This has been a year for anniversaries and one of the most important is the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which ended the Second World War. On Aug 6, 1945, the US plane Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the city centre of Hiroshima, a busy residential and business district, crowded with people going about their daily business.

The fireball created by that single bomb destroyed 13 square kilometres of the city. Within a radius of half a mile of the centre of the blast, every person was killed. Beyond this central area, people were killed by the heat and blast waves. Almost 63 percent of the buildings of Hiroshima were completely destroyed and nearly 92 percent of the structures in the city were either destroyed or damaged by the blast and fire.

It is estimated that at least 75,000 died in the first hours after the bomb was dropped, with around 140,000 dead by December 1945. The death toll reached around 200,000 by the end of 1950. (Source: Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, CND)

The victims of the radiation developed symptoms that were horrific beyond anything wars had inflicted before such as nausea, vomiting, bloody diarrhoea and hair loss. Pregnant women who survived the bomb faced the additional horrors of the impact of the bomb on their foetuses. Needless to say, given what we know now about the effects of radioactivity, a higher rate of cancer became evident from about 1960.

One lesson from this 70th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb is surely that the world community must never again allow the use of nuclear arms.

Against the conventional narrative

Another important lesson is to be wise to the cynical use of false information in propagating war and in this case, the use of the atomic bomb on civilians in August 1945. The conventional narrative regarding the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and three days later on Nagasaki, is that it was necessary in order to bring about a speedy conclusion to the war and to prevent further loss of lives.

This version is certainly prevalent also in Malaysia and many people genuinely believe that the bomb was necessary to bring about a swift Japanese surrender.

But scholarly research in the US, using primary sources from the time, shows that this was a cynical manipulation of the facts. (See Doug Long’s archive of the relevant postings from h-net.org.) Historian Guy Aperovitz’s important 1995 book, (‘The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth’) challenges this conventional narrative.

He focused on the decision to use the bomb and the many ways in which myths concerning its use were actively promoted by official and unofficial efforts in the early Cold War years.

He argued that just before the use of the bomb, Japan was ready to surrender. And even General Dwight Eisenhower said, “Japan was at that very moment seeking some way to surrender with minimum loss of face. It was not necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”

Establishing US dominance in Asia after the war

So if Japan was ready to surrender, why were atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? A major factor in the decision to drop the bombs anyway, was the US design to establish its dominance in the region after the war. Those planning for the postwar situation believed that this required the US occupation of Japan, enabling it to establish a permanent military presence, shape its political and economic system and dominate the Pacific region.

But Japanese resurgence was no longer the key strategic concern of the US; its main concern, above all, was to thwart the power of the Soviet Union. While the Soviet Union was an ally of the US in the war against Germany, its ideology and economic system were incompatible with those of the US. The US would not accept a situation in which access to the Soviet part of the world economy was effectively closed to them.

The power and prestige of the Soviet Union had been enhanced enormously by its defeat of Germany’s military machine, and this intensified the need from a US perspective, to prevent a Soviet advance in Asia and the likelihood of any Soviet influence on Japan.

Historians such as Guy Alperovitz have concluded that the real reason for using the atomic bomb was the desire of the US to demonstrate its unique military power in order to gain political and diplomatic advantage over the Soviet Union in the postwar settlement in both Asia and Europe.

My own research at the British Public Records Office certainly confirms this US/Western thinking in the early post-war years (See my latest publication: ‘Racism & Racial Discrimination in Malaysia’, Suaram 2015)

Never again!

In total, over 95 percent of the combined casualties of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were civilian. Besides securing political, diplomatic and military advantages, the US also gained for the first time, the opportunity to test its nuclear weapons on human beings, and also determined their impact on buildings and other infrastructure.

Thus on this 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, let us not forget the atrocities wrought by Nazi and Japanese fascism on the world, including the peoples in Malaysia and Singapore. Neither should we lose sight of the cynical use of nuclear weapons by the US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki...

As with all historical accounts - it is vital that accurate reporting of the facts of the time are documented without fear or favour. It is only then that we can draw useful learnings and conclusions! There is no place for secret ambition and agenda on the part of one nation, as we have seen in the case of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

DR KUA KIA SOONG is Suaram adviser.