The Bombing of Nagasaki & Catholics of Urakami

Episode 10: The Bombing of Nagasaki & the Catholics of Urakami
Brief Chronology:
1549 - St. Francis Xavier arrives in Japan; Nagasaki eventually becomes heartland of Japanese Christianity
1587 - Persecution of Japanese Christians begins.
1865 - Hidden Christians reveal themselves at Nagasaki and are promptly persecuted.
1925 - Original Immaculate Conception Cathedral finished in Urakami
1930 - 1936 - St. Maximilian Kolbe in Nagasaki
1933 - Japanese takeover of Manchuria
1934 - Conversion of Takashi Nagai after living with Moriyama family, descendants of leaders of the Hidden Christians of Nagasaki
1937 - Beginning of Sino-Japanese War
1941 - Aug. 14 - St. Maximilan Kolbe dies at Auschwitz; Dec. 7 - Japanese attack on Pear Harbor leading to U.S. entry into WWII
1945

• Night of March 9-10: Firebombing of Tokyo, killing approx. 80 to 100,000
• May 8 - Germany surrenders
  
• Aug. 6: First atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, killing approx. 70,000
• Aug. 9, 11:02 AM: Second atomic bomb dropped on Urakami valley area of Nagasaki, killing approx. 30,000
• Aug. 15: Japan surrenders 1951 - Death of Takashi Nagai 1958 - Reconstruction of cathedral in Urakami 1981 - Pope John Paul II visits Japan

Summary:
We discussed the story of the dropping of an atomic bomb on the historic Catholic area of Urakami in Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 at 11:02 AM. The bomb exploded extremely close to the area where the Immaculate Conception Cathedral stood, and where Catholics were gathered in preparation for the upcoming Feast of the Assumption. The cathedral was reduced to ruins which burned through the night. Catholic priests and nuns, as well as about two thirds (about 8,000) of the city's Catholics perished in the bombing, in which approximately 30,000 people total were killed instantly. Ironically, the commander and pilot of the B-29 bomber which dropped the atomic bomb was an American Catholic, Major Charles Sweeney (then only 25 years old), who professed to never regret the bombing.

Those who survived faced many struggles - they were stigmatized as irradiated persons, called hibakusha; they faced local pressure to leave the devastated cathedral in ruins as a peace memorial; they experienced "survivor guilt"; and struggled with traumatic memories of losing family and homes.

Although the writings of Dr. Takashi Nagai explained the bombings as providential, many Catholics felt dissatisfied with his views . These different perspectives began to be shared after Pope St. John Paul II's 1981 visit to Japan, in which he spoke of the evils of atomic warfare and stated at Hiroshima, "War is the work of humanity; war is destruction of human life; war is death." (Dangerous Memory, p. 75). Survivors took this message to mean they did not need to accept uncritically Nagai's sacrificial theory of the bombing.

Among the survivors we discussed were:

• Dr. Takashi Nagai - He was a radiologist working in a hospital at the time of the bombing. He was diagnosed with leukemia shortly before the bombing due to his exposure to radiation in his work and nearly died of his injuries after rallying the survivors from the hospital to help the wounded in and around Nagasaki. He eventually returned to Urakami with his two young children to live in a hut where he wrote the first book allowed to be published providing an eyewitness account of the bombing, The Bells of Nagasaki. Nagai used proceeds from the book to plan cherry trees throughout the city. He is controversial for his theory that the bombing of Nagasaki was providential and provided an acceptable burnt offering of the good and innocent to God for the sins of mankind in waging World War II. He has been designated a "Servant of God," meaning he has an open sainthood cause.
• Brother Ozaki Tomei (Tagawa Koichi) - A Franciscan monk who was working in an underground factory at the time of the bombing. He was haunted by his turning away from helping others in the immediate aftermath of the bombing as he desperately tried to get home. In his home he was unable to find his mother's remains, only what was left of her rosary. He later entered a monastery founded by St. Maximilian Kolbe, about whom Ozaki has written a book.

Sources and Further Reading

Movie: All that Remains (Ignatius 2016) - Includes a short documentary with Paul Glynn.

Specific Focus on Nagasaki Bombing:
• The Bells of Nagasaki by Takashi Nagai, translated by William Johnston (Kodansha International, 1984) (originally published in Japanese in 1949 as Nagasaki no kane).
• We of Nagasaki: The Story of Survivors in an Atomic Wasteland by Takashi Nagai, translated by Ichiro Shirato and Herbert B.L. Silverman (Duell Sloan and Pearce, 1951).
• A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai by Paul Glynn, S.M. (Ignatius Press, 1988).
• Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki: Prayers, Protests and Catholic Survivor Narratives by Gwyn McClelland (Routledge, 2020)
• Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War by Susan Southard (Penguin Books, 2016).
• Nagasaki: The Massacre of the Innocent and Unknowing by Craig Collie (Allen & Unwin 2012)
• Resurrecting Nagasaki: Reconstruction and the Formation of Atomic Narratives by Chad R. Diehl (Cornel Univ. Press, 2018).

General Background on the end of WWII in the Pacific and the atomic bombings:
• The Fall of Japan: The Final Weeks of World War II in the Pacific by William Craig (Open Roads Media, 2015)(originally published in 1967).
• Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire by Richard B. Frank (Random House, 1999).
• Hiroshima Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath by Paul Ham (Thomas Dunne Books, 2011).
• The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan by Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2011).
• War's End: An Eyewitness Account of America's Last Atomic Mission by Charles W. Sweeney (memoir of the pilot on the Nagasaki mission).

Image Credit: **"Urakami Cathedral" by Jake (based on stained glass image at Nagasaki's Immaculate Conception Cathedral)
**Music Credit: *Special Thank You to Paul Spring for allowing us to use his song "Itasca" from the album Borderline EP (2014)!