Atomic Bombs and Japan
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Awe, beauty, and heroism are the feelings conveyed by William L. Lawrence, in his article "Atomic Bombing of Nagasake Told by Flight Member" as he witnesses that final flight and the dropping of the second A-bomb. He says that he is one of the few to watch the assembly of the bomb and is obviously taken with it as he says, "It is a thing of beauty to behold, this 'gadget'" (247). He is in awe with the "millions of man-hours of what is without a doubt the most concentrated intellectual effort in history. Never before had so much brain power been focused on a single problem" (247). From the midnight briefing on through the flight to Japan, Lawrence focuses on the details of suiting up, the details of the flight, the storm, and the men he is traveling with who are faced with the task of carrying this mission out. He describes Captain Bock as "nonchalant and unperturbed" (249) describes the quiet efficiency of Sergeant Curry by reporting the conversation that they had. Lawrence even admires the way the B-29 flies in the midst of the storm, reporting that, Our great ship took some heavy dips through the abyssmal darkness around us, but it took these dips much more gracefully than a large commercial airline, producing a sensation more in the nature of a glide than a "bump" (248). When Nagasaki is finally selected as the target and the bomb is dropped, Lawrence describes the "giant ball of fire...belching forth enormous white smoke rings" (251), and th
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ng of her friend, Betty, she is yearns for healthy young men, not in uniform, who have not been wounded, "Someone who would pull me out of this gloom with a wide spontaneous smile" (142). In describing her life, Hardy is trying to explain that she really wanted the war to end and she was proud to be part of the war effort. However, when the news comes that the atomic bombs have been dropped, she understands that these new bombs have changed everything. As she is reading the evening paper she is "looking for some speculation from someone about how we were going to live in this new world" (144) and for the first time in her life she feels terror in being out alone at night. After a sleepless night of nightmares and questioning herself she is relieved to finally see that she is not the only one to question the morality of using the A-bomb as she reads paper (145). She is bitterly disappointed to learn that the factory where she worked helped to put the bombs together. In the end she writes, "I knew it was going to be very hard from now on for the whole world to take care of itself" (146).
The Other Side of the Story
John Hersey, in his article "Hatsuyo Nakamura", takes another tack, jumping the ocean in a sense to portray t
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Some common words found in the essay are:
II Hersey, Hardy YWCA, Sergeant Curry, Tracy Hardy, Told Flight, Hatsuyo Nakamura, Japan Lawrence, Captain Bock, Legend Awe, Disappointment Contrasted, atomic bomb, atomic bombing, hatsuyo nakamura, told flight, war grandma, war effort, help war, radiation sickness, zoe tracy,
Approximate Word count = 1239
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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