Gelett Burgess’ 1895 poem “Purple Cow” allows
“I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one,
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one!”
And I never saw a nuclear explosion, I never hope to see one.
The significance of atomic fission — a milestone in world history — during the lifetime of family and friends is unfathomable:
Albert Einstein sent a telegram to prominent Americans, in May 1946, focused upon the conundrum that “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our thinking. Thus, we are drifting toward catastrophe beyond conception. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.”
Einstein had written President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 anticipating that the day would come. “I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two thirds of the people of the earth might be killed, but enough men capable of thinking, and enough books, would be left to start again, and civilization could be restored.” What world would that one third surviving inherit should two thirds of humankind perish? (Einstein apparently never imagined the megatonnage and number of nuclear warheads amassed since 1945.)
Einstein observed elsewhere that “Mankind invented the atomic bomb, but no mouse would ever construct a mousetrap.”
Nuclear warfare poses an existential issue of the greatest magnitude. One cannot obsess over the threat, unable to enjoy life and living. Consequences intrude nonetheless.
Extensive exploration of the topic has ensued over the eighty years since the Manhattan Project, including John Hersey’s “Hiroshima,” Lesley Blume’s “Fallout,” Annie Jacobsen’s “Nuclear War,” and the film “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”
Firsthand accounts of enduring the explosion and its aftermath have evaded readers. One has existed for seventy years without the éclat of Primo Levi’s “Survival in Auschwitz” explaining his incarceration in a Nazi death camp:
Dr. Michihiko Hachiya’s “The Doctor of Hiroshima” was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1955. Revised translations followed in 1983 and 1995. A fourth version, amending earlier editions, recently released.
Dr. Hachiya’s story is recommended to anyone interested in existential issues. It will especially engage medical professionals, people serving in the military, and veterans.
Who would not be intrigued is beyond me: The story is as affecting as anything that I have read:
Dr. Hachiya was at home with his wife when the first bomb exploded over Hiroshima — three days before the second bomb exploded over Nagasaki. The two were injured and admitted as patients in the hospital where Dr. Hachiya practiced.
Hiroshima was devastated, reducing the number of beds and hospitals; not to mention housing. A number of doctors died. Dr. Hachiya became a patient and treating physician: He was not injured so seriously that he could not aid survivors inhabiting the hospital in which he recovered.
“The Doctor of Hiroshima” is constructed around Dr. Hachiya’s diary entries between Monday August 6, 1945 — the day that the first atomic bomb was dropped — and Sunday September 30, 1945.
Initially no one knew the nature of the device devastating Hiroshima. The etiology of subsequent illness and deaths gradually revealed itself. Radiation sickness had never been experienced. Readers gain insights as events unfold daily.
One is effectively present, which is why the book is commended without hesitation.
Detonation over Hiroshima and Nagasaki — an atomic bomb’s first use on a civilian population — is inexplicable. Dr. Hichiya’s firsthand observations hammer home sobering realities.
No one can complete Dr. Hichiya’s account unaffected.
Though I have never seen a nuclear explosion and never hope to see one, my instincts are better prepared for what to expect and do, should the unthinkable occur, after reading “The Doctor of Hiroshima” — as well as surviving any natural disaster or act of terrorism.
“The Doctor of Hiroshima” is a landmark account of a watershed event in human history, demanding everyone’s attention.
Jay Wiener is a Northsider
