Humanity
Words, voices and images: Connecting to cultures around the world
“In Australia the British test sites were located at Montebello Islands (three tests) and Emu Field (two tests), Maralinga (7 tests). There were numerous other smaller tests (around 700) in Australia including one called Vixen B, which spread deadly and long-lived plutonium at Maralinga”.
Duration
Director
Cinematography
NOTE: The French Government were actively testing nuclear weapons at Mururoa and Fangataufa in the period 1966 to 1996. The number of tests may have been as high as 181. There were 41 atmospheric tests at Mururoa to 1974.
NOTE: Montebello Islands and Barrow Island were the Australian Continent's equivalent of the Galapagos Islands.
NOTE: While the United States conducted around 1054 nuclear tests in the period 1945 to 1992 some tests were conducted on home soil. The United States conducted 105 atmospheric and underwater tests in its ‘Pacific Proving Grounds’ including the Marshall Islands and particularly its Bikini Atoll. The Marshall Island tests included Bravo, which was one thousand times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Apart from the terrible consequences for nature from these tests, thousands of people across the region were exposed to nuclear fallout.
Our thanks to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. Boy standing at crematory, Nagasaki 1945. Photo Joe O'Donnell
We stand in this place with deep sadness in our hearts for this war and all wars. Sadness made worse because we know deep in our hearts that nothing has been learnt.
“We must not allow any more war. Nor the use of atomic weapons. Let us guard our precious green earth and preserve all life of every kind. We erect this (memorial) relief still hearing the bursting cries that day of each of those women long silenced in death. Bringing together all the turmoil from the depths of their tortured hearts and minds. We pledge ourselves never to repeat that disaster”.
“We must not allow any more war. Nor the use of atomic weapons. Let us guard our precious green earth and preserve all life of every kind. We erect this (memorial) relief still hearing the bursting cries that day of each of those women long silenced in death. Bringing together all the turmoil from the depths of their tortured hearts and minds. We pledge ourselves never to repeat that disaster”.
Nagasaki: A matter of chance?
An atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki on 9 August 1945 at 11.02am, just three days after the first explosion of an atomic bomb in war over Hiroshima. The Nagasaki bomb was assembled on Tinian Island on 6 August. On 8 August, Field Order no 17 issued from the 20th US Air Force Headquarters on Guam called for the bomb to be exploded the following day, at either Kokura, the primary target, or Nagasaki, which was the secondary and lately selected target. That same day the Soviet Union declared war on Japan.
The B-29 bomber Bockscar reached the sky over Kokura on the morning of 9 August but abandoned the primary target because of smoke cover and changed course for Nagasaki, where it dropped the bomb at 11.02 in the morning.
“The citizens of the atomic bombed city welcomed the President (Obama) with respect and the President embraced hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) and shook hands with the youth. I believe that the President's visit has demonstrated that we can create peace by establishing emotional bonds among each other and spreading the circle of trust”. Tomihisa Taue, Mayor of Nagasaki, September 2016.
“Nagasaki must be the last place exposed to an atomic bomb”.
This fire tower was standing on a hill in the former Hamaguchi-machi, about 250 metres to the east of the hypocentre. The tremendous blast generated by the atomic bomb explosion (about 360 metres per second at that point) bent the supporting frames at the base.
At the Fuchi Primary School, about 1.2 kilometers from the hypocentre, the wooden parts of school walls were carbonised by the ferocious heat from the atomic blast.
The Urakami district of Nagasaki was the centre of Christian missionary work commenced in the 16th century. The people of Urakami were long persecuted for their beliefs until the ban on Christianity was lifted in 1873. By 1914 Urakami’s Christian community had completed the building of the grandest Christian Cathedral in East Asia. Over the following decade two 26 metre spires were added to the building. The Cathedral was 500 metres to the north-east of the hypocentre, the atomic blast destroyed both spires and turned the cathedral into a hollow shell.
Count down to the Nagasaki atomic bomb
- May 5, 1943 The Japanese fleet at Truk Bay is proposed as a possible atomic bomb target at a meeting of the Military Policy Committee.
- September 18, 1944 President Franklin D Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill agree at a meeting in Hyde Park that the atomic bomb should be used against Japan.
- December 17, 1944 The 20th Air Force 509th Mixed Air Force Battalion is organised to prepare for the use of the atomic bomb against Japan.
- December 30, 1944 Brigadier General Leslie R Groves states that the atomic bomb should be ready by August 1, 1945.
- April 27, 1945 At the first meeting of the target committee seventeen Japanese cities are selected as possible targets for the atomic bomb; Tokyo Bay, Kawasaki, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Kure, Yahata, Kokura, Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi, Kumamoto, Fukuoka, Nagasaki and Sasebo.
- May 7, 1945 Germany surrenders unconditionally
- May 10, 1945 At the second meeting of the target committee a shortlist of four target cities are selected; Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama and Kokura Arsenal.
- May 28, 1945 At the third meeting of the target committee just three cities are selected as possible targets for the atomic bomb; Kyoto, Hiroshima and Niigata.
- May 30, 1945 Kyoto is taken from the list of targets on the advice of the Secretary of war Henry L Stimson.
- May 31, 1945 The Interim Committee, responsible for studying the various issues related to the atomic bombings agrees that the bombs should be used against Japan without prior warning.
- June 11, 1945 The Franck Committee submits a report warning about the dangers of a nuclear arms race following the end of the war.
- July 16, 1945 The world’s first atomic bomb explodes at the US test site in Alamogordo in the desert of New Mexico.
- July 17, 1945 The Potsdam Conference begins and 69 scientists protest the use of the atomic bomb in a letter to President Harry S Truman. The letter emphasises the moral issues and responsibilities involved in the use of weapons of mass destruction.
- July 18, 1945 Japan submits a request to the Soviet Union for peace arbitration.
- July 20, 1945 The first day of bombing practice in preparation for the use of atomic bombs on Japan, using pumpkin bombs on cities near Hiroshima, Kyoto, Kokura and Niigata.
- July 23, 1945 Hiroshima, Kokura and Niigata are mentioned as atomic bomb targets in a telegram from George L Harrison to Henry L Stimson.
- July 24, 1945 Nagasaki is added to the list of targets in Brigadier General Leslie R Groves’ order for the atomic bombing. President Truman informs Joseph Stalin about the development of the atom bomb.
- July 25, 1945 President Truman approves the order for the atomic bombings.
- July 26, 1945 The Potsdam Declaration is issued.
- July 31, 1945 The first atomic bomb is assembled on Tinian Island. Air Force Headquarters in Guam reports the presence of a prisoner of war camp at Nagasaki. No change is made to the directive.
- August 2, 1945 A strategic order is issued for the first atomic bombing on 6 August, Hiroshima is selected as the primary target.
- August 6, 1945 The Enola Gay leaves Tinian Island with its atomic bomb, which is dropped on Hiroshima at 8.15am.
- August 7, 1945 President Truman states in a report to the Potsdam Conference, that the atom bomb was used to shorten the agony of war and to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.
- August 8, 1945 The second bomb is loaded on to a B-29 bomber. The 20th Air Force Headquarters in Guam issue Field Order no 17. The primary target is Kokura Arsenal and city. The secondary target is the Nagasaki urban area. The Soviet Union declares war on Japan.
- August 9, 1945 At 11.02am an atomic bomb, Fatman (plutonium 239), explodes over Nagasaki, just three days after the first atomic bomb, Little Boy (uranium 235), used in war explodes over Hiroshima.
Blast
Wooden houses within a kilometre of the hypocentre were completely destroyed. Some concrete buildings remained standing as empty shells. The buildings all collapsed in one direction as the blast radiated outward from the hypocentre. People were blasted against walls and bodies penetrated by the millions of fragments of glass, steel and concrete, bullet like as they tore through the air.
Heat
In the area near the hypocentre, everything that was combustible caught fire, glass melted, ceramic roof tiles bubbled and rocks turned black. People, animals and plants also combusted. Although the temperature decreased with distance, clothing, telephone poles and trees two kilometres from the hypocentre were scorched or burnt. The surface of concrete melted and formed beads of glass. Ceramic plates and bottles were fused together. Human heads were fused to their helmets.
Fire
The heat generated by the atom bomb created spot fires distant from the hypocentre. These fires joined to become a massive fire, which burnt one third of the City of Nagasaki. The Nagasaki Prefecture Office, 3.3 kilometres from the hypocentre, caught fire at 12.30 pm. Soon the adjacent neighbourhood was ashes. The south-westerly wind that had fuelled the fire had calmed by 6pm. The firestorm ended at around midnight.
Shadow
The blocking of light creates shadows. The heat generated by the atomic bomb did this too, the surfaces exposed directly to heat rays burned and changed colour while the unexposed areas retain their original colour, creating shadow like images. The moment the bomb exploded, at 11.02am, life in Nagasaki came to an end, frozen as shadows on walls.
People
The radiation released by the explosion of the atomic bomb penetrated human bodies and destroyed cell tissues. The extent of these injuries depended on the radiation dose. But most of the population of Nagasaki within 1 kilometre of the hypocentre died. This included people without external injuries. The damage caused by the atomic bomb did not end after the impact of the explosion had faded. The radiation from the bomb caused internal injuries creating a range of diseases and symptoms. These injuries, inflicted in the August of 1945, continue to cause suffering.
Radiation disorders in the acute phase appeared immediately after the bombing. Symptoms were particularly severe among survivors close to the hypocentre. Disorders included nausea, diarrhoea, fever, subcutaneous haemorrhage and stomatitis. The health of this group continued to deteriorate after the bombing and most died after one week.
Hair loss was a common symptom among survivors of the blast appearing one week after the radiation event and peaking at three weeks after the event. Hair grew back after eight to ten weeks.
Atomic bomb cataracts appeared at around 10 months after exposure. The incidence of cataracts was higher the closer the individual to the hypocentre. Cataracts are usually associated with age but atomic bomb cataracts appeared in people of all ages.
Radiation also impacted pregnant women and their unborn children. Miscarriages and stillbirths were frequent as were cases of microcephaly. Cases of microcephaly were most common among children who had been exposed to the radiation of the bomb blast with a gestational age of less than 16 weeks at the time of the blast. Children born after the blast suffered numerous illnesses including atomic bomb cataracts.
Cancers are associated with radiation, incidents of Leukaemia peaked in 1951, six years after the bombing. Younger people became ill with Leukaemia more quickly than older people.
Psychological disorders following the stress of the event, and the impact on survivors from the subsequent loss of home and often entire families, should not be underestimated.
Epigenetics. Individuals exposed to the atomic bomb radiation will experience direct effects. Genetic effects appear in their offspring, that is, in the children and grandchildren and so on.
Children (Joe O'Donnell)
When I arrived at Nagasaki from Sasebo, I looked down at the city from a low hill. I saw some men wearing a white mask. They were working near a ditch full of burning coal.
I noticed a boy about ten years old walking by. He was carrying a baby slung on his back. In those days in Japan it was common to see children playing in vacant lots with their little brothers and sisters on their backs. But this boy was clearly different and I could see that he had come to this burning ground for a serious purpose. He was barefoot.
When he reached the edge of the cemetery he stopped and peered ahead with a fixed expression. The infant’s head was tipped back as if the baby was fast asleep.
The boy stood there, next to the area, for about ten minutes. The men in white masks walked over to him and gently began undoing the cords that were holding the baby. I now first realised that the baby was already dead. The men held the baby boy by the hands and feet and placed it gently on the hot coals.
The infant boy made a hissing sound as it was placed on the fire. Then the young child lit up like the flames from the deep red of the setting sun.
The older boy stood there erect and his innocent cheeks shining scarlet. I noticed that the lips of the boy were also streaked with red as he watched the flames. He was biting his lower lip so hard that it shone with blood.
The flames burnt low like the sun going down, and the boy turned around and walked silently away from the burning pit.
Joe O’Donnell was interviewed by Seiko Ueda.
Testimony
Concentric circles of death, concentric circles of the devil. I found myself mumbling these words as I drew a mental map of the City of Nagasaki. Death seemed literally to be fanning out in concentric circles with each passing day. Today people living in houses up to that point had died. Seeing this I would be correct to assume that people living another 100 metres up the hillside would die the following day.
The ripples of death that expanded from the hypocentre soon began to consume people who had suffered only mild injuries or seemed to have escaped unharmed.
There is still a long way to go before the circle of death reaches the hospital. Living every day in trepidation about the expanding circle. I gathered people together and tugged their hair.
Are you losing any hair I asked?
The head nurse and all the nurses shook their heads, showing an expression that revealed neither anxiety nor freedom from anxiety. We were all suffering at some degree to a feeling of sickness. Our bodies were weakened by fatigue and diarrhoea.
Dr Tatsuichiro Akizuki
They shoot dogs, don’t they?
Atomic bombs were tested in the Asia Pacific region after WWII. There were numerous atomic bomb tests in Australia and Oceania. In Australia the British test sites were located at Montebello Islands (three tests) and Emu Field (two tests), Maralinga (7 tests). There were numerous other smaller tests (around 700) in Australia including one called Vixen B, which spread deadly and long-lived plutonium at Maralinga. These atmospheric and other tests in Australia commenced seven years after the effects of radiation on the Japanese population was evident.
The largest test on Montebello Islands, G2, was 98 kilotonnes of TNT. The largest test at Maralinga was around 27 kilotonnes of TNT. The Nagasaki bomb was just over 20 kilotonnes of TNT and the Hiroshima bomb 15 kilotonnes of TNT equivalent.
“Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies was willing to provide whatever the British government wanted, with virtually no questions asked. He gave permission for the tests without even consulting his cabinet, let alone parliament. Responding to a parliamentary question in 1953, he declared that the tests would produce “no conceivable injury to life, limb or property” and that they were essential to the “defence of the free world”.
Radioactive clouds spread across large parts of the Australian mainland and in the case of bombs exploded in dry desert country at Emu Field and Maralinga it was expected that the explosions would sweep away everything including rocks and soil in a mushroom cloud rising to 30,000 feet. It was these fine dust particles with the radioactive particles attached that were particularly dangerous.
These once sung and sacred lands turned to useless scrub in the colonial mind.
The implications of the testing on service people, the general population and Indigenous people living on or adjacent to test sites were covered up and subsequently denied by the British. There are many heinous stories in this twisted tale, here is just one story from Australia.
Pom Pom Incident
On 14 May 1957, Charlie Milpuddie, wearing only a loin-cloth and carrying several spears and dingo pelts, approached a radiation monitoring unit.
“We ran a counter over him and he was red hot”.
Charlie’s family, his wife Edie, who was pregnant and later lost her baby at Yalata, and two children were also red hot.
“We gave the man and one of the children a shower but the wife was very shy and would only let us wash her hair. We had to shoot the two dogs because we couldn’t decontaminate them”.
Charlie was one of an estimated twelve hundred desert Aborigines exposed to radiation from the British tests at Maralinga and Emu Field. This radiation caused blindness, leukaemia and other cancers, birth defects, infertility and growth deficiencies to name but a few. The precious Indigenous desert country was also contaminated. The children involved in this incident also died prematurely.
Project Sunshine and beyond: Secretive testing regimes in Australia
Following explosions of numerous nuclear devices in the atmosphere (in both Australia and Oceania) a measure could be made of Strontium 90 by investigating:
- Precipitation and soil;
- Foodstuffs, including vegetables, grains and milk products; and
- Human tissue
Most emphasis was given to the major centres of Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Hobart, Launceston, Sydney and Brisbane.
Body snatchers and fallout: Secret testing of Strontium 90 on dead infants in Australia. Nearly 22,000 infants were tested and samples sent to the UK and USA. The testing program ended in 1978.
“The bones should be femurs. The required weight is 20-50 grams wet bone, subsequently ashed to provide samples of weight not less than two grams. The date of birth, age at death and locality of origin are to be reported”.
Nagasaki: A matter of chance?
An atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki on 9 August 1945 at 11.02am, just three days after the first explosion of an atomic bomb in war over Hiroshima. The Nagasaki bomb was assembled on Tinian Island on 6 August. On 8 August, Field Order no 17 issued from the 20th US Air Force Headquarters on Guam called for the bomb to be exploded the following day, at either Kokura, the primary target, or Nagasaki, which was the secondary and lately selected target. That same day the Soviet Union declared war on Japan.
The B-29 bomber Bockscar reached the sky over Kokura on the morning of 9 August but abandoned the primary target because of smoke cover and changed course for Nagasaki, where it dropped the bomb at 11.02 in the morning.
“The citizens of the atomic bombed city welcomed the President (Obama) with respect and the President embraced hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) and shook hands with the youth. I believe that the President's visit has demonstrated that we can create peace by establishing emotional bonds among each other and spreading the circle of trust”. Tomihisa Taue, Mayor of Nagasaki, September 2016.
“Nagasaki must be the last place exposed to an atomic bomb”.
This fire tower was standing on a hill in the former Hamaguchi-machi, about 250 metres to the east of the hypocentre. The tremendous blast generated by the atomic bomb explosion (about 360 metres per second at that point) bent the supporting frames at the base.
At the Fuchi Primary School, about 1.2 kilometers from the hypocentre, the wooden parts of school walls were carbonised by the ferocious heat from the atomic blast.
The Urakami district of Nagasaki was the centre of Christian missionary work commenced in the 16th century. The people of Urakami were long persecuted for their beliefs until the ban on Christianity was lifted in 1873. By 1914 Urakami’s Christian community had completed the building of the grandest Christian Cathedral in East Asia. Over the following decade two 26 metre spires were added to the building. The Cathedral was 500 metres to the north-east of the hypocentre, the atomic blast destroyed both spires and turned the cathedral into a hollow shell.
Count down to the Nagasaki atomic bomb
- May 5, 1943 The Japanese fleet at Truk Bay is proposed as a possible atomic bomb target at a meeting of the Military Policy Committee.
- September 18, 1944 President Franklin D Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill agree at a meeting in Hyde Park that the atomic bomb should be used against Japan.
- December 17, 1944 The 20th Air Force 509th Mixed Air Force Battalion is organised to prepare for the use of the atomic bomb against Japan.
- December 30, 1944 Brigadier General Leslie R Groves states that the atomic bomb should be ready by August 1, 1945.
- April 27, 1945 At the first meeting of the target committee seventeen Japanese cities are selected as possible targets for the atomic bomb; Tokyo Bay, Kawasaki, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Kure, Yahata, Kokura, Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi, Kumamoto, Fukuoka, Nagasaki and Sasebo.
- May 7, 1945 Germany surrenders unconditionally
- May 10, 1945 At the second meeting of the target committee a shortlist of four target cities are selected; Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama and Kokura Arsenal.
- May 28, 1945 At the third meeting of the target committee just three cities are selected as possible targets for the atomic bomb; Kyoto, Hiroshima and Niigata.
- May 30, 1945 Kyoto is taken from the list of targets on the advice of the Secretary of war Henry L Stimson.
- May 31, 1945 The Interim Committee, responsible for studying the various issues related to the atomic bombings agrees that the bombs should be used against Japan without prior warning.
- June 11, 1945 The Franck Committee submits a report warning about the dangers of a nuclear arms race following the end of the war.
- July 16, 1945 The world’s first atomic bomb explodes at the US test site in Alamogordo in the desert of New Mexico.
- July 17, 1945 The Potsdam Conference begins and 69 scientists protest the use of the atomic bomb in a letter to President Harry S Truman. The letter emphasises the moral issues and responsibilities involved in the use of weapons of mass destruction.
- July 18, 1945 Japan submits a request to the Soviet Union for peace arbitration.
- July 20, 1945 The first day of bombing practice in preparation for the use of atomic bombs on Japan, using pumpkin bombs on cities near Hiroshima, Kyoto, Kokura and Niigata.
- July 23, 1945 Hiroshima, Kokura and Niigata are mentioned as atomic bomb targets in a telegram from George L Harrison to Henry L Stimson.
- July 24, 1945 Nagasaki is added to the list of targets in Brigadier General Leslie R Groves’ order for the atomic bombing. President Truman informs Joseph Stalin about the development of the atom bomb.
- July 25, 1945 President Truman approves the order for the atomic bombings.
- July 26, 1945 The Potsdam Declaration is issued.
- July 31, 1945 The first atomic bomb is assembled on Tinian Island. Air Force Headquarters in Guam reports the presence of a prisoner of war camp at Nagasaki. No change is made to the directive.
- August 2, 1945 A strategic order is issued for the first atomic bombing on 6 August, Hiroshima is selected as the primary target.
- August 6, 1945 The Enola Gay leaves Tinian Island with its atomic bomb, which is dropped on Hiroshima at 8.15am.
- August 7, 1945 President Truman states in a report to the Potsdam Conference, that the atom bomb was used to shorten the agony of war and to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.
- August 8, 1945 The second bomb is loaded on to a B-29 bomber. The 20th Air Force Headquarters in Guam issue Field Order no 17. The primary target is Kokura Arsenal and city. The secondary target is the Nagasaki urban area. The Soviet Union declares war on Japan.
- August 9, 1945 At 11.02am an atomic bomb, Fatman (plutonium 239), explodes over Nagasaki, just three days after the first atomic bomb, Little Boy (uranium 235), used in war explodes over Hiroshima.
Blast
Wooden houses within a kilometre of the hypocentre were completely destroyed. Some concrete buildings remained standing as empty shells. The buildings all collapsed in one direction as the blast radiated outward from the hypocentre. People were blasted against walls and bodies penetrated by the millions of fragments of glass, steel and concrete, bullet like as they tore through the air.
Heat
In the area near the hypocentre, everything that was combustible caught fire, glass melted, ceramic roof tiles bubbled and rocks turned black. People, animals and plants also combusted. Although the temperature decreased with distance, clothing, telephone poles and trees two kilometres from the hypocentre were scorched or burnt. The surface of concrete melted and formed beads of glass. Ceramic plates and bottles were fused together. Human heads were fused to their helmets.
Fire
The heat generated by the atom bomb created spot fires distant from the hypocentre. These fires joined to become a massive fire, which burnt one third of the City of Nagasaki. The Nagasaki Prefecture Office, 3.3 kilometres from the hypocentre, caught fire at 12.30 pm. Soon the adjacent neighbourhood was ashes. The south-westerly wind that had fuelled the fire had calmed by 6pm. The firestorm ended at around midnight.
Shadow
The blocking of light creates shadows. The heat generated by the atomic bomb did this too, the surfaces exposed directly to heat rays burned and changed colour while the unexposed areas retain their original colour, creating shadow like images. The moment the bomb exploded, at 11.02am, life in Nagasaki came to an end, frozen as shadows on walls.
People
The radiation released by the explosion of the atomic bomb penetrated human bodies and destroyed cell tissues. The extent of these injuries depended on the radiation dose. But most of the population of Nagasaki within 1 kilometre of the hypocentre died. This included people without external injuries. The damage caused by the atomic bomb did not end after the impact of the explosion had faded. The radiation from the bomb caused internal injuries creating a range of diseases and symptoms. These injuries, inflicted in the August of 1945, continue to cause suffering.
Radiation disorders in the acute phase appeared immediately after the bombing. Symptoms were particularly severe among survivors close to the hypocentre. Disorders included nausea, diarrhoea, fever, subcutaneous haemorrhage and stomatitis. The health of this group continued to deteriorate after the bombing and most died after one week.
Hair loss was a common symptom among survivors of the blast appearing one week after the radiation event and peaking at three weeks after the event. Hair grew back after eight to ten weeks.
Atomic bomb cataracts appeared at around 10 months after exposure. The incidence of cataracts was higher the closer the individual to the hypocentre. Cataracts are usually associated with age but atomic bomb cataracts appeared in people of all ages.
Radiation also impacted pregnant women and their unborn children. Miscarriages and stillbirths were frequent as were cases of microcephaly. Cases of microcephaly were most common among children who had been exposed to the radiation of the bomb blast with a gestational age of less than 16 weeks at the time of the blast. Children born after the blast suffered numerous illnesses including atomic bomb cataracts.
Cancers are associated with radiation, incidents of Leukaemia peaked in 1951, six years after the bombing. Younger people became ill with Leukaemia more quickly than older people.
Psychological disorders following the stress of the event, and the impact on survivors from the subsequent loss of home and often entire families, should not be underestimated.
Epigenetics. Individuals exposed to the atomic bomb radiation will experience direct effects. Genetic effects appear in their offspring, that is, in the children and grandchildren and so on.
Children (Joe O'Donnell)
When I arrived at Nagasaki from Sasebo, I looked down at the city from a low hill. I saw some men wearing a white mask. They were working near a ditch full of burning coal.
I noticed a boy about ten years old walking by. He was carrying a baby slung on his back. In those days in Japan it was common to see children playing in vacant lots with their little brothers and sisters on their backs. But this boy was clearly different and I could see that he had come to this burning ground for a serious purpose. He was barefoot.
When he reached the edge of the cemetery he stopped and peered ahead with a fixed expression. The infant’s head was tipped back as if the baby was fast asleep.
The boy stood there, next to the area, for about ten minutes. The men in white masks walked over to him and gently began undoing the cords that were holding the baby. I now first realised that the baby was already dead. The men held the baby boy by the hands and feet and placed it gently on the hot coals.
The infant boy made a hissing sound as it was placed on the fire. Then the young child lit up like the flames from the deep red of the setting sun.
The older boy stood there erect and his innocent cheeks shining scarlet. I noticed that the lips of the boy were also streaked with red as he watched the flames. He was biting his lower lip so hard that it shone with blood.
The flames burnt low like the sun going down, and the boy turned around and walked silently away from the burning pit.
Joe O’Donnell was interviewed by Seiko Ueda.
Testimony
Concentric circles of death, concentric circles of the devil. I found myself mumbling these words as I drew a mental map of the City of Nagasaki. Death seemed literally to be fanning out in concentric circles with each passing day. Today people living in houses up to that point had died. Seeing this I would be correct to assume that people living another 100 metres up the hillside would die the following day.
The ripples of death that expanded from the hypocentre soon began to consume people who had suffered only mild injuries or seemed to have escaped unharmed.
There is still a long way to go before the circle of death reaches the hospital. Living every day in trepidation about the expanding circle. I gathered people together and tugged their hair.
Are you losing any hair I asked?
The head nurse and all the nurses shook their heads, showing an expression that revealed neither anxiety nor freedom from anxiety. We were all suffering at some degree to a feeling of sickness. Our bodies were weakened by fatigue and diarrhoea.
Dr Tatsuichiro Akizuki
They shoot dogs, don’t they?
Atomic bombs were tested in the Asia Pacific region after WWII. There were numerous atomic bomb tests in Australia and Oceania. In Australia the British test sites were located at Montebello Islands (three tests) and Emu Field (two tests), Maralinga (7 tests). There were numerous other smaller tests (around 700) in Australia including one called Vixen B, which spread deadly and long-lived plutonium at Maralinga. These atmospheric and other tests in Australia commenced seven years after the effects of radiation on the Japanese population was evident.
The largest test on Montebello Islands, G2, was 98 kilotonnes of TNT. The largest test at Maralinga was around 27 kilotonnes of TNT. The Nagasaki bomb was just over 20 kilotonnes of TNT and the Hiroshima bomb 15 kilotonnes of TNT equivalent.
“Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies was willing to provide whatever the British government wanted, with virtually no questions asked. He gave permission for the tests without even consulting his cabinet, let alone parliament. Responding to a parliamentary question in 1953, he declared that the tests would produce “no conceivable injury to life, limb or property” and that they were essential to the “defence of the free world”.
Radioactive clouds spread across large parts of the Australian mainland and in the case of bombs exploded in dry desert country at Emu Field and Maralinga it was expected that the explosions would sweep away everything including rocks and soil in a mushroom cloud rising to 30,000 feet. It was these fine dust particles with the radioactive particles attached that were particularly dangerous.
These once sung and sacred lands turned to useless scrub in the colonial mind.
The implications of the testing on service people, the general population and Indigenous people living on or adjacent to test sites were covered up and subsequently denied by the British. There are many heinous stories in this twisted tale, here is just one story from Australia.
Pom Pom Incident
On 14 May 1957, Charlie Milpuddie, wearing only a loin-cloth and carrying several spears and dingo pelts, approached a radiation monitoring unit.
“We ran a counter over him and he was red hot”.
Charlie’s family, his wife Edie, who was pregnant and later lost her baby at Yalata, and two children were also red hot.
“We gave the man and one of the children a shower but the wife was very shy and would only let us wash her hair. We had to shoot the two dogs because we couldn’t decontaminate them”.
Charlie was one of an estimated twelve hundred desert Aborigines exposed to radiation from the British tests at Maralinga and Emu Field. This radiation caused blindness, leukaemia and other cancers, birth defects, infertility and growth deficiencies to name but a few. The precious Indigenous desert country was also contaminated. The children involved in this incident also died prematurely.
Project Sunshine and beyond: Secretive testing regimes in Australia
Following explosions of numerous nuclear devices in the atmosphere (in both Australia and Oceania) a measure could be made of Strontium 90 by investigating:
- Precipitation and soil;
- Foodstuffs, including vegetables, grains and milk products; and
- Human tissue
Most emphasis was given to the major centres of Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Hobart, Launceston, Sydney and Brisbane.
Body snatchers and fallout: Secret testing of Strontium 90 on dead infants in Australia. Nearly 22,000 infants were tested and samples sent to the UK and USA. The testing program ended in 1978.
“The bones should be femurs. The required weight is 20-50 grams wet bone, subsequently ashed to provide samples of weight not less than two grams. The date of birth, age at death and locality of origin are to be reported”.
Related Stories
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NOTE: The French Government were actively testing nuclear weapons at Mururoa and Fangataufa in the period 1966 to 1996. The number of tests may have been as high as 181. There were 41 atmospheric tests at Mururoa to 1974.
NOTE: Montebello Islands and Barrow Island were the Australian Continent's equivalent of the Galapagos Islands.
NOTE: While the United States conducted around 1054 nuclear tests in the period 1945 to 1992 some tests were conducted on home soil. The United States conducted 105 atmospheric and underwater tests in its ‘Pacific Proving Grounds’ including the Marshall Islands and particularly its Bikini Atoll. The Marshall Island tests included Bravo, which was one thousand times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Apart from the terrible consequences for nature from these tests, thousands of people across the region were exposed to nuclear fallout.
Our thanks to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. Boy standing at crematory, Nagasaki 1945. Photo Joe O'Donnell