Japan at war : A beginner's guide
The last days of war
Downfall: The end of the Imperial Japanese empire by Richard
B Frank (Random House, 1999). US edition only; may be available from
online bookshops.
This book sheds new light on the end of the Pacific
campaign during World War II, including such controversies as Russia's
role in the war and the dropping of the atomic bomb.
Hiroshima Peace Site
www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/
You can click on 'English web site' to get the English version of this wide-ranging site, sponsored by the city of Hiroshima. It contains testimony videos of survivors describing the tragedy, plus information on the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, how the bomb was actually dropped on Hiroshima and the terrible results.
Letters from the End of the World: A firsthand account of the bombing
of Hiroshima by Toyofumi Ogura (Kodansha Europe, 2001) £12.99
This
collection of letters document the catastrophe visited on one family
during the destruction of Hiroshima. The author – a young history
professor at Hiroshima University – spent several days after the
dropping of the bomb searching for his wife and son. His joy on being
reunited with them was short-lived as radiation sickness killed his wife
10 days later. The author spent the following year writing a series of
letters to his wife, outlining the things he saw and experienced over
the two weeks before the bombing and her death. The book also contains
family documents, letters from the children to their parents and a diary
in which the eldest daughter describes the events of 18-19 August
1945, when she returned to Hiroshima on the final day of her mother's
life.
Hiroshima by John Hersey (Penguin, 2002) £7.99
Written a
mere year after the disaster, this work offers a heart-rending account
of six men and women who survived the bombing of Hiroshima despite all
the odds. Forty years later, John Hersey returned to the city to discover
how the same six people had struggled to cope with catastrophe and with
often crippling disease. His long new chapter, which also considers the
dramatic proliferation of nuclear weaponry since the war, provides a
devastating picture of the long-term effects of one very small bomb.
Records of the Nagasaki Atomic Bombing
www1.city.nagasaki.nagasaki.jp/na-bomb/
museum/m1-1e.html
This part of
the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum site has lots of before-and-after photographs
of Nagasaki.
Japanese surrender documents
http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php
?op=viewarticle&artid=203
A
complete set of (translated) documents leading to the unconditional surrender
of all Japanese forces.
