Maria statue damaged by the atomic bomb in Nagasaki

Today is the 70th Nagasaki Genbaku Day. It means that it has passed 70 years since the atomic bomb was dropped into Nagasaki City on the 9th Aug., 1945. In this city, about 12,000 Christians lived, but about 8,500 among them were killed at once by the atomic bomb.

Just after the surrender of Japan, the US army came to Nagasaki to survey the damages on people and architectures. In the front of Urakami Church broken by the atomic bomb, a visiting Japanese Christian priest found a head of Maria separated from the statue. US survey team was terribly shocked to know that their US army killed many Christians by the atomic bomb drop. After that survey, this fact has been hindered from American public, and the secret officers were sent from the US government to Japan to control the news. In recent years, these secret American operations after World War II are gradually revealed.

Although most Americans unconsciously believe that Japanese people are only Buddhist and/or Shintoist, it is not true. About 400 years ago, Portuguese and Spanish priests came to Japan and spread Christianity in Japan. Many Christians maintain their religion for 4 centuries, especially in Nagasaki.

We Japanese still wonder whether the US army could not drop the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, if the US government knew in advance that there were many Japanese Christian inhabitants in Nagasaki. The US government may have believed that all the Japanese people were not Christians but Buddhist or Shintoist. Accordingly, they might be able to drop mercilessly the atomic bomb, because Japanese people were not Christians. Hence, we cannot help thinking that the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki may be resulted from discrimination to the other religions. Otherwise, it was not necessary to send the secret officers from the US government to Japan, in order to control and keeping this news out of the American public.
 
 
*The photo over the title is a photo of the "Statue of Maria Damaged by the Atomic Bomb", which is quoted from the URL of Nagasaki Prefectural Cultural Promotion and World Heritage Division:
https://oratio.jp/p_column/mariazo-sukinaunmei
 
Essay on August 9, 2015
Revised on September 23, 2022