Sad facts

I had a note in my diary to check up on Maria Gomes Valentim. Born on 9th July 1896, she would have been 115 years old today. Unfortunately, she died 18 days ago on 21st June 2011 (which I must have missed in the end of June rush). Still, 114 years and 347 days is a good haul. What an amazing chunk of history she witnessed.

Because I also read a review of Nagasaki: The Massacre of the Innocent and Unknowing by Craig Collie this morning, I automatically linked the two events and worked out that Maria was 49 years old when the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan 6/8-1945 and 9/8-1945. 49! I wonder how aware she was of what had happened, how horrified or not she was when word, and finally images of the dead and dying people, trickled out. These days, drenched as we are in instant updates, I don’t think we can really grasp how long it used to take for information to reach the general public. And even then, how much of that information was just self-serving propaganda?

Apparently Craig’s book tackles a lot of the mythologies about the bombings, and he writes that most Japanese people remained largely unaware of what had happened because of the strict censorship, and even the people in charge didn’t fully understand what had occurred. Because the world seems so small and fast now, it’s hard for us to imagine that such an epic event, seared into our psyches by decades of investigations and countless images from movies and such, wasn’t instantly perceived by every single person on the planet. We imagine the ground shook. But the world is a big place. And no-one tweeted about Fat Man or Little Boy.

Other sad facts stand out. Harry Truman didn’t authorise the dropping of either bomb. An unelected military officer – General Thomas Handy – gave the formal orders. After Nagasaki, Truman insisted any further bombs would require his authority, which put a stop to the military experimentally dropping a third bomb on Tokyo. And in another of Time’s vaggaries, the original target for the first bomb was the industrial town of Kokura, but the elements and mechanical failures conspired to necessitate a change of course mid-fight, and Nagasaki was enveloped in the nightmare instead. But Kokura was saved.

How do you get your head around that? A bit of bad weather and you get vapourised. Or not. Life. Luck. Wow.