Chapter 6-The Atomic Bombing Ended the Japanese-American War

The decision of top US military leaders to bomb Japan with the atomic bomb, a bomb whose deadly powers were still unknown was one of the hardest decisions of American leaders to end the war with Japan.

It was believed the atomic bomb will kill thousands and thousands of people with more missing and mutilated just an hour after it was dropped. But it’s real deadliness was still unknown.

When the Atomic Bomb was dropped at the City of Hiroshima, reports said there were 20,000 Japanese soldiers dead and more than 120,000 Japanese civilians were killed. In Nagasaki, three days later there were an 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 had these results:

“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 11, in a radio address made August 15, 1945 citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.”

The Manhattan 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 in 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 place the US in a dominant position to determine the course of the post- war 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. 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, 1945 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 which was preparing for the invasion of Japan was ordered by the military high command to proceed to Central Luzon. The order was to fight the communists and the HUKS in Central Luzon. Gen. Douglas McArthur had ordered President Manuel Roxas to immediately eliminate the communists and HUKBALAHAPS even if they have fought side by side with the Americans and Filipino soldiers against the Japanese for more than 4 years.

Many communists had 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 was that the Communists were bad elements in society and must be eliminated. The communists in the Philippines had made it their mission to destroy the feudal system in the Philippines brought by the Spaniards and carried over by the United States. This political and military system was believed could not be changed without a revolution that will changed the system controlled by Filipino oligarchs and elites with the assistance of the Americans.

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 the deep poverty of the majority of Filipinos even today.

Feudalism, US imperialism and bureaucratic capitalism were the three major reasons for the deep poverty of the majority of Filipinos. The problem continues and war between the government and the communists would continue for the coming years. years. It will go on the next 100 years and perhaps forever, if the CPP and the Philippine government would not come to a Peace Talk and end this brutal war that killed more than 40,000 Filipinos.

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 4 years, on political and ideological grounds."

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 the 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”.

Father continued “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. Even in our old age, we worked together with our small livelihood projects and taught our neighbors 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. A year later, 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's martial law regime.

He and my mother were able to buy a 2 ½ hectares farm in Cawayan, Carles, Iloilo. He told me, they paid the 2 ½ 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). . 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 awarded him his 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. 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 grandchildren on their own decision.

My father 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, was given by the US government a pension, more than received by my father, about P62,000 a month. That's because my mother got an accident. She falls from her bed, while about to sleep. Her hips injured. They are now both with the Lord.

Some of our friends and neighbors went to the USA and Europe for employment. We all decided to stay, live, work and served our people here in our country thru our different callings, training, skills and expertise. We believe, we are more needed in the Philippines to serve our people.

Some of us siblings went to foreign countries to have some rest and study. Or to see grandchildren. Some of us visited the USA, Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East to study. We feel, we are happier and live fulfilled lives, working with our people, helping in the tasks of improving our lives together.

1Myrna Bernal

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