The Flight of Nobukazu Komatsu into the Mushroom Cloud.

The date is August 9, 1945.

It is hazy with smoke obscuring the ground as the B-29, Bock’s Car, flies over it’s primary target… Kokura, Japan, but the bombardier has orders to make a visual drop and he can’t find his target through the haze. Fuel is becoming critical so Bock’s Car abandons its primary target, and heads toward its secondary… Nagasaki.

Nagasaki, Japan is primarily a Christian city of 200,000 established by the Portuguese in 1571. Now it is in the crosshairs of Bock’s Car carrying the second of two atomic bombs. This one is named “Fat Man” and has been armed since take off. Nagasaki appears on the radar at 11:00 AM, and bombardier Kermit Beahan shouts, “I’ve got it! I see the city!” At 11:01 AM the plane suddenly lurches upward. Fat Man is on his way.

There is a blue light and then… nothing.

Kazuko lifts herself back up. She is standing beside a crumbling wall, all that is left of Urakami prison. She turns back toward her home but it is gone. She finds her mother buried under some tiles and together they find her father, Mr. Tokai. His skin peels off his hands as if he is removing gloves.

High above, Bock’s Car and The Great Artiste (the plane carrying the war correspondent) watch as a huge fireball lifts up into the sky. A mushroom cloud forms as death rains down upon anyone in the city who has survived to this point. Low on fuel, the two planes bingo to Okinawa.

A Japanese seaplane has heard the radio report of the bombing of Nagasaki. Cadet Nobukazu Komatsu wants to see if the same thing has happened at Nagasaki that happened to Hiroshima. In the back of the plane are his two comrades in arms, Chief Petty Officer Umeda and Cadet Tomikura. As Komatsu breaks through the clouds he sees the ominous mushroom cloud, but for him it is a thing of beauty. Flashing in multicolors as the sunlight filters through, he has an inspiration….

“Let’s cut into the cloud!”

As he banks into the mushroom cloud he opens his window and sticks a gloved hand out but he quickly draws it back in. It is like an oven. There is a sticky coating of dust on the surface of his glove now. He hears a scream from the back of the plane. Chief Petty Officer Umeda is vomiting. The heat is so intense in the plane that Cadet Tomikura opens his window and is hit full in the face with the radioactive holocaust. He quickly shoves the window closed as Komatsu finishes his turn and emerges from the mushroom cloud.

Slowly Komatsu circles the city in the hope of taking pictures of the damage of Nagasaki but the heat is so intense that he lands his seaplane in the harbor and walks toward the city with his companions.

The sun is setting on Japan.

Little Kazuko Tokai is still alive. She was 275 yards from ground zero and she is still alive. Her father died earlier and she can hear her mother’s rasping breath. Kazuko calls out to her mother, “Don’t die!” but there is no response and never will be.

“I’m the only one left alive.”

America officials report the death toll as 35,000 but the Japanese place it as over double that but for little Kazuko, her entire world is gone.

Chief Petty Officer Umeda will die of leukemia, two years later. Cadet Tomikura who got it full in the face with radioactive dust will also die of leukemia in 1964… 19 years later. The pilot, Cadet Nobukazu Komatsu, is still alive as of the publishing date of his story… 1970.

“The Rising Sun” by Toland, Volume 2, 1970, pp. 989-1001.

What is the point of this story?

Fukishima is the least of my worries. Unless the bomb lands right on top of me, I’ve got better things to worry about.

The most amazing thing about being hit full on with a nuclear blast is that MOST OF YOU WILL SURVIVE! Even the Chief Petty Officer in the story lived for two years. That means at least two years of preps if you don’t want to starve to death before then.

Get going.

ok.. I’ve gotta know who the ‘disliker’ is..

Seriously, were you a Caesar in a former life? Obsessed with clicking on the color red? Or do you just HATE EVERYTHING!!!

😉

Thoughts about this “generation”. I tell you what, while I’m hard on them as much as anybody else, who else is pushing all these new technologies? Anybody can make their own app, they require things that work, and when they don’t their verbal about it. They organize “flash mobs” on twitter whenever they don’t like things (information getting out). At least some of them are doing guerrilla gardening this and that.

Look at pirating software and music. They’re a force to be reckoned with. I am a tad concerned with the lack of privacy that they know and should demand. However, obvciously they’re going to go over and beyond (already have) even what they’re comfortable with.

Thanks Jack for making my day today.
The last part of the show, after the Fukishima segment was….excellent. Really, really good. Truth with whip cream and sprinkles on top. An Everlasting Gobstopper of wisdom. I listened to it three times.
I’ve been around TSP since about the 400 mark. Like you I’m still growing, searching for a better handle on the truth. I don’t ALWAYS agree with you, but I do think that your podcasts just keep getting better and better.