When the cloud parted

摘要

America dropped its atom bomb on Nagasaki at 11.02am on August 9th 1945, three days after Little Boy fell on Hiroshima. In the years that followed, the story of Nagasaki's hibakusha (the "explosion-affected people", or survivors of the atom bomb) took second place. The best-known symbol of the world's first use of nuclear weapons was always Hiroshima. It is this imbalance which Susan Southard's searing account of the experiences of five teenagers who lived through the attack on Nagasaki tries to redress. The second nuclear bomb, which killed over 70,000 civilians (with many more dying afterwards), struck as Japan's wartime leaders, shocked by Hiroshima, were already deliberating how to surrender. So, there has long been a sense that this second fireball was less justified than the first.