PART 1 -Chapter 4 -The Atomic Bombing of Heroshima & Nagasaki in Japan (for release)
(For Release)

The decision of top US leaders to bomb Japan with the Atomic Bomb, a bomb whose great  power to kill  soldiers and civilians was  still unknown  was one of the deadly decisions of the Americans leaders to   end their war with Japan. It was believe, the Atomic Bomb will kill thousands  and thousands of  people with more missing and  mutilated.  in just an hour. But its real deadliness was still unknown. 

When the Atomic Bomb was dropped  at the City of Hiroshima, reports said there were 20,000 Japanese  soldiers killed and 120,000 civilians killed. In Nagasaki, three days later, there were estimated   80,000 killed. There were 20 British officers and some  Americans  also killed..

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki according to  Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)/

“On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed Atomic Bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-Bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people.

“Japan’s Emperor Hirohito, announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address made August 15, 1945 citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.”

The Manhatan Project

“Even before the outbreak of war in 1939, a group of American scientists–many of them refugees from fascist regimes in Europe–became concerned with nuclear weapons research being conducted in Nazi Germany. In 1940, the U.S. government began funding its own atomic weapons development program, which came under the joint responsibility of the Office of Scientific Research and Development and the War Department after the U.S. entry into World War II.

“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was tasked with spearheading the construction of the vast facilities necessary for the top-secret program, Codenamed  “The Manhattan Project ” 

Over the next several years, the program’s scientists worked on producing the key materials for nuclear fission–uranium-235 and plutonium (Pu-239). They sent them to Los Alamos, New Mexico, where a team led by J. Robert Oppenheimer worked to turn these materials into a workable atomic bomb. Early on the morning of July 16, 1945, the Manhattan Project held its first successful test of an atomic device–a plutonium bomb–at the Trinity test site at Alamogordo, New Mexico.

No Surrender for the Japanese

“By the time of the Trinity test, the Allied powers had already defeated Germany in Europe. Japan, however, vowed to fight to the bitter end in the Pacific, despite clear indications (as early as 1944) that they had little chance of winning. In fact, between mid-April 1945  (when President Harry Truman took office) and mid-July, Japanese forces inflicted Allied casualties totaling nearly half those suffered in three full years of war in the Pacific, proving that Japan had become even more deadly when faced with defeat.

“In late July, Japan’s militarist government rejected the Allied demand for surrender put forth in the Potsdam Declaration, which threatened the Japanese with “prompt and utter destruction” if they refused.

“General Douglas MacArthur and other top military commanders favored continuing the conventional bombing of Japan already in effect and following up with a massive invasion, Codenamed “Operation Downfall.” They advised Truman that such an invasion would result in U.S. casualties of up to 1 million.

“In order to avoid such a high casualty rate, Truman decided–over the moral reservations of Secretary of War Henry Stimson, General Dwight Eisenhower and a number of the Manhattan Project scientists–to use the atomic bomb in the hopes of bringing the war to a quick end.

“Proponents of the A-bomb–such as James Byrnes, Truman’s secretary of state–believed that its devastating power would not only end the war, but also put the U.S. in a dominant position to determine the course of the postwar world.”

“LITTLE BOY ” AND “FAT MAN”

“Hiroshima, a manufacturing center of some 350,000 people located about 500 miles from Tokyo, was selected as the first target. After arriving at the U.S. base on the Pacific island of Tinian, the more than 9,000-pound uranium-235 bomb was loaded aboard a modified B-29 bomber christened Enola Gay (after the mother of its pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets).

“The plane dropped the bomb–known as “Little Boy”–by parachute at 8:15 in the morning, and it exploded 2,000 feet above Hiroshima in a blast equal to 12-15,000 tons of TNT, destroying five square miles of the city.

“Hiroshima’s devastation failed to elicit immediate Japanese surrender, however, and on August 9 Major Charles Sweeney flew another B-29 bomber, Bockscar, from Tinian.

“Thick clouds over the primary target, the city of Kokura, drove Sweeney to a secondary target, Nagasaki, where the plutonium bomb “Fat Man” was dropped at 11:02 that morning. More powerful than the one used at Hiroshima, the bomb weighed nearly 10,000 pounds and was built to produce a 22-kiloton blast. The topography of Nagasaki, which was nestled in narrow valleys between mountains, reduced the bomb’s effect, limiting the destruction to 2.6 square miles.

“At noon on August 15, 1945 (Japanese time), Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s surrender in a radio broadcast. The news spread quickly, and “Victory in Japan” or “V-J Day” celebrations broke out across the United States and other Allied nations. The formal surrender agreement was signed on September 2, aboard the U.S. battleship Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay.” (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

After the surrender of Japan, my father’s battalion in Manila who were preparing for the invasion of Japan  was called up. They were ordered by the military high command to proceed to Central Luzon. They were ordered to fight the communists and the HUKS in Central Luzon. I heard, it was Gen. Douglas MacArthur who ordered President Manuel Roxas, to immediately eliminate the communists and Hukbalahaps, even if they stood side by side with the Americans and Filipino soldiers in fighting the Japanese for more than 4 years.

Many communists have fought with Americans and thousands of them died fighting the Japanese during the Second World  war.

The ideological belief, instilled deep on the minds of American officers and soldiers, that the communists were bad elements in society must be eliminated. The communists in the Philippines have made it their mission to destroy the feudal system in Philippine society, brought by the Spaniards and carried over by the United States.

The feudal system, the concentration of the lands and wealth of the country in the hands of few Spanish descendants and Filipino-Spanish mestisos and maintained by the U.S, was believed  the cause of deep poverty of majority of Filipinos until today. Feudalism, US Imperialism and Bureaucratic Capitalism, the three major reasons for the deep poverty of majority of Filipinos, was the reason for the continued war between the Philippine government and the Communists until today.

To join his battalion to Central Luzon, means my father will have to fight his former Comrades -in -Arms, the communists and the HUKS. My father told me: “Rudy, I was ready to fight the Japanese even in Japan, but I was not ready and will not be happy fighting fellow Filipinos in Central Luzon, even if they were members of the HUKs and Communists in the Philippines.”

With the order given them to proceed to Central Luzon and fight the HUKS and the Communists, my father decided to leave the army. He resigned. He told me: " Rudy to resign from the army  was one of the hardest and painful decisions I made in life.  But I am  not ready to fight and kill fellow Filipinos, who were with me fighting the Japanese for about 4 years, on political and ideological grounds."

My father told me, when he  was  Grade V11 in Balasan High School, that:  “The major reasons why many Filipinos joined the communist movement was poverty, inequality and injustice. The hard and abject poverty of majority of Filipinos, whose lives were chained and controlled by the few rich and powerful landlords, businessmen and politicians were the major  evil in  Philippine  society that must be condemned."

“Majority of Filipinos lived in poverty and will remain in deep poverty the rest of their lives, unless the vast lands of the country and wealth of the nation, were distributed  equally to the millions of landless and poorest  Filipinos”.

My father said: “It was unfortunate that the few people who owned and controlled the vast lands and wealth resources of the country, those who owned big business enterprises, those who ran the government were living in affluence and luxury, while the great majority of Filipinos lived in deep poverty. Unless the problem of deep poverty and injustices were addressed, the poor Filipinos will continue to join the rebel movements and fight the government.”

It was during this time, in February 1945 that my younger brother, Restituto Bernal, Jr., whom we fondly called “Nene” was born. He was four years younger than me. We played together when we were very young. We worked and learned to work and fight. And even in our old age, we were close to each other and work together with our small livelihood projects and teachings our neighbors some skills we learned together.

After our father’s resignation from the army and release of his military papers, he went home to Dayhagan, Pilar, Capiz. Then we transferred to Cawayan, Carles, Iloilo, whose boundary was, just a few meters away from our home in Dayhagan. There,  he started life as a farmer, a fisherman and later,  a carpenter. He served his people later, by being the Barangay Captain of Cawayan for 23 years, including the years under President Marcos martial law regime.

He and my mother were able to buy a 3 hectares farm in Cawayan, Carles, Iloilo. He told me, they paid the amount of the 3 hectares farm for Three Hundred Fifty Pesos (P350). He paid it with his Back Pay as a member of the United States Armed Forces in the Far East (USAFFE). He bought the farm from his cousin. And we lived in that parcel of land, with another  one  hectare  given  us by my grandmother.

Several years ago, his being a soldier of the USAFFE,  was awarding  him a US citizenship. He was asked by the US government to go to the US and claim his US citizenship. He decided not to go. He loved to be a Filipino citizen.

And all his 9 children were of legal age. They cannot be American citizens any more by virtue of our father’s citizenship. He wants to leave the citizens of his grand children to the decisions of them.  younger generations.

He was given a pension that's   equivalent to the pensions of Filipinos who are American citizens. About P54,000 a month. And his wife, our mother, who was given by the US government a pension, more than received by my  father, about P62,000 a month. That's because my mother on her got an accident. She fall from her bed, while about to slept, his hips was injured. All efforts were made for her recovery but failed. She was bedridden for nearly 7 years,until she died. We loved our mother. And she loved all of us, her children and husband.

Some of his children could have gone to the US  or Europe for employment. But we all decided to stay, live, work and served our people here in the country thru our different callings, training, skills and expertise. We believed, we are more needed in the Philippines to serve our people. We went abroad to learn, study, gain additional skills and experiences to effectively serve and live with our people here.

Some of us siblings went to foreign countries to have some rests. To study. And to see grandsons and granddaughters. Some of us visited the US, Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East. We feel, we were happier and lived fulfilled lives, living and working with our people, helping in the tasks of working and improving our lives together with our people.