The day of the bomb

The annals of human history turn on specific dates. Just a few of these dates represent a clear before and after. One age gives way to another, turning on just one decisive day. Eighty years ago today, one of those days exploded in human history. On Aug. 6, 1945, a single bomb detonated over Hiroshima, Japan, and nuclear hell was unleashed.

Frankly, it’s hard for us to imagine what those before us knew and didn’t know. I was born in one of the most sensitive periods of the Cold War, the nuclear face-off between the United States and the Soviet Union. Furthermore, I was born in Florida, which was within the ten-minute range of a nuclear warning. I grew up seeing a constant stream of B-52 bombers and other armed aircraft overhead. When my buddies and I played war, we always had air cover.

The generation of my parents and grandparents knew a different war and a different age. They awoke on Aug. 6, 1945, desperately hoping for an end to World War II in the Pacific. Nazi Germany had finally surrendered on May 7, but the bloody war in the Pacific against the military powers of Imperial Japan continued, day by day, island by island, death followed by more death. They dreaded what stared them in the face—months of continued death. If the United States and its allies had to end the war by invading the home islands of Japan, the death toll would be unthinkable. Even the Japanese high command estimated that 20 million Japanese military and civilians would die in a last-ditch effort to defend the empire and the emperor. The death toll among the Allies would be horrifying. The Japanese refused to surrender, even after a clear warning from the Allies gathered in Potsdam, Germany. On July 26, the Allies delivered a clear call for the Japanese to surrender. There was no response.

The Enola Gay lands at Tinian after dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945. Associated Press / Photo by Max Desfor

Only a handful of the earth’s human inhabitants woke up on Aug. 6, 1945, knowing of the existence of nuclear weapons. The existence of an atomic bomb was one of the most closely guarded secrets in history. Harry S. Truman was suddenly president of the United States, taking office after the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12. Truman knew nothing of the bomb until he became president. The ultra-secret Manhattan Project had developed the bomb in record time. But even when the first test detonation took place on July 16 at the Alamogordo Bombing Range in New Mexico, the physicists who developed the bomb didn’t really know what would happen. Would the blast set loose a chain reaction that would destroy the planet? When it detonated, physicist Robert Oppenheimer would quote the Bhagavad Gita: “I am become death.”

Within days, a usable bomb was ready, and on Aug. 6 the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress, was headed for Hiroshima, loaded with “Little Boy,” a gun-type fission bomb made with uranium that would be dropped over the city and would explode before impact. It did, and an entire city was instantly incinerated. Human shadows were imprinted on concrete like x-ray images. Death and destruction and unspeakable injuries were everywhere. Between 90,000 and 160,000 people died, some instantly, some later. Nothing like it had ever happened. Still, the Japanese imperial staff and the emperor refused to surrender. Another bomb, this a plutonium-based implosion-type bomb, “Fat Man,” detonated over Nagasaki on Aug. 9, killing between 60,000 and 80,000 people. Emperor Hirohito of Japan announced surrender on Aug. 15.

For eight decades, humanity has lived under the threat of nuclear war. At times, humanity has come right to the brink. Even now, the threat of nuclear war is constant. With American support, Israel just went to war to prevent Iran from finalizing a nuclear weapon. North Korea already has “the bomb.” Remember that Russia, armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons and with multiple delivery systems, is at war with Ukraine, which it savagely invaded. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin warns of a possible “first use” strategy of nuclear weapons. In recent days, former Russian President Dmitri Medvedev issued a bellicose warning to the United States, and President Donald Trump responded by repositioning two nuclear subs closer to Russia. It’s not the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it’s not good.

Hiroshima, Japan, after the bombing Associated Press Photo, file

What about Just War theory and the Christian ethic of war? The Allies clearly had just cause for the war against Japan. Col. Paul Tibbets, captain of the Enola Gay, stated the case himself: “I viewed my mission as one to save lives. I didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor. I didn’t start the war. But I was going to finish it.”

That tradition of Just War doctrine also demanded proportionality. The prospect of several million deaths through the invasion of Japan clarified that principle. Just War also requires the principle of discrimination between combatants and civilians, and the atomic bomb clearly violated that principle. So did the intensive bombing of cities with conventional weapons in both Europe and Japan. With military targets embedded in cities and bombs dropped from the air, the principle of discrimination was routinely compromised. At the present, civilian targets like major cities are at the top of nuclear doctrine and war plans on all sides.

I believe the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified, in so far as the use of nuclear weapons can ever be justified. My Christian worldview is shaped by the horrible recognition that this kind of knowledge, the design of nuclear weapons, cannot be unlearned by humanity. It’s a permanent threat now. I have to hope for the United States and our allies to strike the right balance in keeping the nuclear threat at bay. We can only hope that the true horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be enough to restrain the impulse to use “the bomb” once again. There are now thousands of them.

This should drive us to prayer, and it must inform our understanding of the world around us and our place in it. Human nature didn’t change on Aug. 6, 1945, but human warfare did. That should be worth at least a few moments of your interest today. God help us.