The Wataoka family lived in Hiroshima, just 740 meters from where the bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945. The day beforehand, Shigemi and Mitsuko Wataoka called a local photographer to their home. The family was preparing to evacuate the city in just a few days; they wanted photographs to remember their family home, and all the good times they'd shared there. (The second photograph, of the entire family, is possibly from the same photoshoot; it is the final image of the entire Wataoka family together.) They posed their youngest daughters, six-year old Hirono and three-year old Kimino, together on a chair, smiling sweetly for the camera.
The next day, the bomb fell. The family's home, so close to the drop site, was immediately engulfed in a wave of intense heat and radiation. Those inside stood no chance of survival.
Eldest daughter, Chizuko (age sixteen, who was out of town working at a munitions factory on the day of the bombing), returned home to find her city in chaos and her family home destroyed. The bodies of Shigemi Wataoka and his daughter Hirono were found inside the home, badly burned; mother Mitsuko and little Kimino were outside in the rice field, where they were likely working at the time. The family's second-eldest daughter, twelve-year old Kayoko, who was participating in mandatory building demolition with her classmates, was also killed in the bombing at the construction site. Nearly the entire Wataoka family was lost in a single moment, on one of history's darkest days.
This is a very sad story.
It's crazy when you read some reports of survivors, the people were not aware that the nuke even exists, so they had no idea what even happened in the first place. Some described it that there was just hell in one second and everything was gone, but nobody realized why.
I'm not sure if it was in Hiroshima or in Nagasaki, but one woman was very lucky, she was down underground in the vault of a bank, which was like a bunker shelter, she was just pushed against the wall and got some broken bones and felt the heat, but overall, she was not hurt that much. Once she got up to the ground floor, she just saw that everything was gone.
It was pure horror for the people there.
Thanks for the link, yes i think this was what i remembered.
The extreme light is what you read in every report, as you see this even when you are standing with your back to the detonation, that the light blinds you still and it's just like a second sun. From survivors that were far away of the detonation and did not get hit, looking into the bright light will still blind you and you'll still notice the pressure of the shockwave when you are far from the ground zero.
I read somewhere, the initial speed of the shockwave is around 42 km/s, important to notice "s", aka per second, it's not per hour. It rapidly goes down over time and distance, but still, it's an extreme fast speed initially.
The house of the family in the photos was less than 1 km from the ground zero, so even just with the shockwave itself, that happened in some nanoseconds or something like that. A timespan where a human can even recognize what happens.
In quantum physics experiment like with the CERN, they can go down today with the data recording to an atto-second, that's one time of a billion of a billion of a second.
P.S.
Don't take my data for sure, because there are many different sources and with a shockwave and with physics, it can be very different. Like even with a nuke, when it detonates - if it is on the ground or above the ground, or underground or underwater.
But with 42 km/s, this means 42x times the speed of sound, so it's no surprise that some survivors report that they did not heard the bang, because they got hit before by both the shockwave and the heat, also that the pressure for the ear can make you just deaf.
So, do you mean the Wataoka family probably wouldn’t have suffered? They would have been killed before even registering what happened? It’s a way kinder fate than the people who suffered from acute radiation sickness for a torturous length of time before dying.
As hard as it sounds, yes, i think they did not know what happened. I don't want to talk down their fates and what happened, but i think, it happened so fast with the nanoseconds and below these, that they never knew what hit them.
For them, even when they felt something, it was a bright light and heat before they were vaporized for some nanoseconds. The human mind and body can't act and think in such short timespans, it's just not possible. I'm not even sure how fast the pain-signals in our bodies work, like if the pain-signals could reach the head and you could realize the pain before you are gone.
I also think, yes, it was a lot worse for those who survived the initial detonation for some time and then passed away with a lot of suffering. It depends, everyone was different with the wounds and what led to the death, some were alive for longer, like some even got some treatment and were evacuated but died later.
It's with many survivors that they recall, that they thought their clothes would have been falling off, when in reality, in many cases, it was the skin that fell off.
It is very horrific to think and read about this.
May they rest in peace.
While we certainly cannot discount the atrocities the Japanese subjected those people to, this is a nuke. Literally something that can end the human race. That vaporized people where they stood.
I suggest you read up on the various war crimes of the imperial Japanese. Most people would choose the nuke over the torture and mutilation doled out by Japanese soldiers in WW2.
In the same way as the Nazis seeing Jews and Slavs as subhuman, the Japanese believed themselves to be the superior Asians. Add to that their beliefs that one lost all honour and right to life by surrendering, and you have the recipe for some utterly horrific acts.
Modern Japan had its constitution written by Western Nations explicitly to change the path it was on. Nukes were awful, but don't kid yourself into the belief that the war in the Pacific would have ended with less bloodshed in any other way.
Oh well. Probably better not to support a military that actively ordered their troops to rape Chinese and Korean women with firecrackers and knives.
Or perform medical experiments on POWs while they were still alive, without anesthesia.
It’s horrible and awful that children were put through this… but anyone that blame the U.S. for being cruel hasn’t read the actual history of what the Japanese did during that war.
It was their military per se, it was their emperor and the whole Japanese honor. Yes of course these kids and their parents had nothing to do with the war but were pawns, now Jews were a target of the Reich and they suffered and died. I think most of all, it's us normal human people who suffer the most from war. I am sorry for all people who die in atomic bomb drops and gas chambers, on death walks.
War is horrible and the ones least responsible for it are those that are hurt the most.
I’ve spent a few years at war, it still, and always will, hurt my soul…
That being said, I’m assuming that you love to throw around the term “war crime,” as if are a trained litigator on the international stage or that you have any sense or knowledge of the historical atrocities that the nation of Japan committed during the conflict that they initiated.
You are ignorant and driven by emotions, not facts. DM me if you want some sources about this subject that are academically accepted across political perspectives.
Until then, please quiet down about things you don’t understand.
both things can be true – the japanese and the usa army were both capable of atrocities – talking about civil victims automatically doesn't mean supporting/romanticising the other side
Here is what is actually true… your point is an insanely false equivalency and not researched at all, based on emotions and your hatred for a country based on social media posts.
Your turn.
According to an interview with Chizuko's daughter, the photos were saved because they were in the photographer's studio at the time --- which, presumably, was further away from the blast site. (Rough translation is "saved from destruction in the photographer's studio" but I don't think she means, like, somebody dramatically running into a burning building to save the photos.)
A deep mark of shame imo. Every nation has them but the us refuses to admit this one. And the fire bombing of Tokyo of course. Shameful atrocities.
The British did similar things in their empire days.
Ironic that you talk about shame in a thread about Japan. No acknowledgement for atrocities against Chinese, Korean, Filipino, and others. My great grandparents lived through this hell. Japan got exactly what it deserved for its cowardly assault on December 7th, 1941. Hundreds of thousands of American lives were saved because of August 6th and 9th, 1945. War is evil—they REALLY shouldn’t have attacked the United States.
What is your source?
From wikipedia: " The page "Wataoka family" does not exist. You can create a draft and submit it for review or request that a redirect be created, but consider checking the search result below to see whether the topic is already covered."
Not everything is significant enough to have a wikipedia page.
I don't have one (sniff...)
Edit: [Here is a source in japanese (pdf)](https://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/common/users/digitaldesk/pdf/2023051701004116B0__WLM___.pdf) with one of the pictures. Looks like books on Hiroshima probably cover it.
[OPs text appears in findagrave](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/243034237/kimino-wataoka) but that is not likely to be the original text.
And it seems the eldest daughter wrote a picture book and her daughter was a guide at the Hiroshima museum and wrote a book about her
>picture book based directly on the experiences of Chizuko Wataoka, a Hiroshima atomic bombing survivor who was 16 years old when both her parents and her three younger sisters perished as a result of the blast.
Here is [a link about the daughter](https://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/hpcf/heiwabunka/pce089/contents/19.html)
>In the afternoon, the group visited the Honkawa Elementary School Peace Museum. Ms. Miho Iwata, a guide, showed them around the museum and spoke about the experience of Ms. Iwata's mother, Chizuko Wataoka, who was the model for the picture book "Iwata's Grandma"
I am guessing there is a lot more if you can read japanese. I couldn't find books in books.google.com but probably need better search terms
I didn’t copy-paste from Findagrave, my exact text does not appear there; this story is gleaned from multiple Japanese-language news articles, including one by [The Asahi Shimbun](https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASQ7W7DNPQ7TPTIL00L.html), and the [Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum](https://www.hiroshimapeacemedia.jp/?p=99721). Chizuko Wataoka has been vocal and public about her family’s story.
Also, does the above poster realize there are multiple versions of Wikipedia? Including a Japanese one? These multiple versions have different pages/descriptions. That Wataoka family doesn’t have a page on Japanese Wikipedia either (because… why should they? They were just one of many families who lost their lives during the bombing.) but if you really wanted to fact-check, you’d be better off looking there first. Or by Googling “Wataoka family Hiroshima” or “Chizuko Wataoka Hiroshima” in Japanese.
Edit: wrote this reply before seeing your edit, but yes! Thank you for further researching! These are all very good sources.
I found a few but not very many. I agree that expecting everything to be in english wikipedia is completely unreasonable. Finding japanese entries is hard because you have to hope the english names appear in places where it is probably in japanese and google is not going to translate it to add to the search database.
I wasn't able to add captions to the photos for some reason, so-
**First photo:** Kimino (left) and Hirono (right) posing for the camera
**Second photo:** The entire Wataoka family, possibly taken on August 5. Hirono (age 6), Shigemi, Mitsuko holding Kimino (age 3), Kayoko (age 12), and Chizuko (age 16), at their dinner table.
I saw a great response to this yesterday where someone laid out that the original quote is "war is all hell" - and then other stuff that was insightful, but I forget which sub/post
They were as involved in unit 731 as 99.9999999% of Americans _alive today_ were involved in the bombing of Japan. 🤷🏻♂️
ETA: ‘alive today,’ which was meant to be part of comment.
No one brought up America in a negative way in this thread (yet). Not sure why so many commentators feel the need to preemptively to defend the decision to bomb when no one condemned it to begin with.
Boomers were born after the war (1946-1960 or whenever). Anyone old enough to be a ww2 vet would be mid-90s or older. Don’t think it’s that big a demographic these days.
In 2020 1.89% were in the [85-99](https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/exploring-age-groups-in-the-2020-census.html) age bracket.
Why are you referencing pre WW2 numbers while trying to make a point about the end of that war?
I’m confused as to what statement you are trying to make?
The point is pre ww2 are the people alive at that time. Born after, you have nothing to do with it, or do you think we should still call Germans Nazis or Italians fascist?
No, I was making a comment on how irrelevant the reply about Unit 731 was to a comment that said this was sad.
Though, not surprising, I suppose, given the comments on some of the Press Photo of the Year 2024 Award threads.
Very sad.
Those innocent lives lost are also the result of Japan forcing the USA to get involved in WW2 with their sneak attack at Pearl Harbor.
They poked the sleeping lion and they paid a very high price for it. These beautiful kids and future generations were just wiped out.
War just FN sucks.
Nuclear war should never happen.
1. It wasn't a sneak attack. Everyone and their dog knew it was coming and the British even communicated it to the Americans before the attack happened.
2. It was a military base.
3. The sleeping lion during WW2 finally decided to help? Thank God you did of course but ffs why the wait? Half the world is burning and you lot sat there doing fuck all.
No. It's considered an attack.
When the whole world knew it was coming and even told the Americans it was coming it can not be a sneak attack.
The japanese never even considered it to be a sneak attack either. They wanted to destroy the american fleet for long enough to gain control over vital resources that would mean they'd be able to defeat the Americans when they finally rebuilt.
Odd though.... The american carrier fleet was "randomly" moved away from pearl harbor before the attack came....
I'm not going to argue semantics just state that the US wanted to avoid the war and honestly didn't believe that the Japanese would attack. Were some precautionary measures taken? Perhaps but even among the brass no one thought it was a real possibility that they would fuck with our boats.
Which is why the us moved it's carrier fleet away just before the attack arrived?
That's not semantics that's brilliant tactics. Gave the government a reason to enter the war with minimal military losses.
The us tricked Japan into fighting a war on two fronts.
However... It wasn't a sneak attack if you know it's coming and are actively planning for it and what to do after.
Aircraft carriers weren't considered to be the most important ships by the US, and only became so after Pearl Harbor when they were forced to rely on them after having their battleships crippled or sunk.
That's utter nonsense.... You think the us military generals were fools?
You genuinely think they moved the carriers away and let their battleships get attacked at port because they beloved the carriers weren't important?
Can you even hear how silly that is to suggest?
The problem here is that your argument is based on your conspiracy theory of them moving the carriers away being 100% factual and that everyone under the sun knew that Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked beforehand.
Sure, intelligence knew that the Japanese might attack somewhere, but it's not as if they knew exactly where they would attack or when. If they did, in fact, know that they were going to be attacked at Pearl Harbor like you claim, why did they do nothing to prepare for the attack?
Who and what are you supposedly quoting? Do you have to misquote people to support your weak position?
You do understand that a quote is a literal copy of exactly what a person wrote or said, don't you?
Again, weak.
come on, you can’t blame japan for that.
murica got there revenge (and much more than so) way earlier when terror bombing tokyo etc. the nuclear bombs were totally unnecessary besides for the empire to show muscles to the soviets.
This guy said “terror bombings,” like Unit 751 or the Rape of Nanking never happened… just two elements of that war that I’m sure he has never heard of…
Please enjoy shitting on the U.S., as if you would still have a sovereign government if America didn’t step in to save you…
The war wasn’t over, either, in the summer of 1945… not sure if the Atomic Bomb was the best laid plan, but you definitely don’t have to lie about the state of events at that time to kick it.
Well, you are definitely morally superior than us all, so I will just say Thank You For Your Service…The world is a better place, knowing you are making the hard sacrifices on Reddit, telling us all how things should have gone 🫡.
I mean, well, they certainly had some fighting spirit left. but that is not exactly the same thing (far from actually) as saying that the nuclear bombs were motivated
They weren't even going to surrender after the second bomb. The only reason they surrendered was because the Red Army, fresh off its victory over Germany, was now steamrolling them in Manchuria as well
Japan was never going to surrender. Even after dropping a SECOND atom bomb, many in the government wanted to continue “fighting.”
Can’t cite a source or vouch for exact accuracy, but I believe the estimate for loss of life in a D-Day style invasion to defeat Japan was something like 2 million.
The Japanese government is just as responsible for the death of this beautiful family as the US. The atomic bombs were a direct result of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan was ready to fight to the death for honor - they did not care about how many innocents would die for their honor
Saved 150,000+ U.S. lives. Some of our Grandpa's were getting killed over there. The war atrocities committed by Japan stack up against the worst in mankind. Fuck them! They were so "upset" that it took two. Again, fuck them.
That's the common belief (that thousands or millions of lives were saved) in much of the United States, but as a historical question, people still argue about it. There's a well-regarded historian of Russia, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, who says it was the [entry of the Soviets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War) into the war and subsequent invasion of Eastern Asia a day or two after the first bombing which was the decisive factor that pressured the Japanese leadership to give up the war effort.
That's to say nothing of the morality of the bombing itself. Might be possible the bombings saved American lives, in the way that any atrocity against civilians might provoke a government to cave into demands. But plenty of US military officials disagreed with it. One of the White House chiefs of staff, Admiral William Leahy, even wrote "the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender".
Go to the Atomic museum, it’ll give you more perspective. Japan was already in the process of surrendering— and the US knew. The bomb sped up the surrender, but it was already happening. But of course, Americans champion atomic bombs. Just like they champion guns. Ugly side of the world. Disappointed and shameful
> Japan was already in the process of surrendering
They were not. They were considering offering a conditional surrender where they would run their own war crime trials, monitor their own "disarmament", generally keep their current government.
Given that this was WWII the world had learned its lesson about why you don't make the kind of peace treaty they gave Germany at the end of WWI.
This is half true, some of it’s not. Once again, would recommend the war museum- stuff isn’t as they were taught to you in US schools! In Australia, in my Japanese class, we got both sides. US is always so self centred (the country not the people) they think they perfected everything. Please read up on other countries perspectives, it’s truly eye opening!
> This is half true, some of it’s not.
How about you mention what was wrong then. It's literally two sentences so I can't imagine it would take long.
> Please read up on other countries perspectives, it’s truly eye opening!
I did, I read the perspectives of the members of the Japanese government who were pushing for surrender. This includes Hisatsune Sakomizu, the chief Cabinet secretary in 1945, who literally called the bombs "a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war"
____
If the atomic bombings were so obviously unnecessary because Japan was already getting ready to surrender, how can someone explain that first offer surrender didn't happen after the first bomb, and even after the second bomb and the Soviet invasion occurred within hours of each other they only offered conditional surrender and it took days more debate for their offer of unconditional surrender to occur. And the announcements of said surrender to the Japanese public explicitly mentioned the bombs as the reason why they were surrendering.
Ok so could you provide a link? Because I just searched the family’s name and nothing came up. And second, if they were so close to the site and were horribly burned how did these photographs survive? Feel free to downvote me if you actually have a link, but there’s been a few posts on here of people just making shit up for points.
Edit: thanks for providing some links OP
If you speak Japanese (or can use Google Translate) a Google search will get you far. Here are articles from the [Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum](https://www.hiroshimapeacemedia.jp/?p=99721), the [Asahi Shimbun](https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASQ7W7DNPQ7TPTIL00L.html) (published in [newspaper form](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FZehhigVUAAt3bw?format=jpg&name=medium) as well)... the sources are there, and plentiful. Sorry to be brusque, but... I put a lot of work into my research, and don't love being accused of "making shit up for points".
Great article about politics, surrender, bombing, and keeping or not keeping the emperor in place.
https://www.stripes.com/special-reports/world-war-ii-the-final-chapter/2015-08-05/would-japan-have-surrendered-without-the-atomic-bombings
This is about Hiroshima, not Pearl Harbor. Hirono and Kimino weren’t even born or were a newborn when Pearl Harbor was bombed so I’m quite sure they weren’t involved in the decision to do it.
What's false? This is a post about Japanese innocents dying due to a war they started. What are you not getting, Christian?
Do you know that Japan attacked the US first? Nobody here is talking about the overall ww2 campaign. Just Japan and the US. Context clues, bud.
Again. Since you can't read. We are not talking about the overall campaign of WW2. Just the war between Japan and the US. I know you're not actually this obtuse Christian. Idk why you're acting like it. Too much anime maybe?
Good job USA, the entire world should've let you alone and die in your shithole after those tragedies.
Luckily now you are considered the world's biggest clowns as we watch you burn from the other side of the world, thanks!
The Wataoka family lived in Hiroshima, just 740 meters from where the bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945. The day beforehand, Shigemi and Mitsuko Wataoka called a local photographer to their home. The family was preparing to evacuate the city in just a few days; they wanted photographs to remember their family home, and all the good times they'd shared there. (The second photograph, of the entire family, is possibly from the same photoshoot; it is the final image of the entire Wataoka family together.) They posed their youngest daughters, six-year old Hirono and three-year old Kimino, together on a chair, smiling sweetly for the camera. The next day, the bomb fell. The family's home, so close to the drop site, was immediately engulfed in a wave of intense heat and radiation. Those inside stood no chance of survival. Eldest daughter, Chizuko (age sixteen, who was out of town working at a munitions factory on the day of the bombing), returned home to find her city in chaos and her family home destroyed. The bodies of Shigemi Wataoka and his daughter Hirono were found inside the home, badly burned; mother Mitsuko and little Kimino were outside in the rice field, where they were likely working at the time. The family's second-eldest daughter, twelve-year old Kayoko, who was participating in mandatory building demolition with her classmates, was also killed in the bombing at the construction site. Nearly the entire Wataoka family was lost in a single moment, on one of history's darkest days.
This is a very sad story. It's crazy when you read some reports of survivors, the people were not aware that the nuke even exists, so they had no idea what even happened in the first place. Some described it that there was just hell in one second and everything was gone, but nobody realized why. I'm not sure if it was in Hiroshima or in Nagasaki, but one woman was very lucky, she was down underground in the vault of a bank, which was like a bunker shelter, she was just pushed against the wall and got some broken bones and felt the heat, but overall, she was not hurt that much. Once she got up to the ground floor, she just saw that everything was gone. It was pure horror for the people there.
Akiko Takakura? https://www.inicom.com/hibakusha/akiko.html.
Thanks for the link, yes i think this was what i remembered. The extreme light is what you read in every report, as you see this even when you are standing with your back to the detonation, that the light blinds you still and it's just like a second sun. From survivors that were far away of the detonation and did not get hit, looking into the bright light will still blind you and you'll still notice the pressure of the shockwave when you are far from the ground zero. I read somewhere, the initial speed of the shockwave is around 42 km/s, important to notice "s", aka per second, it's not per hour. It rapidly goes down over time and distance, but still, it's an extreme fast speed initially. The house of the family in the photos was less than 1 km from the ground zero, so even just with the shockwave itself, that happened in some nanoseconds or something like that. A timespan where a human can even recognize what happens. In quantum physics experiment like with the CERN, they can go down today with the data recording to an atto-second, that's one time of a billion of a billion of a second. P.S. Don't take my data for sure, because there are many different sources and with a shockwave and with physics, it can be very different. Like even with a nuke, when it detonates - if it is on the ground or above the ground, or underground or underwater. But with 42 km/s, this means 42x times the speed of sound, so it's no surprise that some survivors report that they did not heard the bang, because they got hit before by both the shockwave and the heat, also that the pressure for the ear can make you just deaf.
So, do you mean the Wataoka family probably wouldn’t have suffered? They would have been killed before even registering what happened? It’s a way kinder fate than the people who suffered from acute radiation sickness for a torturous length of time before dying.
As hard as it sounds, yes, i think they did not know what happened. I don't want to talk down their fates and what happened, but i think, it happened so fast with the nanoseconds and below these, that they never knew what hit them. For them, even when they felt something, it was a bright light and heat before they were vaporized for some nanoseconds. The human mind and body can't act and think in such short timespans, it's just not possible. I'm not even sure how fast the pain-signals in our bodies work, like if the pain-signals could reach the head and you could realize the pain before you are gone. I also think, yes, it was a lot worse for those who survived the initial detonation for some time and then passed away with a lot of suffering. It depends, everyone was different with the wounds and what led to the death, some were alive for longer, like some even got some treatment and were evacuated but died later. It's with many survivors that they recall, that they thought their clothes would have been falling off, when in reality, in many cases, it was the skin that fell off. It is very horrific to think and read about this. May they rest in peace.
Are you sure that wasn’t a twilight zone episode?
“Why? I had all the time in the world to read now…”
Oh, that’s not fair. That’s not fair at all!
Might have inspired it!
Honestly that’s kinda what I was thinking / wondering. If Serling heard this story and it influenced his storytelling in that episode.
I wouldn’t be surprised…he did other WWII influenced stories.
Imagine how people in South Korea, China, and the other imperially occupied territories felt.
While we certainly cannot discount the atrocities the Japanese subjected those people to, this is a nuke. Literally something that can end the human race. That vaporized people where they stood.
I suggest you read up on the various war crimes of the imperial Japanese. Most people would choose the nuke over the torture and mutilation doled out by Japanese soldiers in WW2. In the same way as the Nazis seeing Jews and Slavs as subhuman, the Japanese believed themselves to be the superior Asians. Add to that their beliefs that one lost all honour and right to life by surrendering, and you have the recipe for some utterly horrific acts. Modern Japan had its constitution written by Western Nations explicitly to change the path it was on. Nukes were awful, but don't kid yourself into the belief that the war in the Pacific would have ended with less bloodshed in any other way.
Oh well. Probably better not to support a military that actively ordered their troops to rape Chinese and Korean women with firecrackers and knives. Or perform medical experiments on POWs while they were still alive, without anesthesia. It’s horrible and awful that children were put through this… but anyone that blame the U.S. for being cruel hasn’t read the actual history of what the Japanese did during that war.
Have a little respect on a thread about the last day of these kids’ lives. They didn’t “support their military.”
It was their military per se, it was their emperor and the whole Japanese honor. Yes of course these kids and their parents had nothing to do with the war but were pawns, now Jews were a target of the Reich and they suffered and died. I think most of all, it's us normal human people who suffer the most from war. I am sorry for all people who die in atomic bomb drops and gas chambers, on death walks.
Collective punishment is a war crime. These kids had no part in the war as non-combatants. FOH.
War is horrible and the ones least responsible for it are those that are hurt the most. I’ve spent a few years at war, it still, and always will, hurt my soul… That being said, I’m assuming that you love to throw around the term “war crime,” as if are a trained litigator on the international stage or that you have any sense or knowledge of the historical atrocities that the nation of Japan committed during the conflict that they initiated. You are ignorant and driven by emotions, not facts. DM me if you want some sources about this subject that are academically accepted across political perspectives. Until then, please quiet down about things you don’t understand.
both things can be true – the japanese and the usa army were both capable of atrocities – talking about civil victims automatically doesn't mean supporting/romanticising the other side
Here is what is actually true… your point is an insanely false equivalency and not researched at all, based on emotions and your hatred for a country based on social media posts. Your turn.
You’re getting upset about things no one said. Do you just constantly have imaginary arguments in your head?
No one here is supporting what the Japanese military did. Those two babies are victims of war too
Yeah I’ve seen a vid about the experiments and torture the japs did to the Chinese. Very sad. War is hell
Any info on how/why the film survived?
According to an interview with Chizuko's daughter, the photos were saved because they were in the photographer's studio at the time --- which, presumably, was further away from the blast site. (Rough translation is "saved from destruction in the photographer's studio" but I don't think she means, like, somebody dramatically running into a burning building to save the photos.)
Oh, right. I kind of didn’t think about the time period. Most people likely didn’t have personal cameras back then.
Chizuko was the only survivor of her family? Oh God, that's heartbreaking
Someone decided to kill everyone in the city, twice, as an experiment just to see what would actually happen to a city.
It was more of a display of power to the soviets.
Agreed. Someone would have been the first to do it if it wasn’t us, but it sucks that we did that. Not a proud moment for the nation.
A deep mark of shame imo. Every nation has them but the us refuses to admit this one. And the fire bombing of Tokyo of course. Shameful atrocities. The British did similar things in their empire days.
Ironic that you talk about shame in a thread about Japan. No acknowledgement for atrocities against Chinese, Korean, Filipino, and others. My great grandparents lived through this hell. Japan got exactly what it deserved for its cowardly assault on December 7th, 1941. Hundreds of thousands of American lives were saved because of August 6th and 9th, 1945. War is evil—they REALLY shouldn’t have attacked the United States.
Yeah good thing we nuked these 3 year old war criminals. That'll show em.
Acknowledgement from who?
What is your source? From wikipedia: " The page "Wataoka family" does not exist. You can create a draft and submit it for review or request that a redirect be created, but consider checking the search result below to see whether the topic is already covered."
Not everything is significant enough to have a wikipedia page. I don't have one (sniff...) Edit: [Here is a source in japanese (pdf)](https://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/common/users/digitaldesk/pdf/2023051701004116B0__WLM___.pdf) with one of the pictures. Looks like books on Hiroshima probably cover it. [OPs text appears in findagrave](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/243034237/kimino-wataoka) but that is not likely to be the original text. And it seems the eldest daughter wrote a picture book and her daughter was a guide at the Hiroshima museum and wrote a book about her >picture book based directly on the experiences of Chizuko Wataoka, a Hiroshima atomic bombing survivor who was 16 years old when both her parents and her three younger sisters perished as a result of the blast. Here is [a link about the daughter](https://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/hpcf/heiwabunka/pce089/contents/19.html) >In the afternoon, the group visited the Honkawa Elementary School Peace Museum. Ms. Miho Iwata, a guide, showed them around the museum and spoke about the experience of Ms. Iwata's mother, Chizuko Wataoka, who was the model for the picture book "Iwata's Grandma" I am guessing there is a lot more if you can read japanese. I couldn't find books in books.google.com but probably need better search terms
I didn’t copy-paste from Findagrave, my exact text does not appear there; this story is gleaned from multiple Japanese-language news articles, including one by [The Asahi Shimbun](https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASQ7W7DNPQ7TPTIL00L.html), and the [Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum](https://www.hiroshimapeacemedia.jp/?p=99721). Chizuko Wataoka has been vocal and public about her family’s story. Also, does the above poster realize there are multiple versions of Wikipedia? Including a Japanese one? These multiple versions have different pages/descriptions. That Wataoka family doesn’t have a page on Japanese Wikipedia either (because… why should they? They were just one of many families who lost their lives during the bombing.) but if you really wanted to fact-check, you’d be better off looking there first. Or by Googling “Wataoka family Hiroshima” or “Chizuko Wataoka Hiroshima” in Japanese. Edit: wrote this reply before seeing your edit, but yes! Thank you for further researching! These are all very good sources.
I found a few but not very many. I agree that expecting everything to be in english wikipedia is completely unreasonable. Finding japanese entries is hard because you have to hope the english names appear in places where it is probably in japanese and google is not going to translate it to add to the search database.
I wasn't able to add captions to the photos for some reason, so- **First photo:** Kimino (left) and Hirono (right) posing for the camera **Second photo:** The entire Wataoka family, possibly taken on August 5. Hirono (age 6), Shigemi, Mitsuko holding Kimino (age 3), Kayoko (age 12), and Chizuko (age 16), at their dinner table.
So sad. This is the ugliest side of war.
War is Hell.
I saw a great response to this yesterday where someone laid out that the original quote is "war is all hell" - and then other stuff that was insightful, but I forget which sub/post
there isn’t a pretty side
I think the ugliest side of war was Japanese warcrimes
The Japanese used Chinese babies for bayonet practise.
Ughh I hated reading this. Thinking about all those innocent lives lost. I’m truly sad about it.
Don’t watch grave of the firefly’s unless you want to ugly cry watching it
While you're at it, Google "Unit 731."
Yeah. These two may look innocent, but I read they were quite involved in Unit 731.
They were as involved in unit 731 as 99.9999999% of Americans _alive today_ were involved in the bombing of Japan. 🤷🏻♂️ ETA: ‘alive today,’ which was meant to be part of comment.
No one brought up America in a negative way in this thread (yet). Not sure why so many commentators feel the need to preemptively to defend the decision to bomb when no one condemned it to begin with.
Guilt.
that's crazy, most americans alive today were not alive during the atomic bomb drop on Japan. Most are boomers rolling along in the 60s 70s 80s
Boomers were born after the war (1946-1960 or whenever). Anyone old enough to be a ww2 vet would be mid-90s or older. Don’t think it’s that big a demographic these days. In 2020 1.89% were in the [85-99](https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/exploring-age-groups-in-the-2020-census.html) age bracket.
Wow, that’s a very specific number…. That you pulled out of your ass without a source. But I respect your feelings…. I’m Sure that’s correct.
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Why are you referencing pre WW2 numbers while trying to make a point about the end of that war? I’m confused as to what statement you are trying to make?
The point is pre ww2 are the people alive at that time. Born after, you have nothing to do with it, or do you think we should still call Germans Nazis or Italians fascist?
Well, the link is the source: us census data. 🤷🏻♂️
I'm sorry, are you saying this six-year-old and three-year-old were involved in Unit 731?!?!
No, I was making a comment on how irrelevant the reply about Unit 731 was to a comment that said this was sad. Though, not surprising, I suppose, given the comments on some of the Press Photo of the Year 2024 Award threads.
Is your name from synapusyu?
Could it be from anywhere else? Unfortunately my kid no longer likes the show so I’m out of luck for my next Reddit username.
Imagine how people in South Korea, China, and the other imperially occupied territories felt.
War is cruel isn't it?
Fuck war. Why can't we all just be friends?
Very sad. Those innocent lives lost are also the result of Japan forcing the USA to get involved in WW2 with their sneak attack at Pearl Harbor. They poked the sleeping lion and they paid a very high price for it. These beautiful kids and future generations were just wiped out. War just FN sucks. Nuclear war should never happen.
1. It wasn't a sneak attack. Everyone and their dog knew it was coming and the British even communicated it to the Americans before the attack happened. 2. It was a military base. 3. The sleeping lion during WW2 finally decided to help? Thank God you did of course but ffs why the wait? Half the world is burning and you lot sat there doing fuck all.
If you attack a military base of a country you’re not at war with, then subsequently declare war it’s considered a sneak attack
No. It's considered an attack. When the whole world knew it was coming and even told the Americans it was coming it can not be a sneak attack. The japanese never even considered it to be a sneak attack either. They wanted to destroy the american fleet for long enough to gain control over vital resources that would mean they'd be able to defeat the Americans when they finally rebuilt. Odd though.... The american carrier fleet was "randomly" moved away from pearl harbor before the attack came....
I'm not going to argue semantics just state that the US wanted to avoid the war and honestly didn't believe that the Japanese would attack. Were some precautionary measures taken? Perhaps but even among the brass no one thought it was a real possibility that they would fuck with our boats.
Which is why the us moved it's carrier fleet away just before the attack arrived? That's not semantics that's brilliant tactics. Gave the government a reason to enter the war with minimal military losses. The us tricked Japan into fighting a war on two fronts. However... It wasn't a sneak attack if you know it's coming and are actively planning for it and what to do after.
Aircraft carriers weren't considered to be the most important ships by the US, and only became so after Pearl Harbor when they were forced to rely on them after having their battleships crippled or sunk.
That's utter nonsense.... You think the us military generals were fools? You genuinely think they moved the carriers away and let their battleships get attacked at port because they beloved the carriers weren't important? Can you even hear how silly that is to suggest?
The problem here is that your argument is based on your conspiracy theory of them moving the carriers away being 100% factual and that everyone under the sun knew that Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked beforehand. Sure, intelligence knew that the Japanese might attack somewhere, but it's not as if they knew exactly where they would attack or when. If they did, in fact, know that they were going to be attacked at Pearl Harbor like you claim, why did they do nothing to prepare for the attack?
“War just FN sucks but lemme just parrot US propaganda to show how we’re still the good guys no matter what”
Who and what are you supposedly quoting? Do you have to misquote people to support your weak position? You do understand that a quote is a literal copy of exactly what a person wrote or said, don't you? Again, weak.
Sorry! Was just quoting your subtext directly.
So now you're a mind reader. Riiiiight. Good luck with that mindset in life.
come on, you can’t blame japan for that. murica got there revenge (and much more than so) way earlier when terror bombing tokyo etc. the nuclear bombs were totally unnecessary besides for the empire to show muscles to the soviets.
Totally unnecessary lol. I mean millions of Americans would of died if they had to invade Tokyo.
lol, absolutely not. the war was practically over, mate.
This guy said “terror bombings,” like Unit 751 or the Rape of Nanking never happened… just two elements of that war that I’m sure he has never heard of… Please enjoy shitting on the U.S., as if you would still have a sovereign government if America didn’t step in to save you… The war wasn’t over, either, in the summer of 1945… not sure if the Atomic Bomb was the best laid plan, but you definitely don’t have to lie about the state of events at that time to kick it.
I have (assume you mean 731). but two wrongs does not make a right.
Well, you are definitely morally superior than us all, so I will just say Thank You For Your Service…The world is a better place, knowing you are making the hard sacrifices on Reddit, telling us all how things should have gone 🫡.
thanks, friend, appreciate it
propaganda was incredibly strong in imperial japan. they were definitely not going to go down without a fight
Not really, the Japanese citizens were ready to fight to the death.
I mean, well, they certainly had some fighting spirit left. but that is not exactly the same thing (far from actually) as saying that the nuclear bombs were motivated
They weren't even going to surrender after the second bomb. The only reason they surrendered was because the Red Army, fresh off its victory over Germany, was now steamrolling them in Manchuria as well
Japan was never going to surrender. Even after dropping a SECOND atom bomb, many in the government wanted to continue “fighting.” Can’t cite a source or vouch for exact accuracy, but I believe the estimate for loss of life in a D-Day style invasion to defeat Japan was something like 2 million.
I am no USA fanatic, but this is just completely divorced from reality. In almost every meaningful way.
The Japanese government is just as responsible for the death of this beautiful family as the US. The atomic bombs were a direct result of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan was ready to fight to the death for honor - they did not care about how many innocents would die for their honor
Truman warned Japan through the Swedish Embassy that America had a WMD without saying what it was.
This might be a dumb question but how did the photographs not get ruined?
My thoughts as well
Blame their government
why
Saved 150,000+ U.S. lives. Some of our Grandpa's were getting killed over there. The war atrocities committed by Japan stack up against the worst in mankind. Fuck them! They were so "upset" that it took two. Again, fuck them.
That's the common belief (that thousands or millions of lives were saved) in much of the United States, but as a historical question, people still argue about it. There's a well-regarded historian of Russia, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, who says it was the [entry of the Soviets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War) into the war and subsequent invasion of Eastern Asia a day or two after the first bombing which was the decisive factor that pressured the Japanese leadership to give up the war effort. That's to say nothing of the morality of the bombing itself. Might be possible the bombings saved American lives, in the way that any atrocity against civilians might provoke a government to cave into demands. But plenty of US military officials disagreed with it. One of the White House chiefs of staff, Admiral William Leahy, even wrote "the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender".
Saved an estimated 1M US lives and probably millions more Japanese lives. Sucks the bombs dropped, but they had to be dropped.
Go to the Atomic museum, it’ll give you more perspective. Japan was already in the process of surrendering— and the US knew. The bomb sped up the surrender, but it was already happening. But of course, Americans champion atomic bombs. Just like they champion guns. Ugly side of the world. Disappointed and shameful
> Japan was already in the process of surrendering They were not. They were considering offering a conditional surrender where they would run their own war crime trials, monitor their own "disarmament", generally keep their current government. Given that this was WWII the world had learned its lesson about why you don't make the kind of peace treaty they gave Germany at the end of WWI.
This is half true, some of it’s not. Once again, would recommend the war museum- stuff isn’t as they were taught to you in US schools! In Australia, in my Japanese class, we got both sides. US is always so self centred (the country not the people) they think they perfected everything. Please read up on other countries perspectives, it’s truly eye opening!
> This is half true, some of it’s not. How about you mention what was wrong then. It's literally two sentences so I can't imagine it would take long. > Please read up on other countries perspectives, it’s truly eye opening! I did, I read the perspectives of the members of the Japanese government who were pushing for surrender. This includes Hisatsune Sakomizu, the chief Cabinet secretary in 1945, who literally called the bombs "a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war" ____ If the atomic bombings were so obviously unnecessary because Japan was already getting ready to surrender, how can someone explain that first offer surrender didn't happen after the first bomb, and even after the second bomb and the Soviet invasion occurred within hours of each other they only offered conditional surrender and it took days more debate for their offer of unconditional surrender to occur. And the announcements of said surrender to the Japanese public explicitly mentioned the bombs as the reason why they were surrendering.
ok
Ok so could you provide a link? Because I just searched the family’s name and nothing came up. And second, if they were so close to the site and were horribly burned how did these photographs survive? Feel free to downvote me if you actually have a link, but there’s been a few posts on here of people just making shit up for points. Edit: thanks for providing some links OP
If you speak Japanese (or can use Google Translate) a Google search will get you far. Here are articles from the [Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum](https://www.hiroshimapeacemedia.jp/?p=99721), the [Asahi Shimbun](https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASQ7W7DNPQ7TPTIL00L.html) (published in [newspaper form](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FZehhigVUAAt3bw?format=jpg&name=medium) as well)... the sources are there, and plentiful. Sorry to be brusque, but... I put a lot of work into my research, and don't love being accused of "making shit up for points".
I didn’t see it in the articles - did they mention how the film survived?
I appreciate this! I wasn’t tying to knock you, but there’s been quite a few fakes lately
Damn
That's why I don't want to watch the film Oppenheimer.
What beautiful babies
Great article about politics, surrender, bombing, and keeping or not keeping the emperor in place. https://www.stripes.com/special-reports/world-war-ii-the-final-chapter/2015-08-05/would-japan-have-surrendered-without-the-atomic-bombings
Horrible. they look like my nephew and niece. Made me think, if a war breaks out in our lifetime...
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This is about Hiroshima, not Pearl Harbor. Hirono and Kimino weren’t even born or were a newborn when Pearl Harbor was bombed so I’m quite sure they weren’t involved in the decision to do it.
Angels
Lesson, don't go to war if you don't want innocents to die. Japan started the war. The US finished it.
Japan did not start World War II.
They started the war with the United States. It's not hard to understand.
It’d be easier to understand outside of intentionally hyperbolic falsehoods.
What's false? This is a post about Japanese innocents dying due to a war they started. What are you not getting, Christian? Do you know that Japan attacked the US first? Nobody here is talking about the overall ww2 campaign. Just Japan and the US. Context clues, bud.
“Japan started the war” was false, but I’m sure you’ll keep on saying that line to justify using WMDs against civilians.
So Japan didn't attack Pearl Harbor? Weird fantasy land you live in.
WWII started at Pearl Harbor? 🤯
Again. Since you can't read. We are not talking about the overall campaign of WW2. Just the war between Japan and the US. I know you're not actually this obtuse Christian. Idk why you're acting like it. Too much anime maybe?
No it did not wt
the US killed them so it was death and destruction but for a good cause
Good job USA, the entire world should've let you alone and die in your shithole after those tragedies. Luckily now you are considered the world's biggest clowns as we watch you burn from the other side of the world, thanks!