: Hiroshima & Nagasaki

Exploding Trinity with the Atom: an Eve of the Prophesied Destruction by Fire?

America's use of incendiary bombs to burn large areas of 66 Japanese cities, burning 178 square miles of buildings and killing more than 1 million Japanese civilians, concerned many of America's first nuclear scientists. Japan was suing for peace, but the Russian army was advancing across Manchuria with the stated aim of entering the war against Japan on August 8. The President did not want to divide the spoils as he had in Germany, waiting for Russia to meet the Americans in Berlin and divide control of the country. Unwilling to negotiate anything but unconditional immediate surrender, the President chose to tear at the fabric of creation, using two new types of weapons of mass destruction developed by the Manhattan Project the first of which was unleashed in an explosion code named Trinity at Alamogordo (similar sounding to Armageddon) in the New Mexico desert. The second and third persons of this unholy Trinity were Fat Man, named after Winston Churchill, sent by airmail with prayers and blessings of both Lutheran and Catholic chaplains, dropped on Hiroshima on August 6 and Little Boy dropped on Nagasaki on August 9. Neither of these cities had been targeted in previous bombings.

: Uranium

The most common radioactive element on earth is uranium-238, which makes up about 99 percent of the planet's uranium, has a half-life of about 4.5 billion years. The United States has extracted 60 million tons of ore for weapons from 400 mines. Uranium-238 does not sustain a fission chain reaction and must be modified in a nuclear reactor to U-235, the fuel for the Hiroshima bomb, made and separated at labs in Oak Ridge, Tennessee during World War II.

: Plutonium, Element of the God of the Dead

In 1941, a University of California chemist, Glenn Seaborg had created an element with an even bigger potential for explosive power than U-235. Since the previously discovered uranium had taken its name from Uranus and neptunium from Neptune, Seaborg named his discovery plutonium: after the planet Pluto, the Greek god of the dead. Fuel rods of uranium were irradiated in Hanford reactors to make about a dime-sized button of plutonium out of each two tons of fuel. Plutonium was then extracted by dissolving the fuel rods in acid and isolating the plutonium in a complex, messy series of steps which has released 467 million curies of radiation into the environment of the Northwest region. The plutonium in the Trinity, a sphere about the size of an apple, was made in Washington's secret city of Hanford by 51,000 workers over a period of 27 months.

At 5:29:45 a.m. Trinity released the equivalent of 18,600 tons of TNT, producing four times the heat inside the sun with a pressure of 100 billion atmospheres. Windows broke 120 miles away. Local residents were told that an ordinary weapons depot had exploded. The artificial dawn of the Atomic Age flashed visibly 250 miles away. Since then, enough money has been spent on such technology to have rebuilt every road and building in America. By October 1961, one year before the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union had developed the King of Bombs: Tsar Bomba, with 6,500 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb.

As Trinity exploded, Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoted Hindu scripture "I am become death, the shatterer of worlds." The scientists then passed around a bottle of whiskey. "Now we are all sons of bitches," said Trinity director Kenneth Bainbridge as he watched the column of fire and dust climb seven miles into the sky. 13 seconds after the bomb ignited, reports Physicist Joe McKibben who made the final connections for detination before retiring to a bunker 2 miles away, "I ran out and took a look at it. It was a big ball of fire, brilliantly colored and highly turbulent. The color was somewhere between red and purple."

The tower holding the device vaporized, and the sand beneath it fused to a green glass now called Trinitite. Today, despite massive cleanup and the small power of the bomb by present standards, the Trinity site is still 10 times above background radiation levels. No radiation is safe.

Two bombs dropped in August. Three more were ready in September. Seven were due by December. Two hundred were in the stockpile by 1949. In less than three years, the United States had built an industrial atomic-bomb complex as big as its entire automobile industry. Before the Cold War ended, about 70,000 nuclear warheads were stockpiled worldwide. Atmospheric testing released fallout equivalent to 40,000 Hiroshimas. The nuclear waste will cost hundreds of billions of dollars and at least another 50 years to clean up. At one Russian warehouse enough plutonium to make 20 bombs has been missing since the 1950s. Other bombs designed to fit in a suitcase are also missing.

Truman chooses to risk ending the world by fire according to prophesy

Harry S. Truman, Diary, July 25, 1945

"We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.

Anyway we "think" we have found the way to cause a disintegration of the atom. An experiment in the New Mexico desert was startling - to put it mildly. Thirteen pounds of the explosive caused the complete disintegration of a steel tower 60 feet high, created a crater 6 feet deep and 1,200 feet in diameter, knocked over a steel tower 1/2 mile away and knocked men down 10,000 yards away. The explosion was visible for more than 200 miles and audible for 40 miles and more.

This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital [Kyoto] or the new [Tokyo, already burnt to the ground by firebombing].

He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives [issued after Hiroshima]. I'm sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance."

Truman quoted in Robert H. Ferrell, Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman (New York: Harper and Row, 1980) pp. 55-56.

Hiroshima: Mistaken or Misrepresented as a Military Base

Truman Speech, August 9, 1945 (excerpt)

In a radio speech to the nation on August 9, 1945, President Truman called Hiroshima "a military base." Either he was not aware that Hiroshima was a city or he was being untruthful about the nature of the target.

Truman delivered his speech from the White House at 10 P.M. Washington time on August 9, 1945. By this time, a second atomic bomb already had destroyed the city of Nagasaki.

He said "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians."

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, Containing the Public Messages, Speeches and Statements of the President April 12 to December 31, 1945 (Washington D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1961) page 212. The full text also was published in the New York Times, August 10, 1945, page 12.

Official order is to bomb cities

Source: U.S. National Archives, Record Group 77, Records of the Office of the Chief of Engineers, Manhattan Engineer District, TS Manhattan Project File '42 to '46, Folder 5B "(Directives, Memos, Etc. to and from C/S, S/W, etc.)."

The order to drop atomic bombs on Japanese cities was drafted by General Groves. President Truman and Secretary of War Stimson approved the order at Potsdam. The order makes no mention of military targets or sparing civilians. The cities were the targets.

TOP SECRET
DECLASSIFIED
E.O. 11652, Secs 3(E) and 5(D) or (E)
NND 730039
By ERC NARS, Date 6-4-74

25 July 1945

TO:

General Carl Spaatz
Commanding General
United States Army Strategic Air Forces

1. The 509 Composite Group, 20th Air Force will deliver its first special bomb as soon as weather will permit visual bombing after about 3 August 1945 on one of the
targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki. To carry military and civilian scientific personnel from the War Department to observe and record the effects of the
explosion of the bomb, additional aircraft will accompany the airplane carrying the bomb. The observing planes will stay several miles distant from the point of impact of the
bomb.

2. Additional bombs will be delivered on the above targets as soon as made ready by the project staff. Further instructions will be issued concerning targets other than
those listed above.

3. Discussion of any and all information concerning the use of the weapon against Japan is reserved to the Secretary of War and the President of the United States. No communiques on the subject or releases of information will be issued by Commanders in the field without specific prior authority. Any news stories will be sent to the War
Department for specific clearance.

4. The foregoing directive is issued to you by direction and with the approval of the Secretary of War and of the Chief of Staff, USA. It is desired that you personally
deliver one copy of this directive to General MacArthur and one copy to Admiral Nimitz for their information.

(Sgd) THOS. T. HANDY
THOS. T. HANDY
General, G.S.C.
Acting Chief of Staff

copy for General Groves

TOP SECRET

A War Crime?

Stamped with a postage stamp "just to make it legal" by a Postmaster in Honolulu (caught on film) and sent express mail by Boeing B-29, Little Boy delivered Hiroshima with the equivalent of 16,000 tons of TNT, while Fat Man delivered 22,000 to Nagasaki. Nagasaki was a secondary target, hit because Kokura, the primary target was covered by clouds that morning.

Nagasaki was home to the largest church in the Orient, St. Mary's Cathedral, as well as the largest population of Catholics in Japan. In 1549, Francis Xavier established a mission there which grew until the onset of Imperial persecution in the early 1600s when Catholicity became a crime punishable by crucifixion. For 250 years, the faith community, thought to have been destroyed, functioned underground without benefit of any priests or contact with Rome. In the 1850s, the gunboat diplomacy of Commodore Perry forced open a small island for American trade purposes and it was discovered that there were still thousands of Catholics in Nagasaki, living their faith in a catacomb existence, completely unknown to the government, which immediately started another purge. Because of international pressure, the persecutions were short-lived this time, and the Nagasaki faithful were able to practice openly again. By 1917 they had built the massive St. Mary's Cathedral in the Urakami River Valley district. St. Mary's Cathedral was one of the landmarks that the bombardier had been briefed on. Looking through the bomb site, he identified St. Mary's, ordered the drop by the all Christian crew, and at 11:02 am, Nagasaki's Catholic community was vaporized in a radioactive fireball. That is how the Japanese Catholics became ground zero. What Japanese Imperialism couldn't accomplish in 250 years of persecution, American Christians did in 9 seconds: the entire faith community of Nagasaki was gone.

The Catholic chaplain for the 509th Composite Group (the 1500 man Army Air Force group whose only job was delivering the atomic bombs) was Father George Zabelka, who several decades later saw his grave theological error in religiously legitimating the mass slaughter that is modern war. He finally recognized that the enemies of a nation were not the enemies of God, but rather children of God whom God loved, and whom we should also love. Fr. Zabelka's conversion led him to devote the remaining decades of his life speaking out against violence, especially the violence of militarism. The Lutheran chaplain, William Downey, in his counseling of soldiers who were troubled by the immorality of the bomb, also later came to denounce all killing, whether by a single bullet or by a weapon of mass destruction.

Between 115,000 and 340,000 people were killed in the two cities, including deaths from cancer caused by radiation. This is more than the total Japanese military deaths from all other U.S. military action in World War II combined, although Japanese civilian deaths numbered more than 1 million from firebombing of 66 Japanese cities. In all, 40 million people died in World War II, the largest concentration being Catholics in Eastern Europe.

Dr. Leo Szilard is a Hungarian-born physicist who helped persuade President Roosevelt to launch the A-bomb project and who had a major share in it. In 1945 he was a key figure among the scientists opposing use of the bomb.

Dr. Leo Szilard said in a U.S. News & World Report interview in 1960 "Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?"

"President Truman Did Not Understand,"
U.S. News & World Report, August 15, 1960, pages 68-71.

A Miracle?

Hiroshima and Nagasaki contained Japan's two largest concentrations of Catholics. The Emperor needed a worthy sacrifice to save face in conceding defeat. Thousands were martyred in this contract between the Emperor and the President of the United States in these, the second and third attacks, first the vain attack on the namesake of the Trinity, Himself, and then on His people. An image of a crucifix was seen in the mushroom cloud.

While so many were vaporized and many others suffered the agony of radiation sickness and cancer, those who prayed the Rosary suffered no injury or ill effects and even their house was spared. Eight Jesuit Priests living eight blocks from ground zero in Hiroshima were unharmed while everyone else in a radius of 1.5 Km from the center was killed and the buildings completely destroyed. Father Huber Schiffer, one of the eight priests, told the Eucharistic Congress of Philadelphia in 1976, when all eight members were alive and well, that 200 scientists had carried out investigations for several years in search of any scientific explanation. He told them that there was only one thing that made their house different than the others: They recited the Holy Rosary Prayer every day by living the message of Our Lady of Fatima, the Queen of the Universe. She is Queen of the Angels, and minerals, like Plutonium and Uranium are ultimately the expression of Angels. Man can only hold dominion over them to the extent and in the ways allowed by the Father, our Creator, in His divine plan.

Some history of the most powerful weapon of them all:

Pope Puis IX 1849

"Among the devotions aproved by the Church none have been so Favored by so many miracles as the Holy Rosary."

St. Bernard

"The Hail Mary puts the devil to flight and causes Hell to Tremble with terror."

St. Francis De la Salles (Doctor of the Church)

"The best method of prayer is the Holy Rosary if you Say it well."

Pope Benedict

"People who pray the Rosary are appealing to the Mother of Mercy and so merciful is She, that She's inclined to aid spontaneously, those who suffer. She is absolutely incapable of refusing help to those who invoke Her.

Pope St. Puis V

"The Holy Rosary was given to the Faithful in order that they might have spiritual peace and consolation more easily."

Heresy defeated against 50:1 odds

In the thirteenth century the Albigensian heresy threatened to control the Catholic Church. At the request of the Pope, the Christians of north France organized a crusade for the defense of the Faith. St. Dominic propagated the Rosary and at the Battle of Muret, near Toulouse, on September 12, 1213 some 2,000 Catholic soldiers vanquished the Albigensian army of 100,000. Simon of Montfort, head of the Crusaders' army, did not hesitate to attribute the victory to Our Lady of the Rosary.

Battle of Lepanto saves Europe

When Moslems threatened to overtake Europe from the East in 1571, a Catholic fleet commanded by John of Austria, son of Charles V and brother of Philip II, headed towards the Near East. It was the wish of the Holy Father, Pope St. Pius V, that each combatant be provided with a Rosary and that he promise to recite it in order to obtain the protection of Mary. On Sunday, October 7, the Catholic and Turkish fleets met in Lepanto Gulf, off the coast of Greece. The battle finished with a brilliant victory for the Catholics and an end to the naval power of the Turks, saving European culture as we know it. That very evening St. Pius V at Rome had a clear knowledge of the success.

Unexplained Russian Withdrawal

Austria was occupied by the Russians in 1945, at the end of the Second World War. In 1954 one of the supreme heads of Russia declared: "That which we occupy we shall never abandon." Austria has about ten million inhabitants. One million of them, with Chancellor Figl at the head, promised to recite the Rosary every day. On May 13, 1955, the anniversary day of the first apparition at Fatima, the Russians decided to leave Austria.

Therese Neuman, the stigmatized German mystic who was nourished by the Blessed Sacrament alone for ten years, said a short time before her death: "Certainly it was the prayers and the Rosaries of the Austrian people which merited its liberation."

In September 1972, an Austrian bishop, speaking more than 30,000 religious and lay people on the 25th Anniversary of the Reparation Rosary, declared: "Just as Austria was freed from the Communist yoke by the fervent recitation of the Rosary, it will be in like manner by the arm of the Rosary that the world will be freed from the present assaults of the devil and his associates."

Brazil saved from Marxism

In 1964 Brazil was on the verge of complete communist control with organized cells infiltrating every aspect of the country. The contra-revolutionary high command anticipated at least three months of bitter fighting. 200,000 people started praying the Rosary, and then, suddenly the whole military organization collapsed without a drop of blood being shed.

Pax Christi in the Philippines

When the Philippines was at a flash-point in February 1986 at the end of the Marcos regime, the citizens came out by the thousands on the vast avenue known as Epifanio de los Santos (Epiphany of the Saints) and faced tanks and soldiers of the Dictator’s army armed with flowers, sandwiches, statues, rosary beads, crosses and smiles. Orders were given to fire tanks on the crowds in the street outside the palace. Simultaneously, all the tank gunners saw the "most beautiful lady they had ever seen" directly in their gun-sights and could not follow their orders to fire. As a result, Marcos quickly left the country and a major tragedy was avoided. This event is now celebrated every year and a statue of Our Lady was erected on the spot.

By the recitation of the Rosary, Our Lady gives us true liberty and peace.