Is that Hiroko above? Could be.
I am blessed to have a student who is 76, open minded very highly educated and rich.
The "76" gives her an amazing perspective regarding WWII
Her high education. (She graduated from a famous girls University in Tokyo back when only the rich and connected could do so.) allows her to articulate it in English
Her husbands wealth allows her to travel and she is involved with the local Ministry of Justice as an ombudsman for them as well as holding several significant positions which her attitude and husbands power have allowed her to get.
Her father's company made mini subs and aircraft equipment during the war and she met Nakasone at a "Thank you" benefit he held for factory owners that helped the war effort (This was during the Car wars with America in the Reagan years)
She is very Patriotic and proud of her families contributions during the war with America ( If you talk about the Emperors family with anything other than respect..tatemae or otherwise.... she will rip into you and tear you a new asshole with some unflattering American info or opinion) She can drop knowledge like bombs. She is not to be played with unless you know what the fuck your talking about.
She could be an ongoing character in this blog because she is so uniquely qualified to talk about so many things "Japan".
At approximately 8:15 a.m. Hiroshima time the Enola Gay released "Little Boy," its 9,700-pound uranium bomb, over the city.
At that very moment Hiroko was doing her daily morning drills with sharpened bamboo sticks. She was 10.
She and her classmates (girls) thought Japan was doomed if THIS is what it had come to? The tone of the daily motivational speeches had become downright terrifying. They were being told it was such a lucky thing, that THEY might be able to support with their own hands (little girl hands) the defense of their country, what an honor. She said.."we were like N. Korea I think...blind...or too scared to speak up"
They were convinced they would be invaded and raped by the white devils. She believed that. She was angry that Japan had brought these white demons to her shores...her families shores. Who did this to us? Why am I holding this spear? Who failed so completely that I have to do this and who is in charge that is crazy enough to even ask? If we are all going to die then what is the point?
She felt the shockwave and noticed from her spot in Otake Japan, a big mushroom cloud forming where Hiroshima was. She and her classmates were angry and scared. WHY are THEY doing this do us? How did it come to this?? Why is everyone secretly saying this is a lost cause but no one is saying it out loud to others?
I asked what she thought about the bombing? She said after years of thinking she concluded "Thank God they dropped the Atomic bomb" She (I'm summarizing her thoughts) said Russia was amassing 1-2 million battle hardened troops ordered to take Japan from the north until reaching Osaka, since they needed a deep water port on their eastern shore. She said they woulda cut Japan in half like Germany so her relatives from Akita might be speaking Russian now. "I'm glad the American's took the surrender and not the Russians" she said.
She said "You know more people died in the Tokyo firebombings than the atom bomb right?" I said yeah...I know:)
Wiki
The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9/10 March 1945 was the single deadliest air raid of World War II;[12] greater than Dresden,[13] Hiroshima, or Nagasaki as single events.[14][15]
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ALSO
War is Hell
http://badboyinjapan.blogspot.jp/2011/03/japan-war-is-hell.html
More Atomic lessons
http://badboyinjapan.blogspot.jp/2011/02/another-atomic-history-lesson-thanks.html
