By Stephen Walker
Barnes & Noble link
As the narrator of Fallout 3 best put it: "War never changes". Years have passed since the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on two cities in Japan, citing the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. But, what if the bombs weren't dropped? Well, there would've been a land battle between Americans and Japanese. Many deaths were foreshadowed, possibly more than the total overall of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But, some had to die in order for more not to die? Those, among many more questions you will ask yourself as you read Walker's Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima.
It starts from the beginning: the birth of the first atomic bomb. Set in the arid New Mexico desert, a team of scientists take the knowledge of the famed (and secret) Manhattan Project and built the next great weapon of war. It was a bomb that promised annihilation, enough to bring any stubborn opposite force to its knees and wave the white flag with fervor. Upon detonating the precious thing, it rose like a second sun and gave hope to America, who was tired of fighting.
As the subtitle goes, it was now down to about three weeks until that fateful day in Japan. The story unfolds at a furious pace, showing how President Truman deals with negotiations with Stalin, all the while the Emperor of Japan tries to figure out what to do in his country's desperate situation. All sides get a voice: the Japanese soldiers preparing for a land battle, the American soldiers waiting for an end, the agitated scientists wanting to stop the bomb's usage on Japanese citizens, and the Japanese citizens that loved and lived. One of the blurbs on my copy called it a "thriller novel". It sure felt like one! Not only with its pace, but the neutral voice told the readers everything they needed to know before the climax: August 6th, 1945.
The book's solitary shortcoming would be its brief end. I wished it covered Nagasaki (the paperback edition has an essay written by Walker that covers that, albeit briefly) and got into more on the aftermath. I know we already have books like John Hersey's Hiroshima for the Japanese view, but maybe something different. Or even something more.
Here is a quote from Enola Gay's (the airplane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima) assistant engineer Robert Shumard with his feelings upon seeing the iconic, color-changing mushroom cloud:
There was nothing but death in that cloud. All those Japanese souls ascending to Heaven.
-- from page 262 of the book
This book is a must-read for those interested in the atomic bomb and its history, also for those wanting more than one side to the tragedy of the atomic bomb's aftermath.
COPYRIGHT NOTE: all bold quotes are from the novel and were written by the author himself. Those words are not my own.
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HERE BE PARAGRAPHS... I MEAN, OPINIONS:
In all honesty, I still think dropping the bombs was extreme. A war crime? Yes. But, ya know what? So were Unit 731, the Rape of Nanking, Pearl Harbor, and the Holocaust! Many countries have done horrible things to other people and nothing justifies it. And I am far from a defender of Japan and its past. Here in the States, we have this mentality (straight from the Bible, surprise surprise) of an "eye for an eye". Hiroshima was pretty much that for Pearl Harbor, more or less. While the book had provided "the train of thought" as to the "why America did this", it still doesn't justify it. I'm in the small camp of folks who believe that there could've been another way for the war to end, i.e. dropping the bomb on a desolate island near Japan.
And as for the war continuing, the book discussed how pretty much NO ONE wanted the war to keep on. Japan was having trouble feeding its large population (they were basically cut off from trading due to previous political blunders) and America didn't want to send more troops into something that pretty much guaranteed death.
/opinion
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