Happy V-J Day

Few newspapers have anything about it, but today is V-J Day.

Everyone remembers this famous photo, but they forget why the sailor was happy: Because he now knew he would live.

More stories HERE.

My cousin, who was in the Navy, was with my mother when the news was announced. His leg was in a cast: His ship had been kamakazi'd and while home on leave, he got drunk, woke up in the dark and jumped out a window since the door was locked. What he failed to notice is that he was in a second floor apartment.

One reason he got drunk is that most of the guys who were scheduled to be involved in the invasion of Japan figured they wouldn't come back...but with a broken leg, he had to be left behind, so he was recuperating with my grandmother (who raised him) when VJ day came, and he and my mother went downtown to celebrate.

Few people arguing about dropping the bomb realize that the estimate of US casualties if Japan had been invaded was one million....and, given the resistance and mass suicides on the outer islands of Saipan and Okinawa, the estimate of civilian casualties in Japan was in the millions.

but that doesn't mean that dropping the bomb was "right" (it was probably the least bad of several bad options).

AFondnessForReading blog reviews the classic Japanese book Bells of Nagasaki.

Today again I have survived;
I contemplate and relish
The precious jewel of life.

"Little by little, people are putting things in order and rebuilding their homes. Though it may not be apparent to the eye, the atomic desert is gradually sending forth new shoots of life."

Dr. Nagai lost his beloved wife in the blast. He fought his own battle with leukemia before his death, trying desperately to postpone the day when his two children would become orphans. He was a deeply religious man, a devoted father, and a compassionate healer and teacher. During the last years of his life, when he was confined to bed due to the ravages of his atomic bomb disease, he wrote many books, poems, and papers in the spirit of peace. His writings, a powerful plea for peace in this atomic age, touched the hearts of many people around the world. He died in 1951.