Still thinking about Oppenheimer

 Still thinking about the “Oppenheimer” and atomic bomb story… A relevant article came across the Bismarck Tribune Sunday stated “The thundering Trinity test showered fallout on 46 states, including North Dakota, Minnesota and South Dakota, within 10 days.” It left “lingering questions about cancer and other health effects.”

The brother-in-law of one of my cousins experienced the results of the Trinity test firsthand - in Hiroshima. A fourteen-year-old at the time, he’d accompanied his father to visit his ailing paternal grandfather in Hiroshima, Japan. He had not come with other members of the family when they’d emigrated and settled in the U.S. in the 1930s. To make the long story short, when their visit was over they could find no way to return home. Japanese and U.S. relations had deteriorated so badly by then that there were no American-bound ships available.

Since they were stranded it was decided the boy must attend school. In the fourth year of the war he was drafted to assist in the war effort. There came that day when he looked up in the sky and saw a single plane overhead. He said at 8:16 the bomb exploded, lifted him in the air, and flung him to the ground again. Then when he looked around the smoke and dust were so thick he could not see.

When it cleared, he said the display of human suffering was too much for him to bear. “I can never forget the image nor the smell of death.” This survivor’s story is interesting to read. Go to the Cal Alumni Assn and search for “An Atomic Bomb Survivor Recalls the Horrors of Hiroshima.”