Its a clip from a BBC Documentary called ‘Hiroshima’. It is available on DVD and can be purchased from Amazon. Though the short extract here focusses on the Japanese side of the story, the actual documentary is supposed to be very balanced. A reviewer on Amazon says, the director “lets the participants and victims speak for themselves in their interviews, often placing their contrasting perceptions and opinions of the bombing in such a manner that the opposing positions are clearly evident to the viewer”.

How does one form a judgemental opinion on events such as these? Were the Americans right? The sheer fact that almost entire civilian populations of two cities were completely annihilated, a majority of whom probably resented the war themselves and had no option by virtue of being born in the warring country, probably leads one to side against the Americans. But keeping in view the scale of atrocities committed by the Japanese against civilian populations in other Asian countries and against PoWs and the adamant refusal of Japan to surrender, it is maybe easier to understand the compulsions of the Americans. I had read a book a while ago titled ‘The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II‘ by Iris Chang (Amazon link here). It describes in great detail the unbelievably inhuman Japanese killings and rape of civilians in Nanking, China. It probably ranks as one of the most disturbing books I have ever read. (In fact the author Iris Chang took her own life, in part due to her depression over the facts she discovered during her research.)