White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

When I visited Hiroshima less than two months ago I thought that I knew quite a lot about the the events at the end of the second world war in the Pacific including the atomic bombs that were dropped upon Japan in order to reach a faster end of the war. Nothing was however comparable with seeing the destruction of Hiroshima at first hand in the Peace Museum, as well as the impressing memorial monuments in the Hiroshima Peace Park. Now comes this documentary by American-born Steven Okazaki which complements the images and the information that I acquired during my visit in Japan.

Let me say that it's one of the best historical and investigative documentaries that I have seen in years, if not the best. There are many direct witnesses that present the two sides of the event - the Japanese survivors of the atomic bombardments in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who were most of them kids in 1945 and who carried for the rest of their lives the physical pain in their flesh and the psychological traumas in their souls, and the American crewmen who seem to have gained awareness about the dimensions of the event they participated in, but show almost no trace of guilt or remorse for their actions. Some of the pictures taken immediately after the bombing which some of them - it is said in the film - are being seen for the first time in public are shocking and succeed to convey the intensity and dimensions of the destruction and sufferings that were inflicted on the civilian population of the two bombed cities.

Yet, it is the opening sequence that impressed me the most. It is filmed today, in some big city of Japan. Young Japanese folks in the teens or twenties are asked 'what historical event happened on August 6, 1945'. None of them knows the answer! Such films as 'White light, Black Rain' can help however bring down completely the walls of silence that still exist.

We are now roughly 80 years removed from WWII and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Very very few people are alive today that were alive back then, and even fewer still that had anything to do with WWII. I know the rationalization is that the U. S. had to do something to end the war, but it's just that: a rationalization.

"White Light/Black Rain" is a documentary with interviews and footage of survivors of the bombings that occurred on August 6th and 9th, 1945 (Hiroshima & Nagasaki). The "white light" was the intense light from the detonation of the bomb. The "black rain" was the radioactive wet ash that rained down afterwards.

There are also interviews of some of the American scientists and soldiers who were involved with the bombing-- each one doing his duty. Still, it's one of those things that after you've done it you ask, "What have we done?"

The total estimated human loss of life caused by World War II, irrespective of political alignment, was roughly 72 million people. This figure includes military and civilian. It includes six million Jews exterminated by the Nazi, and it includes the over 200,000 who died on August 6th and 9th as the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

As one of the children born in Japan during its occupation after the war, I feel a special affinity for the country and its people. As one of those who are concerned about the fate of the world, I feel a special affinity for this film, as it shows the utter horror that can occur when we are relentless in our drive to develop new and more powerful weapons.

It can be argued that the number of deaths caused by the war would be much higher had these 200,000 not been sacrificed, but the larger concern is that we have 400,000 times the power today than that which was unleashed 62 years ago. That should concern every citizen in the World.

This was a moving and powerful documentary. The horrors shown were sometimes hard to stomach. They equal the most horrific horror films on the market today. The part most difficult to think about is that horror films are mostly for adult, but the horrors of these bombings were experienced by children as young as six.

To see your mother crumble to dust in front of you is a pain that is incomprehensible. It is so horrific that some children could not take it and ended their lives. To see children with horrific burns all over their bodies, in excruciating pain for many months, with no relief and wanting to die will touch the hardest hearts.

Many questioned if we were ready for a film like United 93 so soon after September 11th. This film took 62 years before it was decided we were ready. It would be a crime not to see it for yourself.

Something many people - primarily westerners - don't know; Japan, to this day, has never - EVER allowed students to know that is was they who were the aggressor, and with it, the horrors unleashed by them, are still unknown by many.

Today, with now people than ever making idiotic, snap judgements, without knowing any facts, is very, very important to understand.

There's a dictum; history is written by the victors, and though this issue true, what happened during the last hundred years, the first time where so much information had been captured, saved, disseminated, that is the first time, in which all sides are able to speak.

I think people (mostly the group known as 'm-ll-n--ls') will come away from watching White Light/Black Rain, with the (false) belief that the 'evil West' inflicted such hospital on the peaceful, loving people of Japan, arms as I said, almost 3/4 of a century after this, Japan has done very little to either explain to its people, to educate, nor have they apologised to any people (Chinese, Koreans, Pacific islanders) to whom they inflicted horrors, upon which even the Nazis were sickened.

I say this..'preamble' because I hope that anyone who watches this - admittedly touching documentary featuring the voices from the very few survivors of (let's hope) the only time nuclear warheads will every be used (upon civilians) - will understand that this is only part of the picture.

Hindsight is wonderful, but it's not reality.

In in the many years since these events, people have said that japan's war efforts were faltering, and using such weapons was unnecessary.

There's others who concur, but, they say that - knowing of the almost maniacal sadistic-Ness gf the imperial military, Japan -in spite of eminent loss - would've initiated a 'scorched earth'-like policy, and anywhere the military was withdrawing from, they would've killed, brutalised, destroyed everyone, everything.

I come away from WL/BR with (admitted) empathy for these people, and for the horrors they lived through, as well as the pains - egotistical and physical - through which they've endured these many decades. It is heartbreaking. I wish I could say - to each one of them - in-person ; I'm so, so truly sorry. I know my words can never be anything but trifle, but there are many who wish - like a parent, who's child has hem injured - that they could magically take away all the pain, all the suffering, because not one of these people deserved any of it.

Not one.

I mean I every words I've just said.

I mean it ; now of that people deserved anything, but I also mean that imperial Japan's military was one of the moray barbaric entities imaginable.

How am I able to take these 2 -apparent cowardice thoughts and believe them both? Because, I'm capable of separating the 2 groups, andi have one question; would it have been possible to have dropped the bombs on Imperial Japanese military targets, such as their ports, etc. ? P yes, civilian casualties would've still happened, due to the immense amount of energy released during fission as well as fusion (an aside; the amount of nuclear material used in one of these bombs is frighteningly small, whereas the devastation if caused is beyond scope. Moreover, the bombs of today are now powerful - unimaginably so, through there are small... 'targetable' nuclear 'bullets' so to speak, which can be much more precisely targeted. The bombs used here, would be - analogously-speaking, comparing strength between an ant and a thoroughbred).

2 cities-worth of civilian citizens were - not just killed, but yp many were vapourised - those few 'fortunate' enough to have time through this, but leaving a.. 'reminder' of their mere existence, left nothing more solid than a nuclear blast 'shadow' - a slightly darkened area, in the form of a 'person'; exactly like the shadow one sees of themselves as they walk outside on a sunny day. As ephemeral, but that's all their is.

I would make the viewing off WK/BR mandatory for all history students - everywhere, including that in Japan (its actually nor funny in the open Ng of this documentary when various young people in both cities are asked if they knew what happened on the dates the bombs were dropped - and NOT ONE knew. That'd fighting, because as another group who was massacred during WWII has made a very important almost mantra-like statement; 'NEVER FORGET'. Sadly, in the very heart of what is ground-zero of the centre of the nuclear arms race, it's clear, teaching what had happened and what could - again - it's separated by a layer so imperceptibly thin.

White Light/Black Rain is a devastating portrait of the horrors that the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki faced during and after the Atomic Bombings, doing so through vivid, haunting firsthand accounts from survivors of the blasts. This film illuminates the suffering of those who survived, while contrasting that with interviews of young, modern Japanese who when asked about what happened in 1945, surprisingly, have no clue. This is a revelatory example of a unique aspect of Japanese culture. In remaking themselves into a capitalist technology obsessed society, it seems to want to almost forget about the nightmares of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The price paid for this willful forgetfulness usually falls squarely on the shoulders of the aging survivors, who have been discriminated against as if they were pariahs while constantly being tested on for scientific purposes since the bombings. Thankfully there are films like these to help keep the firsthand accounts recorded for future generations. This film also has firsthand accounts of the American pilots and scientists, who didn't even understand the potential effects of radiation, that helped foster this horrifying event, but for the purpose of this database we should focus on the firsthand Japanese accounts, giving visual examples to why these weapons should never be used again. All too often in American history we acknowledge these attacks as the end of the war and eventual cause for celebration. With White Light/Black Rain, we see though the war may have ended, these nightmarish bombs destroyed so many innocent lives.