Hiroshima by John Hersey
”Others were of the opinion that in total war, as carried on in Japan, there was no difference between civilians and soldiers, and that the bomb itself was an effective force tending to end the bloodshed, warning Japan to surrender and thus to avoid total destruction. It seems logical that he who supports total war in principal cannot complain of a war against civilians. The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good might result? When will our moralists give us a clear answer to this question?” - Hiroshima Page 117-118
Every year on August 6, the anniversary of the first use of the atomic bomb in human warfare in 1945, I read the book Hiroshima by John Hersey. I’ve read the book too many times to count at this point, but each time I read it, I can’t quite wrap my head around everything that happens in the book. I read it for the first time when I was in high school, around 1976. It was only 31 years after the bomb had been dropped but as teenagers do, I saw this as ancient history. Something so far from me that it might as well have been the Civil War. 1945 is now 81 years ago, but still, these stories and memories move me.
John Hersey does not write a political book or a technical book or a moralizing book, but instead a deeply human book. The story of Hiroshima is told through the stories of five survivors of very different backgrounds and outcomes. You develop deep empathy by seeing their everyday lives, their families, their choices. You see heroism in their selfless actions helping others after a catastrophe the proportions of which you and I can’t possibly know and hopefully won’t ever know.
Hersey takes you from the moments right before 8:15 A.M. on August 6, 1945 through the detonation of the bomb, the subsequent bombing of Nagasaki, the surrender of Japan and the one year anniversary.
It’s not a book for the squeamish. Hersey pulls no punches describing the physical wreckage, the carnage and the psychological trauma suffered by those at Hiroshima. And by extension, you will come away from reading this book with certain images seared into your mind the way that images of people vaporized at the moment of detonation were forever imprinted on the surfaces right below them.
This is a book everyone should read. It’s a humanizing experience.
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