Nagasaki + 70: Kokura's luck

70 years ago today, Nagasaki was hit in the world's second atomic bomb attack, and the phrase 'Kokura's luck' entered the Japanese language. The city of Kokura was the target for the attack, but when the American B-29 bomber reached it, it was shrouded in haze.

So the aircraft flew on another 90 miles to Nagasaki, and, finding a gap in the clouds, dropped 'Fat Man' - a more powerful bomb than the one used on Hiroshima. Thanks to better air raid precautions and because the bomb was detonated about two miles from its intended point, it caused fewer casualties, though it still killed about 40,000. 

Nagasaki was a centre for Roman Catholicism in Japan, and a revered Catholic priest, Takashi Nagai pointed to the great hole gouged out by the bomb, and said the Japanese themselves were to blame for it: 'We dug it to the rhythm of military marches.'

Over the years that followed, perhaps 80,000 died from the bomb's longer term effects. For a long time, many of the sick and injured received no government support, and even when that was put right, 10,000 Korean victims had to wait another 11 years before they got help, and even then on very restrictive terms.

For more on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, see A Disastrous History of the World.

Hiroshima + 70, and a classic piece of journalism

I went to Hiroshima in 1992. It was a bizarre experience to be able to stand at the epicentre of the atomic bomb explosion of August 6, 1945, and to see the remains of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, now know as the A-bomb dome. Perhaps even more bizarrely the nearby pedestrian traffic lights played 'Coming Through the Rye' when it was time to cross the road.

One of the first real accounts of the effects of the bomb came in a classic piece of journalism by the American writer, John Hersey, who visited the city in May 1946, and interviewed survivors for his book, Hiroshima.

In measured, factual tones, he tells the story of the Methodist pastor, who was sitting in his friend's garden when he saw a blinding flash across the sky. He dived for cover as debris fell from the sky, and when he looked up, the house had disappeared, and day had turned to night.

Hersey tells how almost all Hiroshima's doctors and nurses were killed or injured, and how at the Red Cross hospital there was just one doctor left as an endless stream of badly burned casualties began to stream in. These are just a couple of the vivid human stories in a slim but compelling volume. You can read it in a couple of hours but you will remember it for a lifetime.

One of the great survivors

The only person officially recognised to have survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb explosions has died in Japan aged 93. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was from Nagasaki, and worked as a draughtsman, designing oil tankers for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

In the summer of 1945, he was seconded to a shipyard in Hiroshima – an arrangement that was due to end on August 6. That very morning, Enola Gay dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima. Mr Yamaguchi suffered severe burns to the upper half of his body, but managed to return to his hometown.

He was there three days later when the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. In later years, he became a determined campaigner for nuclear disarmament and addressed the United Nations.

A uranium atomic bomb was used against Hiroshima, and it exploded nearly 1,900 feet above the city. In the immediate aftermath, about 90,000 people died, while in the years that followed, the effects of burns, injuries and radiation carried off perhaps another 50,000. Against Nagasaki, a more powerful plutonium bomb was used, but the city had better air raid precautions, and the total death toll was around 75,000.