FAT MAN OVER NAGASAKI

This past Friday I featured the 65th Anniversary of Little Man over Hiroshima.  Today, I report on the B29 Bockscar, skipping a fogged in Kokura, going on to Nagasaki, dropping Fat Man, with 14 pounds of plutonium-239, which exploded at a height 1540 feet above either of two locations (and they might well both be accurate):

1.  As reported by the U.S., halfway between two Mitsubishi weapons factories.

2.  On a plaque at the hypocenter of the Nagasaki Peace Memorial:  right over a Christian Church.

The equivalent of 40,000 pounds of TNT, a temperature of 7000 degrees F was reached with wind forces of 624 miles/hour, frying 40,000, and, over time, with an additional 30,000 or more deaths, a total probably exceeding 300,000, counting Hiroshima.

How would you like to have been Tsutomu Yamaguchi?  He just passed away earlier this year at the age of 93, having suffered injuries from BOTH atomic blasts.  Amazingly enough, he was only one of 165 such dual zapped individuals.  You can watch a 2006 documentary, Twice Survived:  The Doubly Atomic Bombed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Yamaguchi was an engineer with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, who subsequently worked for the American Armed Forces, became a schoolteacher, then went back to Mitsubishi.

Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, six days after Nagasaki.

I've visited both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Peace Parks, and, while you can't shake the vision of the surviving Hiroshima Industrial Promotion Hall dome skeleton (above), there is something about the Nagasaki memorial that has balanced the horror, especially in April, when the Sakura bloom.  There is tranquility blended with international works of outdoor art.

Not quite the smooth transition, but while in Nagasaki, you must try their pork cutlet (or tonkatsu).   While supposedly originating in Europe, or, maybe, Tokyo after the end of the second world war, Nagasaki has perfected this dish into an unmatched crispness and delicacy.  The experience is somewhat like when I first had Shanghai dumplings in Shanghai...not quite the Hawaii version.


Continuing the wonderful in life, here are Pearl's sunburst and the Hawaii State Flower:

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The Dow Jones Industrials climbed up 45 to 10,699, while world markets mostly increased. Gold dropped $3/toz to $1202 and crude oil is at $81/barrel.

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In the Pacific, Tropical Depression Estelle is dissipating in the east, while in the west, Tropical Storm Dianmu at 50 MPH appears on track to blow over South Korea.

 

In the Atlantic, there are two storms, both weak, but the one that was in the south Atlantic is struggling across Florida and appears headed for the oil spill area.

 

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