August 6, Plus 1

The survivors of the Hiroshima attack woke on August 7 to the horrific aftermath of an A-Bomb explosion. According the military records published by Wikipedia some 80,000 people or almost 30% of the population of Hiroshima at the time, were killed by the blast and resultant firestorm and another 70,000 were injured. U.S. surveys further estimated that 4.7 square miles of the city were destroyed with few standing buildings left in the impact zone.

Most of the dead were civilians, who had ignored the warning leaflets.

The USA has always claimed that the attack saved the lives of our troops, since the Imperial troops had been defending Okinawa and Iwo Jima with suicidal ferocity and the Empire still held onto vast territories throughout Asia.

Nothing had prepared the world for Hiroshima, but on August 7 Dr. Yoshio Nishina and other atomic physicists came to the conclusion that the USA had no more than two more bombs and that the Empire should sustain the losses and continue the war.

Two days later Nagasaki changed the mind of the Emperor and Hirohito announced the war was lost.

Forever, especially for the dead.

Nagasaki Plus One Month 1945

This rare photo of the Hiroshima mushroom cloud was taken on August 6, 1945. The Hiroshima bombing claimed approximately 120,000 lives and the subsequent leveling of Nagasaki annihilated 80,000. The US military strategists have long held that these two attacks saved over a million US troops by forcing the Japanese Empire to surrender to the Allies.

Over the years the various atomic powers have conducted nearly 2000 explosions.

Only two were on populated targets; Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

During my youth Uncle Russ told his nieces and nephews that he had been ready to parachute into Japan, when a flash appeared over the enemy's home island. The airborne troops watched the mushroom cloud consume Hiroshima. The pilot returned to base.

That how the story stood for years.

My brothers and sisters knew it wasn't true, but we loved our affable uncle's story and the idea of his being poised to invade Japan by air. I thought he was a hero.

The truth took its time coming and last year on Watchic Pond my uncle explained that after the Armistice he had been stationed to Nagasaki. It had been bombed three days after Hiroshima with the same result.

“One day a B-29 bomber caught fire in flight. Nine parachutes appeared in the sky. The bomber lose altitude and crashed into a nearby mountain. We searched for the four officers left on the plane. The aluminum fuselage had been melted by the fire. The only human remains we found was a half a skull. One of the sergeants said that the B-29 normally carried a crew of 11. Two more survivors should have floated to safety. No one ever heard any more of that story.”

Uncle Russ paused for a long moment.

"We headed into the city. "Everything was gone. Sometimes you'd see someone wandering in the streets, but there was nothing there and I saw shadows on the walls. They used to be people. I was 19 years old.

Uncle Russ never said more about those wasted cities.

People from wars rarely tell stories.

At least ones that are true.

My Mirror Image

Early last Thursday evening I was walking east on Houston Street towards Whole Foods. A tropical high had wandered up the Eastern Seaboard and a sweltering heat dome swarmed over the city. I sweat from every pore and my mind was sapped of every thought by this demonic weather. So lost in a haze I strolled past the supermarket. As I approached Katz's Deli, I thought, "Damn , I walked past Whole Foods."

I stood pole-axed, as if heat-stroked, and pondered, if I should eat a Katz' hot dog. Hot dog buyers don't have to wait in line. Certainly not as healthy a choice as Whole Foods. A young white bare-chested jogger striding down the busy sidewalk at a pace slightly faster than the surrounding throngs. A lean body physically honed from running. I had been a midle-distancce runner in high school sixty years ago. I still was capable of outrunning most of my compatriots.

The young man. Fit. His chest shaven. Sweaty. Earphones. Head down. His hooded eyes straight ahead. His path vectored to where I stood and he clearly had no intention of altering his course. The young man stopped before me inches from my chest. I stood my ground and took off my sunglasses. His eyes clear. Not a druggie.

An impasse and I asked, "Which way are you going?"

"Straight ahead." He wanted me to step aside.

"I'm not moving." Not a chance. I was equally obdurate, yet the young man posed no threat.

Oedipus had slain his father over the right of way in the Greek myths. Most nations' right of way presently drive vehicles according on the right. In warrior castes yielding the left displayed no threat. Not so the English. Their knights rode to left, their sword in hand with menace at the ready. It was too hot for a continued confrontation.

I pointed right. We both slid to our right, then I recognized him. Not personally, but that I also don't give way on the sidewalk to pedestrians blinded with their eyes on cell phone. I stop in their path. They are startled to find me before them. I knew this jogger. He was me. A younger version. A thirtyish doppelganger. I called to him.

He turned around ready to accelerate the confrontation. I introduced myself.

"Do you do that often? Because I do."

His surprised expression revealed that he does it all the time. Same as me.

"What's your name?"

"Edward."

I motioned for Edward to step our of the foot traffic to the nearest building and we discussed our reasons for confronting mindless strollers with the phones in their hands.

"It never goes to blows, maybe because they know they are in the wrong, as am I seeking to be a 'Karen' policing the public right of way."

The two of us were in accord. He was caring for his failing mother in Harlem. We were both half-Irish. I offered him a hot dog. He was a vegan. Edward ran an online business selling legit skate wear from China.

In the early 2000s I operated the # 1 website for F1 Racing gear on the internet. F1-shopping.net. I spoke about having crossed over in 2022 from a fatal illness and eternity. We both had lives apart from people. We were both of us 'us' and recognized the each other in each other and parted with a hug. A good guy and I look forward to the next time our mirror images should cross paths.

ps I skipped the hot dog. Maybe next time.

From Goggle AI

F1-shopping.net was a popular third-party online retailer from the mid-2000s that sold replica motorsport and AMG team jackets, but it quietly shut down years ago as official licensing clamped down and Formula 1 centralized its ecommerce__the thieves__

Nagasaki Day 2025 Gaza Now

The day after Hiroshima Japanese scientists returned to Tokyo and informed the Imperial Cabinet that the bomb had been atomic. The Army possessed intelligence that the US possessed two to three more bombs and they as samurai should fight to the bitter end to satisfy the bushi dignity of war. THe US received no message from the Japanese about peace negotiations. On August 9, 1945 the Bockscar B-29 was loaded with a Fat Man on Tinian Island and flew north from Tinian Island with escorts to Kokura, a large source of munitions.. That ancient fotress city was shrouded by a morning fog and the bomber proceeded to thhe secondary target, Nagasaki, an industrial center on the southern island of Kyoshu.

At 11:01 the clouds cleared beneath the bomber and the second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of over 200,000 people. The explosion cupped by the hills surrounding Nagasaki intensifying the destruction. The US reported 60,000. Mostly workers and civilians. Only one hundred and fifty soldiers died on the ground.

On August 9, the Imperial Cabinet met to discuss surrender. The Imperial Army argued against capitulation. The Emperor had the final say. As long as Kokutai or Japanese sovereignty could be preserved, he realized that surrender was the only honorable way out of this war without asking his people to die rather than accept defeat. Truman was bound to drop more bombs as they began available. The next for August 19. The Emperor accepted reality.

"Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization."

After announcing the cessation of war, die-hard militarists staged a coup. Their insurrection failed and peace has reigned in Japan from 1945 to 2026. Eighty-one years. But not so for the USA, trapped as the world's superpower in Endless Wars everywhere in the world, especially in Gaza, where the Azraelis have killed over 300,000 Palestinians in revenge for the twelve hundred dead from Hamas' October 6, 2021 Attack. And they aren't stopping yet or in Syria or Yemen or the West Bank. And Azrael has yet to use a Nuclear Bomb. Of curse they can't, since they are basically bombing that which they want for themselves. Judah, and secondly Zion does not possess a nuclear bomb.

One day there will be peace.

Uncle Russ' Invasion of Japan - October 1945

Throughout our childhood in Maine and the South Shore of Boston, my Uncle Russell Gray told a story about almost parachuting out of a US Air Force plane on August 6. The tale ended with the jumpers seeing the mushroom cloud rising over the city. It wasn't true, but all stories are true, if interesting.

In actuality Uncle Russ had enlisted upon graduating from U Maine that spring and had been processed through the Fort Williams in South Portland. He completed his infantry training in Georgia, then was transported across country by train to San Francisco and shipped west to Japan. Today I asked about those particulars and Russ said that the troop transport had docked in Nagasaki late October 1945, more than two months after the second bombing, but immediately he and his fellow soldiers headed north to Honshu, where he spent the next year. At 98 his memory is a crystal radio signal from another century.

Two years ago Jack Haven recorded his VDO in Marblehead at Fort Edgecomb.

Another telling of the same story.

From a true New Englander.

225 US Steel Jobs In Gary

Throughout the end of the last century tens of thousands of workers were employed in the Indiana mills and ancillary jobs of supply and service. I recall driving through Gary past midnight in 1973. The flames of the blast flames lit the night sky. The jobs were shipped out of the country to cut labor costs. The price of steel never went down. The poverty rose throughout tge mill towns. 225 jobs ain't ____

Hiroshima Plus One Month 1945

This rare photo of the Hiroshima mushroom cloud was taken on August 6, 1945. The Hiroshima bombing claimed approximately 120,000 lives and the subsequent leveling of Nagasaki annihilated 80,000. The US military strategists have long held that these two attacks saved over a million US troops by forcing the Japanese Empire to surrender to the Allies.

My uncle Russ had passd through Hiroshima on his way to a US Army assignment in Nagasaki.

"Everything was gone. There was nothing left. Sometimes you'd see someone wandering in the streets, but there was nothing there."

Everyone else had been turned into shadows.