Why doubt the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Nakatani discusses a non-nuclear pyrotechnical scenario for the ‘flash’, which, even though not perceived by all witnesses, does seem to figure more commonly in victim testimony than the ‘bang’. He suggests that photoflash bombs were used—perhaps of the AN-M46 type. Indeed, quite a few witnesses liken the impression to that of a photographer’s flash, such as for example Toyofumi Ogura [12, p. 15]:

I saw, or rather felt, an enormous bluish white flash of light, as when a photographer lights a dish of magnesium.

Spectacular though it was, the light emitted by this flash must have been considerably less intense than that of a real nuclear detonation, as we will see in Section 10.2.

The ‘bang’ was probably not created by a single detonation but by several separate large bombs burst in the air. This is discussed in some more detail in Section 13.1.2.

Most buildings in Japanese cities were constructed from wood. Consequently, in their conventional bombing raids, the Americans relied mostly on incendiaries, which according to the U.S. Strategic bombing survey [13] included both ‘oil-gel’ (napalm) and thermite-magnesium bombs. As we shall see later, only the use of napalm is supported by strong evidence. Even though scattered, some witness reports of incendiary bombs falling on Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be found; but as will be discussed in Section 13.2, most bombs were likely detonated already in the air, and only a small number reached the ground.

Finally, Nakatani posits that some radioactivity—probably reactor waste—was dispersed using conventional explosives, relating that such a device—known as a ‘dirty bomb’—had previously been tested in New Mexico. Chapter 3 will show that scattered reactor waste fits the published scientific findings on ‘Little Boy’s’ radioactive fallout much better than does the official story of a nuclear detonation.

Keller [10] reports that many Hiroshima victims suffered from bone marrow suppression and other symptoms that are commonly observed in patients exposed to strong irradiation, be it by accident or for treatment; and these statements are confirmed by many other medical case studies and surveys. The very low amount of dispersed radioactive material apparent from studies such as Shizuma et al. [6] cannot account for these observations.

Nakatani recognizes this incongruity and proposes that clinical reports of radiation sickness are mostly fabricated, although he suggests that a dirty bomb might have produced some real cases. I concur in principle that much of the science that surrounds this event is fraudulent, and I will discuss some specific examples in later chapters. However, the medical reports are too numerous and come from too many independent sources to be so nonchalantly dismissed, and in fact they can be readily explained by the use of poison gas. Eyewitness testimony from Hiroshima is replete with references to poisonous gas and its deleterious effects. Among 105 witnesses who experienced the Hiroshima bombing as school age children, and whose memories were collected and published by the Japanese teacher Arata [14], 13 explicitly mention poisonous gas or fumes.9 One of them, Hisato Itoh, died shortly after writing his account, which contains this statement:

Both my mother and I had been through a great deal of strain during this time … and then we also started to feel listless and began to lose our hair because we had breathed the gases when the atom bomb fell.

The possible use of poison gas was brought up early on by Dr. Masao Tsuzuki, the leading Japanese member on the U.S.-Japanese ‘Joint Commission’ of medical scientists convened to investigate the aftermath of the bombing. The historian Sey Nishimura [15] quotes from a 1945 article by Tsuzuki:

Immediately after the explosion of the atomic bomb, some gas permeated, which appeared like white smoke with stimulating odor. Many reported that when inhaled, it caused acute sore throat or suffocating pain.

According to Nishimura, Tsuzuki’s position concerning the gas attracted the attention of the U.S. military censors, who, for violation of their rule that “news must be factual, devoid of conjecture,” struck out the following passage from his manuscript:

Considering from various points, generation of something like poisonous gas accompanying the explosion operation is conceivable, and it is not hard to conjecture that there were perhaps war victims who died of these poisons. At present we have no clue whether it was devised on purpose so as to radiate something like poisonous gas. If I have a chance, I’d like to put a question to America on this matter.

Again according to Nishimura, Tsuzuki nevertheless reaffirmed his position in another report six years later:

Everyone experienced inhalation of a certain indescribable malodorous gas. This may be considered city stench, which was induced by fierce wind from the explosion; a part of it might have originated from electrolytes generated by application of radioactivity to air. What this so-called “gas” is, is not clear. But it is not unthinkable that it could be invasive to the human body.

Tsuzuki’s conjecture on the radiogenic origin of the gas is sound in principle: ionizing radiation traveling through air can indeed produce pungent, aggressive gases such as ozone and oxides of nitrogen. However, assuming that no nuclear detonation actually happened, we can rule out this possibility, which means that any poisonous gas present must have been dropped in finished form during the air raid. It is interesting to note that the first independent journalist to report from Hiroshima, the Australian Wilfred Burchett [16],10 also brings up poison gas:

My nose detected a peculiar odour unlike anything I have ever smelled before. It is something like sulphur, but not quite. I could smell it when I passed a fire that was still smouldering, or at a spot where they were still recovering bodies from the wreckage. But I could also smell it where everything was still deserted.

The gas plagued the people even four weeks after the event:

And so the people of Hiroshima today are walking through the forlorn desolation of their once proud city with gauze masks over their mouths and noses.

The Japanese interviewed by Burchett conflated it with radioactivity:

They believe it [the smell] is given off by the poisonous gas still issuing from the earth soaked with radioactivity released by the split uranium atom.

Their conjecture on the origin of the gas must be false, for there is no plausible mechanism by which radiation or fallout from a nuclear bomb could produce this sort of lingering fumes.11 However, this should not mislead us into discounting their perceptions altogether; surely no one toiling in hot summer weather will wear a face mask without reason. What kind of gas would fit this entire scenario?

The most likely candidate is sulfur mustard, which had been used as a chemical weapon in World War I, and which was so used again more recently by Iraq in its war against Iran. Sulfur mustard mimics both the acute and the chronic effects of radiation on the human body. In particular, like radiation, mustard gas damages the bone marrow, the hair follicles, and other rapidly proliferating tissues; and this commonality was already well understood at the time [17].12

An oily fluid, sulfur mustard can evaporate slowly over time; its smell resembles that of ‘garlic, addled eggs, or oil-roasted vegetables’ [19] and is also sometimes described as sulfuric. It can persist in the environment for considerable periods of time [20], which would explain that Burchett still noted its stench and its effects when he visited Hiroshima in early September.

The U.S. had stockpiled sulfur mustard in World War II and had even conducted experiments on some of their own soldiers.13

In 1943, numerous U.S. servicemen and civilians had been killed by the poison in the Italian port city of Bari after a German air attack struck an American military transport ship which had carried a large consignment of aerial bombs filled with mustard gas.14 This disaster would have been fresh on the minds of the military brass when plans for the fake nuclear bombings were first sketched out.15

While the effects of mustard gas resemble those of radiation in several ways, there nonetheless are differences between the two. A nuclear detonation will produce radiation predominantly in the form of γ-rays and of neutrons, both of which are highly penetrating and thus have marked effects on rapidly proliferating tissues deep inside the body; they will destroy the bone marrow at dosages well below those that will severely harm the skin, the lungs, and even the intestines, although these are second in susceptibility only to the bone marrow. Mustard gas, in contrast, must be taken up through the skin or the mucous membranes of the lungs or intestines, and in the process it will produce marked and early symptoms of damage to these organs. You may have read accounts like the following, again taken from John Hersey [7]:

The eyebrows of some were burned off and skin hung from their faces and hands. … He reached down and took a woman by the hands, but her skin slipped off in huge, glove-like pieces.

While standard lore explains such lesions as thermal ‘flash burns’ caused by the light radiating from the bomb, they really do not fit that description. Instead, they are strikingly similar to those described by the military physician Alexander [22] in the mustard gas victims at Bari:

In many cases large areas of the superficial layers of the epidermis were separated from their deeper layers and torn loose … The pathologists repeatedly noted that these layers of the skin were dislodged upon handling of the body … As the superficial skin layers were stripped loose they often took their surface hair with them.

Similar descriptions were given by other physicians [27,28]. The characteristic skin lesions are but one sign that distinguishes mustard gas poisoning from true radiation sickness; there are others, which may be less graphic yet are no less specific and decisive. As we will see later, clinical and pathological reports from Hiroshima contain a wealth of evidence that clearly points to sulfur mustard or a closely similar poisonous gas, rather than radiation, as the cause of ‘radiation sickness’ among the victims in Hiroshima.

Alexander further notes:

Thermal burns were readily distinguished from the chemical burns. There were a small number of cases that sustained minor thermal burns in addition to their mustard injuries.

Thermal burns must have occurred in those victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki whose wooden houses had been set afire and collapsed around them. In addition, however, it is likely that many of the burns were inflicted by napalm or a similar incendiary; this will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 9.

In summary, therefore, the thesis of this book as to what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is similar to that of Nakatani [1], but augmented with sulfur mustard, which was used to mimic in the victims the symptoms of exposure to strong radiation.

Some findings prove that physical and medical effects expected of the purported nuclear detonation did not in fact occur. Among the examples introduced above, we can cite the absence of characteristic signs of destruction in the city (Section 1.1), the lack of ²³⁵U in the fallout (Section 1.2), and the survival of people who were practically right at the hypocenter, protected from the blast and the radiation by nothing more than a Japanese style wooden house (Section 1.3).

Another important finding in this category is the absence of retinal lesions in survivors who reported having looked directly at the flash. As we will see in Section 10.2, there are both case reports and experimental studies to show that these survivors should all have had their retinas severely burned and scarred, had they indeed looked at a real nuclear detonation.

The official story of Hiroshima states that the city was destroyed by a single atomic bomb and nothing else. Thus, any kind of destruction or trauma that is not explained by this single bomb also contradicts the official story, even though it does not disprove the detonation of an atomic bomb outright.

A crucial finding in this category is the occurrence of ‘radiation sickness’ among those who were not close to the alleged bomb detonation. All orthodox sources on the effects of the Hiroshima bomb—see for example Okajima et al. [29], and Cullings et al. [30]—agree that levels of radiation sufficient to induce acute radiation sickness occurred only during the detonation itself, and within at most 2,000 m of the hypocenter;16 in contrast, the residual radioactivity due to fallout and neutron capture remained below this threshold both at the hypocenter and in the Koi area of the city, which is some 2 km from the hypocenter yet received the highest levels of fallout. Nevertheless, numerous cases of ‘radiation sickness’ have been reported in people who were more than 2,000 m away from the ‘blast’ or even outside the city altogether. The victims within this group often fell sick after participating in rescue and recovery efforts in the inner city shortly after the bombing. Two such cases, both with deadly outcome, are described in an early report by the International Red Cross [32]. Larger statistics that amply support this contention can be found in reports by Oughterson et al. [33] and Sutou [34].

This category is a special case of the previous one, but it is important enough to be highlighted separately. In addition to the skin forming blisters and being torn loose (Section 1.4), there is abundant evidence of immediate, acute affliction of the airways and the intestines, which in the course of acute radiation sickness should be affected only at a later stage or not at all. The involvement of these organs is clear both from clinical descriptions and from autopsies of bombing victims.

Importantly, mustard gas also mimics the typical manifestations of radiation sickness such as bone marrow suppression and epilation, and it can persist in the environment for weeks or even months [17,35]. Thus, mustard gas accounts for ‘radiation sickness’ not only in those who were in the city at the time of the bombing, but also in those who entered it in the aftermath. Moreover, it can account for some atypical symptoms which do not fit the textbook pattern of true radiation sickness; it explains the entire picture and succeeds where nuclear radiation falls short.

The case for the nuclear bomb is, of course, supported by an endless stream of government-sponsored scientific studies. For example, there are dozens of reports on the formation of ⁶⁰Co and other radioactive isotopes near the hypocenter, which is ascribed to the capture of neutrons emitted by the nuclear detonation. Similarly, thermoluminescence in samples of ceramic materials is adduced as proof of the γ-irradiation released by the detonation.

Taken at face value, such experimental studies indeed prove that a large amount of both γ-rays and neutrons was released at Hiroshima, which clearly supports the story of the nuclear detonation and flatly contradicts the negative evidence discussed above. We are thus forced to choose sides. On what basis can we make this choice?

If we assume that no blast occurred, then we must conclude that the evidence of neutron and γ-radiation is fabricated. This is not technically difficult; in fact, the studies in question commonly employ control and calibration samples that were produced by exposing inactive precursor materials to defined doses of laboratory-generated neutron and γ-radiation. The only difficulty is a moral one—we must accuse either the scientists themselves or a third party, such as a government or its secret service, of substituting artificial samples for the real ones. In this context, it is worth noting that none of the studies I have seen documents the chain of custody of its samples; it is not clear who had access to the samples at which times.

If, on the other hand, we assume that a nuclear blast did occur, and furthermore that only this blast occurred, then we have to conclude that some people inexplicably survived deadly doses of radiation, whereas others succumbed to acute radiation sickness without significant exposure. A third miracle is needed to explain that all people who looked at the flash of the detonation escaped with their retinas unhurt.17

Between moral embarrassment and scientific impossibility, the only sound choice is the former. We all expect the fortitude to make such choices correctly in the members of a jury; here, we should expect the same of ourselves.

Evidence that has been lost or was not collected in the first place cannot, of course, directly support either side of an argument. It will matter only on a meta-plane, and only to those who would entertain the possibility of its deliberate suppression; readers familiar with the controversies surrounding the Kennedy murders or the twin tower collapses will likely recognize the theme. While in my own view the missing evidence rounds out the case, it is not a logically essential element.

Some choice examples of disappearing evidence are provided by the physicist John A. Auxier [36]. While he remarks that “it is difficult to realize the passion that prevailed after the war for secrecy about all information concerning nuclear bombs,” he nevertheless accepts at face value the official story that had to be nurtured by such secrecy, and he dedicated a large part of his own career to the arduous work of filling the gaps in the accepted picture of the radiation doses released and received at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Considering the great novelty of the atomic bombs, the U.S. military would certainly have been highly interested in measuring exactly the force of their detonations. To this end, the planes dropping these bombs were accompanied by others that dropped instruments for recording the shock waves of the explosions. Since the strength of the shock wave decreases with distance, it was important to know precisely the distance between the bombs and these instruments. However, according to Auxier, this information is missing from the official records:

In addition to the strength of the explosion, the intensity of the radiation produced should also have been of great interest. It is therefore peculiar that radiation measurements in Hiroshima by American teams began only in October, at a time when most of the radioactivity left behind by the bomb would already have vanished. However, several Japanese teams had on their own initiative performed measurements shortly after the bombings. Among them was a group from Kyoto University that included the physicist Sakae Shimizu, who carried out some very early measurements pertaining to the dose of very high energy neutrons [37]. How did the Americans treat this valuable evidence? Says Auxier:

Unfortunately, soon after the war ended and while Dr. Shimizu’s studies were still underway, the U.S. occupation force confiscated the cyclotron and all apparatus and records that laymen would consider to be related to atomic bomb research. Included in the latter were the radium source [required for calibrating instruments for measuring radiation] and all the notebooks of data. Through the handwritten receipt that had been given Dr. Shimizu, the confiscating officer was identified some 12 years later, and, by the cooperation by the Army records staff, he was located in civilian life. However, soon after receiving the materials from Dr. Shimizu, the officer was ordered back to the United States with little time for an orderly changeover. He turned everything over to a lieutenant colonel or major whose name he could not recall. Further research through Army records has failed to identify this man or to locate any trace of the notebooks or radium source.

Surely an astonishing imbroglio of mishaps and incompetence. It should be added that the Kyoto cyclotron was not merely ‘confiscated’ but physically destroyed, as was every single cyclotron in the country [38,39]. This draconian measure of course severely crippled the Japanese scientists’ ability to carry out any sort of in-depth study on the physical effects of the atomic bombs.18 At the same time, their investigations into the medical effects were hamstrung by the confiscation of all tissue and organ samples that had been collected from bombing victims by Japanese pathologists [41]. These materials were returned to Japan only several decades later; and while in American custody, they made only a single appearance, limited and belated, in the scientific literature [42].

The examples in this section may suffice to outline a map on which to place the various kinds of evidence in the case. In the subsequent chapters, we will explore this evidence at greater depth.