The Last Train from Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back (John MacRae Books)

The Last Train from Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back (John MacRae Books) | Charles Pellegrino | Hopefully Not A Vision of Our Future -

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	The Last Train from Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back (John MacRae Books) Charles Pellegrino Henry Holt and Co., 2010 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 47 reviews view larger image
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Drawing on the voices of atomic-bomb survivors and the new science of forensic archaeology, Charles Pellegrino describes the events and aftermath of two days in August when nuclear devices detonated over Japan changed life on Earth forever

Last Train from Hiroshima offers readers a stunning ?you are there? time capsule, gracefully wrapped in elegant prose. Charles Pellegrino?s scientific authority and close relationship with the A-bomb?s survivors make his account the most gripping and authoritative ever written.

At the narrative?s core are eyewitness accounts of those who experienced the atomic explosions firsthand?the Japanese civilians on the ground and the American flyers in the air. Thirty people are known to have fled Hiroshima for Nagasaki?where they arrived just in time to survive the second bomb. One of them, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, is the only person who experienced the full effects of the cataclysm at ground zero both times. The second time, the blast effects were diverted around the stairwell in which Yamaguchi had been standing, placing him and a few others in a shock coccoon that offered protection, while the entire building disappeared around them.

Pellegrino weaves spellbinding stories together within an illustrated narrative that challenges the ?official report,? showing exactly what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?and why.

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Laqst Train from Hiroshima

I went through Hiroshima in 1959 and saw the devastation. I also wrote a book on WWII Pacific POWs that included a great deal of research on Nagasaki. The book is a thorough study of the results of the atomic bomb damage and the lasting and continuing results. The writing is a vivid picture of the death and suffering but does not relate the horrors of fire bombing elsewhere in Japan although fire bombing didn't have the long term effects. The author also missed the Japanese exploding their own atomic bomb three days after the bombing of Nagasaki. A great book.

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Hopefully Not A Vision of Our Future -

Pellegrino's "The Last Train From Hiroshima" tells the personal stories of many Japanese citizens directly affected by our A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Among those stories are some of the 165 who survived the first A-bomb (8/6/1945 at Hiroshima), traveled to Nagasaki (173 miles away) - many on the last train from Hiroshima, and were subjected to a second A-bomb just three days later. One of those 'doubly-bombed' was Mitsubishi oil-tanker designer Tsutomu Yamaguchi. Ironically, at the time of the Nagasaki bombing Yamaguchi was trying to convince his boss and co-workers in Nagasaki of how powerful the Hiroshima bomb had been. After WWII ended, Mr. Yamaguchi became a carpenter and helped rebuild schools, then a school-teacher, and finally was asked by the Japanese government to speak to the U.N. in 2006, where he pleaded for mutual cooperation and assistance, as well as the abolition of nuclear weapons. Mr. Yamaguchi lived lived to be 93, dying in early 2010 of stomach cancer just before the book was released.

Pellegrino's book has generated controversy due to his often quoting an American flight engineer, Joseph Fuoco, who claimed to be aboard 'Bock's Car' when it bombed Nagasaki, and substantiated that claim to Pellegrino with a number of documents and photos. Feedback and photos from early readers and other sources indicate that Fuoco was not on that flight. Regardless, since the focus of Pellegrino's book is on the experiences of Japanese citizens near 'Ground Zero,' the veracity of Fuoco's claims don't make much, if any overall difference. More troubling, perhaps, is the fact that the book's publisher (Henry Holt) has stopped printing because of questions over the revocation of Pellegrino's PhD. degree in 1984, and the true identity of a Japanese priest identified with only a pseudonym.

Only 1.2 lbs (two teaspoons) of 83% enriched material actually fissioned, and that required only one-hundred-millionth of a second. People directly below were vaporized. Surviving either of the blasts was largely a matter of luck - how close one was to the epicenter (85% were killed within a mile at Hiroshima), whether there was any substantive shelter between the individual and the blast (a bomb-shelter tunnel, in the basement of a bank; the Nagasaki area was hillier than Hiroshima), whether one was facing the blast at initial detonation (likely blinded, and face severely charred/burned), and whether one was wearing light, long-sleeved clothes and hat (black clothing almost guaranteed immediate death for those close-in). Those knowledgeable enough to not turn and look at the blast and instead immediately leap to the ground (preferably within a ditch) had much higher odds of survival - especially if they were not subsequently directly exposed to the subsequent radioactive black rain that followed.

Many survived the initial blast, only to quickly fall ill and die from radiation sickness. About half the fatalities occurred on the first day; Hiroshima officials estimated about 60% of these were due to burns. (Many Japanese said the burning flesh smelled like squid grilled over hot coals.) Others lived for 1-2 years or even as long as a decade, then died of leukemia; still others died later at an early age of various cancers. A very few benefited - the blast reshaped their eyeballs and eliminated the need for glasses; one physician was reportedly dying of intestinal cancer, then went into remission after the blast and survived - supposedly because of the 'radiation treatment.'

Pellegrino explicitly avoids addressing the question of whether the U.S. should have dropped either or both bombs, though he does reveal that the pilots involved were quite worried that more would be needed. The Japanese cabinet met with Emperor Hirohito for two hours after Nagasaki before he decided to surrender. Even then, some military leaders plotted to isolate the Emperor to prevent his declaring an end to fighting. They guessed, correctly, that the U.S. had no more A-bombs, but also grossly overestimated how long it would take to make more - only 1-2 months in actuality. Regardless, their plot melted away when some of the leaders learned that the American armada was already closing in on Tokyo. Japan surrendered on 8/15/1945.

Pellegrino also tells us that prior to the Hiroshima bombing, local school-children were carving wooden bullets for fighting at close range (metal was scarce), sharpening bamboo spears, and constructing two-shot wooden handguns for distribution to children and their mothers. Near Ground Zero, a military physician was teaching new soldiers, some only 14-15, new procedures for strapping bombs to their bodies and throwing themselves under vehicles. Any invasion of Japan was bound to create enormous casualties on both sides. Some estimate that about one million American casualties and several million Japanese would have resulted, vs. the 150,000 - 250,000 that died in the A-blasts. Prior to dropping the A-bombs, U.S. fire-bombing had already resulted in great destruction of 67 Japanese cities and as many as 500,000 deaths - without deterring Japanese determination.

Pellegrino does a good job telling the stories of the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Unfortunately, conveying the destruction requires more than words, and he includes zero pictures - a major deficit. "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons," published by the Atomic Energy Commission in 1962, provides a number of photos from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Presumably James Cameron will also fill that void - he has optioned the book for a movie.)

Bottom-Line: "Little Boy" (Hiroshima) had a yield of about 15 KT, "Fat Man" (Nagasaki) was larger - 21 KT. Both are quite small by today's standards. The most powerful American (thermonuclear) bomb exploded was 15 MT; the Russians countered with 50 MT - about 3,000 times more powerful. One estimate (Answerbag.com) is that if an 'only' 200 KT thermonuclear bomb had instead been been dropped on Nagasaki, 690,000 would have been killed. That's still 250 times smaller than the largest Russian bomb, and it was only half-loaded with nuclear fuel (bilderberg.org). Regardless, thousands of these monstrous bombs are now held by both the U.S. and Russia. Some are presumably hidden underwater just off our coasts reading for launch at the push of a button - with impact only minutes later. It really doesn't matter whether Fuoco was on Bock's Car over Nagasaki or not, who the priest was or if he even existed, or why Pellegrino's PhD. was revoked. The 'real' issue is whether "The Last Train From Hiroshima" describes our future.

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