, Hiroshima, Japan

I was about 2.5 km from the epicentre of an atomic bomb when it was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. I was in hospital in Mitaki, Hiroshima, which was in the north of Yokogawa Station. The hospital belonged to the army. I was getting well at the end of July and was in charge of taking care of the rabbits that were kept at the hospital. I was mowing grass for the rabbits with two other soldiers when I heard the roar of a bomber. I thought that the sound was strange because there was no siren warning. When I looked up at the sky, I saw something flashing high up. When I said, ‘There it is!’, pointing at it, I was blown by the blast into a rice field, crying without knowing what had happened to me. I asked the two comrades how they were and stood up and found the hospital completely destroyed. I saw fire starting in Hiroshima City. I heard an explosion and guessed that some kind of bomb had been dropped and decided to escape to a mountain nearby. Soon it started raining heavily . . .

We went back to the hospital, where I saw bloody nurses and comrades who were helping injured people. I started to help them and carried heavily injured people on a stretcher to a mountain. Shortly bloodstained people in rags and tatters started to escape from Hiroshima City to the countryside. Some people fell down and said, ‘Soldiers, please give me some water,’ and ‘Help!’ Others died without drinking the water that I brought. I was busy rescuing injured comrades and people until sunset.

Donald Swann, CO, FAU, relief work, Rhodes

I was still on Rhodes when the war ended, and was in a camp called Efialtis, which is Greek for ‘nightmare’, when I heard about the atom bomb. I was as far away from Nagasaki and Hiroshima mentally as I’ve ever been in my life . . . Our war had ended. I remember feeling that somewhere a long way off, statesmen were trying to work out the peace . . .

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