Nearly 200,000 were killed — and for those who survived, it was hell on earth for as long as they lived. Fortunately, never again has any country used this inhuman device of destruction — though there have been close calls. All they were told by the tightly controlled news was that the atomic bomb was just a more powerful version of a conventional bomb. With US forces in full control of who came in and out of defeated Japan, and extremely tough restrictions on Japanese journalists, there was almost no awareness of the human suffering created by the atomic bomb. Hersey’s essay told Americans, and the world, of the real cost in human suffering, agony and pain.

Source: The Express Tribune September 29, 2020 03:45 UTC