HIROSHIMA MEMORIAL PEACE PARK

 I won't say anything more than to cheer that the major hostage swap in the Hamas-Israel War went well today.  You can read the article. Or watch a video.

Today, all about the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.  I've been here at least a dozen times over the years.  

Here is one stop I made a decade ago, another two years later to give a talk at Hiroshima University, and third  a few years later in 2017 to give a talk at Hiroshima University. where during a visit to Shukkeien for cherry blossoms a bluish-black koi ate Pearl's ash capsule.

Were the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the two worst war crimes ever perpetrated in history?  Well, a lot died:

The “low” estimates are those derived from the estimates of the 1940s: around 70,000 dead at Hiroshima, and around 40,000 dead at Nagasaki, for 110,000 total dead. The “high” estimates are those that derive from the 1977 re-estimation: around 140,000 dead at Hiroshima, and around 70,000 dead at Nagasaki, for a total of 210,000 total dead. Given that the “high” estimates are almost double the “low” estimates, this is a significant difference.

On the other hand, it is estimated that 400,000 to 800,000 Americans would have perished, and five to ten million Japanese, if they had not surrendered.  Read the details in Operation Downfall.  Thus President Harry Truman was "only" responsible for 210,000 at most because of his decision to drop the bombs, and thus saving at least six million.

Adolf Hitler murdered 6 million Jews and an additional 6 million of other races from 1933-1945, so 12 million.  However historians claim that Josef Stalin was responsible for 20 million deaths.

In his Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong's policy led to the deaths of up to 45 million people from 1958 to 1962.  Wow, those were the years I spent in college, and I had no idea.

In many ways, Genghis Khan might have been worse on a % of global population basis.  While the details are murky, in 1221 he ordered the killing of 1.75 million in the Persian city of Nishapur, and one story is that all of that took place in hour, surely placing Truman's 0.21 million three days apart. Khan murdered 16 million people, which at that time was about 0.5% of the world population.  Actually, then, Mao was worse, for his 45 million when the globe had 3 billion people calculates to 0.53%.

Well, so much of that.  Harry Truman was not accused of committing a war crime because the U.S. and Allied Forces won World War II.  History is determined by the winners, who also find ways to punish the losers.  But about Hiroshima and the A-Bomb:

• It was selected because it was the headquarters of the Japanese Second Army with 40,000 military personnel in the city.  Plus it did not have a POW camp.
• 
  Amazingly enough, the Atomic Bomb Dome was the only survivor near the epicenter, and Little Boy just about exploded exactly over the building at an elevation of 1969 feet, virtually ideal according to Robert Oppenheimer.  The fact that this building had that shape also helped in the survival.

• 
  That structure was scheduled to be demolished, but controversially was retained during the construction of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park from 1950-1964.
• In 2016 President Barack Obama was the first sitting president to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, accompanied Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

Here are a few photos of our walk through the park.

We also visited Shukkeien, a botanical park.  Free if you're older than 64.  Best Fall Colors yet.

This was not the bluish-black koi that ate Pearl's capsule when I dropped it off years ago.

Tomorrow, we'll be in Miyazaki.

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