Hiroshima

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  Seventy two years ago today on August 6, 1945, the United States dropped its first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. The bomb was known as "Little Boy" At the time of the bombing, Hiroshima was home to 280,000-290,000 civilians as well as 43,000 soldiers. Between 90,000 and 166,000 people are believed to have died from the bomb in the four-month period following the explosion.

          This very act and the subsequent dropping of the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki forced Japan to surrender. This would not have been the case without both of these bombs being dropped on Japan.

          I have given much thought to the effects and consequences of this enormous loss of life by the Japanese and you have to temper it with how many lives would have been lost if the second world war had dragged on for many more years. You cannot quantify how many lives were saved by the act of bombing Japan in this way, but, my overall feeling was that the lives of British, American, Commonwealth and other nation's soldiers, sailors, airmen saved by the cessation of the war far outweighed the lives sacrificed by the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

HIROSHIMA

Hiroshima felt its full cause and effect

I am looking back not talking mythically

That mushroom cloud that enveloped so many lives

Having spent so much time developing the atomic bomb

They cannot turn the clock back and put it back in its box

Surely politicians and scientists foresaw the future?

As busy in their bunkers they worked their trade

Mythically we tell ourselves it was Hitler who rent the veil

But surely the sanity of man has been suspect for centuries?

August the sixth nineteen forty five

Three hundred thousand blown up or burned alive

But even then the "Jack-in-the-box" survived

That day would see the start of a new world order

Those with and those without nuclear weapons

A new heaven and a new earth

I have long ago decided that those who succour war are wrong

Wars cost lives and families suffer for politicians' failure

Who the Gods would destroy they must first make mad

Then the present day equivalent of Hitler must surely be Syria's Assad

Creator spirit I cannot think that you will rise and repair this world

Or the Messiah will reappear to awake the masses to revolt

The future of man was sealed that day in nineteen forty five

Not in my lifetime, but, man that day had plotted his demise