Day Twenty Five: Nagasaki

the Nagasaki detour may be one of my best decisions of this trip


I woke up in the morning and went out on a little side trip, looking for the things the city had to offer. I climed up a staircase in the side of a mountain where there was a cemetery built into it. it seemed to go on for miles up the mountain. I finally reached the top after climbing the stairs for about an hour.

the mountain was covered in graves not only of those who had recently died, but it was also covered in graves that looked ancient. some cemetery plots remained there of whole families dead for many many years.

in japan, it is required that all of the dead be cremated. these graves are often simply monuments to those who have died.

I walked down the stairs passing through more and more of these monuments.

I knew what was most famous to me about this city. I knew the reason I had come here and why it attracted me above anywhere else in this area of japan.

on august 9th, during the second world war, the second of two atomic bombs was dropped on this city by the allied forces. it was an American plane called “bockscar”. it flew past its original target, an industrial city called kokura, before flying to the new destination and dropping the bomb in the early afternoon.

what happened then is really just history.

since I heard about these bombs and what they did in Hiroshima and nagasaki, I have felt my whole life a sincere desire to see these places. after years and years of wanting to visit, I finally have my opportunity to see Nagasaki, the second city.

I thought that in some way it might bring some type of peace to my heart to see this place. it has bothered me for as long as I can remember that so many innocent people died to end that war, and at the hand of my home country.

what I felt and saw there moved me beyond words.

I had already started dwelling on it during the bus ride to the monument at the epicenter of the bomb blast. I started crying on the bus, but since I was wearing big sunglasses, nobody really noticed. I just couldn’t get over it.

many of us can not truly understand the atrocities and suffering of war until we have experienced it firsthand. there have been memorials placed here urging everyone, even those whose lives have not been affected by the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to constantly strive for peace in the world. the people of this city want those who are apathy towards the events that happened over 60 years ago to never forget the suffering and endeavor to bring peace to the world.

I made it to the place where the bomb exploded, the bomb hypocenter. there is a marker there, a big black column with an altar sitting in front, sitting on a small mound. it was a clear and beautiful day, and aside from groups of school kids, there were not too many people there at the park.

the bomb exploded 500 meters above this spot at 11:02 am on august 9, 1945. it was the second of the only two weapons of mass destruction used for war in the history of mankind.

i stood there in front of the altar and cried like I haven’t in years. all the school kids there just watched me as I tried so hard to hold back the tears

at the time I wasn’t focused so much on looking like a fool. looking at those children made things worse for me.

the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki claimed the lives of not only japanese men in the military, it claimed the lives of innocent women, children and the elderly who had never even had a thought of being involved in a war. the kids around me kept reminding me of the thousands of dead and injured children.

and I just kept crying. I was sobbing. I felt like I could barely breathe.

that feeling came to me many times throughout the day. I just saw something, and it was hard to breathe for a moment or two.

I just stood at the altar there picturing in my mind the bombs and the destruction they caused.

we can never forget what happened at Nagasaki. we can lie to ourselves and pretend that what happened there is just a small part of history, but to this day, the echoes of that event still influence the lives of everyone on this planet and the administrations that govern them.

after that, I visited the museum there dedicated to not only the bombing of Nagasaki, but also to the history of atomic bombs. it was one of the better museums I have seen in japan, and everything was written in both Japanese and English, so I was able to read everything.

the pictures showing the aftermath of the bombing were just as anyone would expect. dead bodies covering the streets, mother carrying their dead children, people crawling around begging for water.

I sobbed more and more.

in the event of the explosion of that type of weapon, the blast is so powerful that people at the center of the explosion are completely vaporized. nothing is left behind except in a few cases where the body of someone has been burned into the wall of a building, vaguely resembling a shadow.

in the museum there, there was a video of a woman telling the story of her mother.

following the explosion, this girl, four years old at the time, was stuck under a heap of bent metal, too heavy for even six men to pick up. the men decided that they would leave the girl and go look for other survivors. as the men left, the mother of the girl ran towards the site, naked with her body covered in burns. she was screaming and crying hysterically trying by herself to rescue her daughter. she climbed under the heaviest of the metal beams and with all of her strength was able to pick up the beam long enough for her daughter to be released. all of the skin on the mothers shoulders had ripped off as she picked up the beam, too heavy for even six men.

the mother died that night.

this monument built near the bomb hypocenter was my favorite.


the plaque beside the monument contains the following paragraph:

Created by Nagasaki-born sculptor Naoki Tominaga, this monument expresses the horror of the atomic bombing, prays for the repose of the souls of the victims whose noble sacrifice the buds of peace grew, and – through the form of a stricken child sleeping in her mother’s warm embrace – reaches with great motherly compassion and pleas for eternal peace towards a prosperous Japan in the 21st century.

from then I went on to the peace park where the main memorial to the bomb victims has been built. the park there has been created as a huge prayer area for visitors from all over the world. Monuments donated from many countries are scattered around the park. there is one however that serves as the main statue lying in the very center of the park.


it may not look big from here, but this thing was humongous.

these are the words written by the creator of this statue.

After experiencing that nightmarish war,
that blood-curdling carnage,
that unendurable horror,
Who could walk away without praying for peace?
This statue was created as a signpost
in the struggle for global harmony.
Standing ten meters tall,
it conveys the profundity of knowledge and
the beauty of health and virility.
The right hand points to the atomic bomb,
the left hand points to peace,
and the face prays deeply for the victims of war.
Transcending the barriers of race,
and evoking the qualities of both Buddha and God,
it is a symbol of the greatest determination
ever known in the history of Nagasaki
and of the highest hope of all mankind.

Seibo Kitamura Spring 1955

human beings are intelligent enough to build bombs to kill hundreds of thousands, but they aren’t smart enough to know that they should never use them.

a call for peace means more than being a hippy. the power of the government in America is in the hands of its people, and bringing peace can often mean fighting for it, and fighting for a way to stop this kind of a disaster goes beyond labels like “hippy”.

these are causes that many have fought and died for, and as Americans, we celebrate those who have fought to bring world peace on memorial day.

fighting for peace of course doesn’t seem logical, but when the evil people in the world continue to kill to bring themselves power, someone has to be there to stop it.

and I have to also remember that it was my country that dropped that bomb. it was the second bomb at Nagasaki that ended that war that could have gone on for who knows how longer, but it did end the war, even if at great cost.

if the memory of what happened in this city so many years ago is not good enough to stop the greedy and power-hungry warmongers of this world, I don’t know what would be.

god bless America, god bless japan, god bless all of the world.

god grant us peace.