Hiroshima

It's called the Trinity Site, an expanse of baked-white land in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert - the spot where "the gadget" was set off, launching an era of nuclear proliferation. Reactions to this place - the site of the world's first atomic bomb test on July 16, 1945 - vary widely and are usually influenced by age and background. For a 65-year-old Californian, it summons images of having to hunker below her school desk in a drill during the Cold War. For a 79-year-old Texan, it conjures up memories of sitting next to the radio as joyous news arrived - World War II was over and the boys were finally coming home.

It's called the Trinity Site, an expanse of baked-white land in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert - the spot where "the gadget" was set off, launching an era of nuclear proliferation. Reactions to this place - the site of the world's first atomic bomb test on July 16, 1945 - vary widely and are usually influenced by age and background. For a 65-year-old Californian, it summons images of having to hunker below her school desk in a drill during the Cold War. For a 79-year-old Texan, it conjures up memories of sitting next to the radio as joyous news arrived - World War II was over and the boys were finally coming home.

Images of a city smoldering and a river clogged with pale, radioactive cadavers never left Keiji Nakazawa's mind. The Japanese manga, or comic-book, artist used those images and other memories of surviving the atomic bombing of Hiroshima to create "Barefoot Gen," a gruesome yet hope-driven comic about a boy who, like Nakazawa, survived the Aug. 6, 1945, attack. Nakazawa was a first-grader standing outside his school when the United States dropped the bomb that killed more than 100,000 people, including his father, brother and a sister.

Images of a city smoldering and a river clogged with pale, radioactive cadavers never left Keiji Nakazawa's mind. The Japanese manga, or comic-book, artist used those images and other memories of surviving the atomic bombing of Hiroshima to create "Barefoot Gen," a gruesome yet hope-driven comic about a boy who, like Nakazawa, survived the Aug. 6, 1945, attack. Nakazawa was a first-grader standing outside his school when the United States dropped the bomb that killed more than 100,000 people, including his father, brother and a sister.

About 300 protesters marched on the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plant, waving banners and carrying ashes to symbolize the victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. "You are protecting a death camp," protester Erik Johnson, 59, shouted at two dozen security guards watching from the other side of a barricade at an entrance to the facility, which made uranium for the "Little Boy" bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945.

Re "War Anniversary Hard to Celebrate," by Greg Mitchell, Commentary, Aug. 3: The annual bleeding-heart derby of one-sided tunnel-vision history revisionists has once again begun. They can never convince me that it was wrong to drop the bomb. I'll tell you why. Yes, the attack on Hiroshima was devastating. Yes, there were some 100,000 civilian dead. But it, together with the follow attack on Nagasaki, ended the war in the Pacific. And it prevented, by various military estimates, at least 400,000 American casualties.

Re "Echoes of Hiroshima," Aug. 10: The Times does a disservice to its readers, especially young people, by not presenting balanced reporting, i.e. what led up to the bombing of Hiroshima, which was the unprovoked attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor. Many of those survivors still bear the pain and anguish of those bombs as well. ALICE LA BRIE Los Angeles You make me sick! Not because of what this poignant article said. But what was left unsaid. The U.S. was not the big bully and Japan was not the innocent bystander.

The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War will hold its ninth World Congress this October in Hiroshima, a city ravaged by an atomic bomb in 1945. More than 3,500 doctors from 70 nations will meet for four days to examine issues confronting the medical profession and the human race in the nuclear age, the group said last week.

Morris "Dick" Jeppson, a weapons specialist who was mid-flight when he completed arming the first atomic bomb, which the Enola Gay B-29 Superfortress dropped on Hiroshima in World War II, has died. He was 87. Jeppson, a retired scientist and businessman, died March 30 of complications related to old age at Summerlin Hospital Medical Center in Las Vegas, said his wife, Molly. The historic combat mission on Aug. 6, 1945, was the only one Jeppson ever flew. Worried about his family's safety, he remained silent for decades about his role in the attack that killed at least 80,000 people, leveled two-thirds of the Japanese city and ignited controversy for having unleashed atomic power as a weapon.

Re "Why feel guilty about Hiroshima?" Opinion, Aug. 3 Max Boot describes some of the horrors of warfare, concluding with the statement that he doesn't "think the atomic bombing of Japan was a uniquely reprehensible event." The fact that it may not have been "uniquely" reprehensible is hardly a reason for us all not to feel guilt and shame about our inability to conduct human affairs without resorting to the horrors that warfare represents. And what about Nagasaki? Three days after Hiroshima, the second bomb fell specifically on that portion of Nagasaki that was the focus of Christianity in Japan.

Radiation exposure is sadly all too familiar to the people of Japan. The health effects of radiation were poorly understood until the United States dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki toward the end of World War II. Prior to that time, scientists had widely mixed views on the impact of radiation exposure. "There was a strange kind of love-hate attitude about radiation before that," said Dr. William McBride, a professor of radiation oncology at UCLA and a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher who has looked at the consequences of radiation exposure after a radiological or nuclear terrorist attack.

Hiroki Kuroda said his deceased friend was in his thoughts. Two days before Kuroda held the Florida Marlins to an unearned run over eight magnificent innings in the Dodgers' 7-3 victory at Sun Life Stadium, he learned from news reports out of Japan that Takuya Kimura had died of a brain hemorrhage. But as Kuroda stood in front of his locker biting his lower lip between sentences on Friday night, he said he didn't want to trivialize the death of his longtime Hiroshima Carp teammate by doing something as tacky as dedicating his first victory of the season to him. "To say that I pitched for Takuya-san and that it affected the outcome of the game would be making light of what happened," Kuroda said.

Hiroki Kuroda said he won't allow himself to be sad when he takes the mound Friday night in Miami for the start of a three-game series against the Florida Marlins. Only two days have passed since the death of Takuya Kimura , his friend and longtime teammate on the Hiroshima Carp. Kuroda and Kimura not only played together on the Carp from 1996 to 2005, they were also teammates on Japan's bronze-medal-winning team in the 2004 Olympics. "Being sad won't bring him back," Kuroda said.

Morris "Dick" Jeppson, a weapons specialist who was mid-flight when he completed arming the first atomic bomb, which the Enola Gay B-29 Superfortress dropped on Hiroshima in World War II, has died. He was 87. Jeppson, a retired scientist and businessman, died March 30 of complications related to old age at Summerlin Hospital Medical Center in Las Vegas, said his wife, Molly. The historic combat mission on Aug. 6, 1945, was the only one Jeppson ever flew. Worried about his family's safety, he remained silent for decades about his role in the attack that killed at least 80,000 people, leveled two-thirds of the Japanese city and ignited controversy for having unleashed atomic power as a weapon.

Re "Voices from Hiroshima," Opinion, Aug. 9 As one of the first scientists on the Manhattan Project, I must write that this collection of stories completely ignores the American military reasons to drop the atomic bomb. I was privileged to be among those briefed by the first Americans going into Hiroshima, and I will always remember the photos taken of the terrible destruction. But the decision to use the bomb was based on military estimates that more than 1 million American soldiers and sailors would die if they'd been forced to storm the Japanese homeland; also, 2 million Japanese would die. If the bomb were dropped, about 200,000 Japanese would be killed.

Early on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, pilot Paul Tibbets and his crew took off from the Pacific island of Tinian in a B-29 bomber named the Enola Gay. Hours later, they dropped Little Boy, the first atomic bomb used in warfare, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on Aug. 9, the U.S. dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki. Today, the world is still struggling with how to control the weapons unleashed 64 years ago. Nine countries are known or are widely believed to have nuclear weapons capability, with Iran working to develop it. On this anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, we are publishing firsthand testimony from the nuclear era's first victims.

Dr. Tomin Harada, 73, is seeing old friends today in Hiroshima. Barbara Reynolds, who years ago helped him establish a "World Friendship Center" in Hiroshima, arrived Saturday with Norman Cousins and Dr. Bernard E. Simon of Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City to attend today's 40th anniversary commemoration of the world's first atomic attack. The bomb was dropped on Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. on Aug. 6, 1945.

Kazuo Yoshikawa was 15 years old and working in a Mazda weapons factory about three miles northeast of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945--the day the United States dropped an atom bomb on his city. Yoshikawa remembered seeing blinding light, then the entire building collapsed around him. "The walls came down, the roof collapsed and I ended up underneath a lot of wood and machinery," he recalled. He suffered no radiation burns but lost all his hair three days later. Tsuyuko Tarumoto was at home on Aug.

A 93-year-old man is the first person certified as a survivor of both U.S. atomic bombings at the end of World War II. Tsutomu Yamaguchi had already been certified as surviving the Aug. 9, 1945, attack on Nagasaki. Now he has been confirmed as surviving that on Hiroshima three days earlier. Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on Aug. 6, 1945. He suffered serious burns to his upper body and spent the night in the city. He returned to his hometown of Nagasaki just before the second attack, city officials said.

Shin Jin-tae says he lives in the unluckiest town on Earth. During World War II, when the Japanese occupied Korea, thousands of residents of this small farming community were shipped to Japan to work in munitions factories. Their destination: Hiroshima. Shin and his family were there on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, when the U.S. military dropped the atomic bomb, leveling the city center and vaporizing many of those within a mile of the blast.