65 years ago today...

At approximately 8:15 a.m. 6th of August, 1945, a USAAF B-29 bomber of the 393rd Bombardment Squadron, 509th Composite Group, victor number 82, having made a six hour flight from its base on the island of Tinian dropped a gun-type fission weapon containing 60 kilograms of uranium-235 from its bomb bay over the city of Hiroshima located in the deltas of the southwest of Honshu.

Due to crosswinds the bomb drifted past its aiming point by about 800 feet. At an altitude of 1900 feet, 43 seconds after being released from the aircraft bomb bay, a sub-critical hollow projectile weighing 39 kg, 7 inches long with a diameter of 6 1/4 inches made of stacked rings was fired by a cordite charge down a 1.8 meter barrel at 300 meters per second towards a 26 kg spike of uranium-235, also made of stacked up rings. The projectile became critical after travelling only 0.3 millimeters. As the projectile moved to envelop the spike super-criticality had already occurred. Once the projectile and the spike became a single assembly a fission reaction took place.

1.38 percent of the material fissioned making this one of the least efficient bombs ever made. In that instant, 30 percent of the population of Hiroshima (about 70/80000 people) were killed instantly while another 70,000 were injured. The blast radius was estimated at 1.6 km with 12 square km of the city destroyed. 90 percent of doctors and over 90 percent of nurses were either killed or injured in the blast. Hospitals, although still standing were destroyed through their interiors. Medical supplies were gone. Fire fighting was non-existent. It took over 30 hours to organize any kind of coordinated assistance and rescue.

Hiroshima had just become the first ever target in the first ever nuclear war.

The right-wing's "Hiroshima Defence" of torture...

... goes deeper than the level of thought most of those who spout this argument can manage.

First, let's look at the argument, as initially offered by conservative mouthpiece, Pat Buchanan.



Rush Limbaugh couldn't have skewed two unrelated concepts into one any better. The United States committed a heinous act in the nuclear bombing of Japan. Torturing one person is less heinous than killing 160,000 people. Therefore, torture is perfectly alright.

No context, no circumstances. Just compare apples and oranges and sit back... unchallenged.

We could go on all day over the moral aspect of blowing entire cities, and their populations, off the map in a few seconds, but that's actually another subject. Let's stick to torture and the right-wing "Hiroshima defence".

Buchanan and his shrinking legions need to go to the library. The book is War In The Pacific, Volume 1, by Jerome T. Hagen. The reader will go immediately to chapter 25, page 159 of the book.

The title of the chapter is: The Lie of Marcus McDilda.

On August 9th, 1945, the Japanese Imperial cabinet was still debating whether to accept the terms of surrender in the Potsdam Declaration. Neither side, (continue to fight vs surrender), dominated the table despite the fact that the US had now twice attacked Japanese cities with atomic bombs.

One of the arguments put forward by the "fight to extinction" faction was the feeling that the US had just shot their wad. The Japanese were aware of the enormous difficulty in producing atomic bombs and many believed the US had no reserve arsenal of such weapons.

The War Minister, Korechika Anami, in the "surrender immediately" faction, disagreed - and he had an ace to play.

Anami told the cabinet that a recently captured B-29 pilot, 1st Lieutenant Marcus McDilda, while undergoing torture, had told his tormentors that the US possessed 100 atomic bombs and that Tokyo and Kyoto were next on the list of targets.

Except that it wasn't true. McDilda had indeed told his interrogators the story but, in fact, he knew nothing of the Manhatten Project, knew nothing about the US atomic bomb arsenal and knew nothing about any targetting plot. In an attempt to end his torture he had told the Japanese what they wanted to hear. McDilda was immediately classified a high-value prisoner - something which probably saved his life.

In truth, the US had no ready use arsenal of atomic bombs and would not have another bomb ready for almost two weeks. After that, a fourth bomb would not be ready for use until mid-September.

McDilda's information, obtained through torture, was completely false. Yet it solidified the position of one faction of the Japanese cabinet.

The Japanese played the right-wing's "ticking time bomb" scenario and proved it a useless tool.

Buchanan's comparison fails and the moral deficit of those who promote torture as a means of defending their country stands.