Shigemi Fukahori, Catholic atomic bomb survivor and peace advocate, dies at 93

[Michie]

Shigemi Fukahori, a Japanese Catholic who survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945 and who was an advocate for peace late in his life, died on Friday, Jan. 3, at age 93.

Fukahori died at a hospital in Nagasaki, according to the Urakami Cathedral located in that city. The AP reported on his death on Sunday.

The Urakami cathedral was itself destroyed in the atomic blast on Aug. 9, 1945. It was rebuilt in 1959. Peace activists have lately been working to fund a replacement for one of the cathedral’s bells destroyed in the blast.

Continued below.

Catholic atomic bomb survivor and peace advocate dies at 93

In 2020, at a ceremony in Japan, the peace advocate said: “I am determined to send our message to make Nagasaki the final place where an atomic bomb is ever dropped.”

www.catholicnewsagency.com

 

[AveChristusRex]

Shigemi Fukahori, a Japanese Catholic who survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945 and who was an advocate for peace late in his life, died on Friday, Jan. 3, at age 93.

Fukahori died at a hospital in Nagasaki, according to the Urakami Cathedral located in that city. The AP reported on his death on Sunday.

The Urakami cathedral was itself destroyed in the atomic blast on Aug. 9, 1945. It was rebuilt in 1959. Peace activists have lately been working to fund a replacement for one of the cathedral’s bells destroyed in the blast.

Continued below.

Catholic atomic bomb survivor and peace advocate dies at 93

In 2020, at a ceremony in Japan, the peace advocate said: “I am determined to send our message to make Nagasaki the final place where an atomic bomb is ever dropped.”

www.catholicnewsagency.com

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis!

 

[RileyG]

May he rest in the peace of Christ

 

[Wolseley]

It's a cruel pity that we bombed Nagasaki---the center of Japanese Catholicism---to begin with. The primary target that day was Kokura---where there was a huge armaments arsenal located, but when the aircraft approached Kokura, the target was clouded over; there was no way the bombardier could see clearly enough to make an accurate aiming. So, the aircraft commander (Maj. Charles Sweeny) diverted to a secondary target, which happened to be Nagasaki, where there were two large Mitsubishi weapons factories. When they got there, that target was also clouded over.

Now they had a decision to make. They only had so much fuel; they couldn't just fly around up there forever, waiting for the weather to clear; but they were also reluctant to drop the bomb by radar, fearing that they might miss the target altogether, and this was one expensive (and scarce) piece of ordnance. Scrubbing the mission was out of the question---nobody had ever tried to land an airplane with an atomic bomb on board before, and the crew was not eager to be the first ones to test it. At the last minute, there was a break in the clouds long enough for the bombardier (Cap. Kermit Beahan) to focus on a large oval sports arena on the ground, which he chose as his aiming point.

Nagasaki sits in-between a series of low mountains, so the bomb blast was pretty much confined to the Urakami Valley, where the munitions plants were; the bulk of the city itself was shielded by the hills. 35,000 people were killed in the blast and 60,000 injured; of those, 23,200–28,200 were Japanese munitions workers, 2,000 were Korean slave laborers, and 150 were Japanese soldiers. Ergo, Nagasaki was more of a military target than Hiroshima was, which was primarily chosen to be bombed because it was one of the few Japanese cities left without major bomb damage, and the 20th Air Force wanted to see what kind of damage an atomic bomb could inflict. As a result, more civilians were killed at Hiroshima than at Nagasaki.

Awful stuff. Years after the war, President Eisenhower privately remarked that in his own estimation, the Japanese armed forces at the time were just about on the verge of collapse, and that had he been in charge, he would not have chosen to drop the bombs: "There was never any need to hit them with that damned thing." While that conclusion may be up for debate, one thing that I do know is that my own father was stationed in Calcutta, India, at the time, and his unit had just received orders to prepare for mobilization to go into the invasion of mainland Japan, probably by early 1946. The bombs ended the war, which meant that he didn't have to take part in that invasion, and possibly be killed. Had things gone differently, who knows? I might not even be here today.