By Owei Lakemfa
SUNDAY,  August 15,  2010 will be the 65th commemoration of the day the terrible  Second World War ended. But no country wants to mark this; in fact, it is difficult to find any member of the human race marking the day.

The Japanese whose Emperor Hirohito on   August 15, 1945 announced the Japanese surrender and effectively ended the war, do not mark it because  it reminds them of the humiliation of Japan.

Most European countries like Britain and France prefer to mark ancillary dates like the D-Day. The Germans who had been the pivot of the war do not  mark it as it would remind them of their military  defeat and humiliation.

The defunct Soviet Union and its successor states would prefer to mark ‘The Great Patriotic War’ in which they highlight their undisputable heroism against  Hitlerite Germany.

The Americans were the main people who forced  imperial Japan to surrender, but they do not commemorate the day because in ensuring the Japanese capitulation, the Harry S. Truman administration committed heinous crimes against humanity and  let the human race know that it can commit suicide.

The war had began to wind down after the May 7, 1945 surrender of Germany. But Japan was still holding out  when on July 16, 1945 the US  first tested the atomic bomb at the Trinity site. The Americans knew it was a bomb capable of erasing cities from the earth.

A  committee headed by  the scientist, Robert Oppenheimer who had been director of the research, listed four Japanese cities; Kyoto, Yokohama, Hiroshima and  Kokura as possible targets that will elicit maximum damage and terrible psychological effects. Kyoto was picked because it was a military and intellectual centre.

But US  Secretary of War, Henry L Stimson got Kyoto dropped because  he had fallen in love with the city when he had his honeymoon there.

Without any warning, the US aircraft, Enola Gay named after the mother of its pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets, on August 6, 1945 dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It took 43 seconds for the bomb called “Little Boy” to fall from the aircraft and detonate.

On the first day, it wiped  out  83,000 people, including almost all the doctors and nurses in the city with tens of thousands injured. Within four months, an additional  80,000 died, bringing the total figure to 166,000.

The injured and those affected by radiation continued to die as a result of the bomb for another five  decades. The shocked Japanese reported that the bomb destroyed practically all living things in the city  which was picked for its heavy civilian population to instil fear in the ordinary Japanese.

Unfortunately, most  Americans not realising the gravity of the crime their government had committed, were ecstatic, prompting Truman to declare that unless the dazed Japanese surrender immediately,  they should “expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which  has never been seen on this earth”.

True to his words, on May 9, another American aircraft,  the Bockscar commanded by Major Charles W. Sweeny was on the way to drop the second atomic bomb called  the “Fat Man” .

The initial target was Kokura but visibility over it was poor, so the plane headed for Nagasaki, again this was cloudy, but as the aircraft made for a third target,  there was a last minute break  in the clouds over Nagasaki and the bomb was dropped. Luckily it was dropped in the  Urakami Valley and the hills  protected  a major part of the city.

Despite  this, about 75,000 persons were killed on that first day  with thousands more dying within the next four months. In a twist of fate, some survivors of the Hiroshima bombing  three days earlier who had found their way to Nagasaki  were again bombed.

On August 15, 1945  while lamenting the use of such unimaginable weapon of terror on the Japanese civil populace and announcing surrender, Emperor Hirohito, said if the US were given the excuse to continue using the atomic bomb, it would not  only lead to the “obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also  it would  lead to the total extinction of human civilization”.

Unfortunately, the American populace did not immediately realise the danger in terrorising civilian populations by dropping or threatening  to drop atomic bombs on them. They saw only power in their ability to exterminate, annihilate and obliterate other peoples. But gradually, they came to realise the crime against humanity  perpetrated by the Truman administration in the name of saving lives in the closing period of the war.

Humanity vowed that never again will  it allow such senseless wars.  But  it seemed that very few lessons were learnt, and rather than wind down such bombs that can lead to the mutual destruction of the world, the Americans  redoubled their efforts and began to produce deadlier bombs.   By 1985, they had 9,600 nuclear weapons.

The Soviet Union raced to produce its own atomic bomb to counter- balance the US terror. In 1949, it tested its first bomb and soon overtook the Americans in the nuclear bomb race so much that by 1985, it had 12,000 nuclear bombs.

The British with its fading super power status raced to  test its bomb in 1952 and by 1985 had 225 nuclear weapons. The French followed with its own test in 1960 and eventually produced 300 nuclear weapons while China tested its bomb in 1964 and went on to stockpile 240 nuclear bombs. India did its test in 1974 and produced some 70 bombs while its neighbour and political rival, Pakistan tested its bomb in 1998.

Israel which refuses to acknowledge that it has the bomb did its own test in  1979,  and has  a stockpile of 80 nuclear bombs.

South Africa is the only country in the world to  have disassembled its nuclear weapons, while America in proliferating  nuclear weapons has shared its arsenal with  Germany, Belgium, Turkey, Netherlands, Greece, Italy and Canada. North Korea and Iran are also on the march. Apparently, humanity  has simply made the world a place  for  Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).