There is a trope among liberals that the atomic bomb was used against Japan for racist reasons. As with most such tropes, the history is far more complicated, and the "argument ad racism" is undermined by the fact that the American military chose the Catholic cathedral in Nagasaki as its targeting point and that two-thirds of Japan's Catholic population was wiped out by the first use of an atomic weapon in human history.
This is a previously unpublished account from the memoirs of Mother Bernardine Goulter, a sacred Hearth nun who was present when the atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki. It's a fascinating and chilling account:
No matter what people say about the atomic bomb bringing the war to an end, of its preventing wars in the future, never can I be reconciled to the injustice inflicted on thousands of innocent people whose only part in the war was to suffer from it.
The pagans were saying after the atomic bomb: “The Catholics must be bad people as the bomb has killed so many of them.” The mayor of Nagasaki, who was himself a pagan, was very angry with this remark and silenced it, saying: “It is just the opposite. These good people have been chosen to give their lives for their country and their sacrifice will bring blessings upon Japan.” Certainly he spoke truly. Never has Japan opened its door so widely to the Faith as at the present.
During the days that passed from August 9 to August 15 there were constant raids. The police were very active hiding things in the monastery cellars. On August 2 all the Polish Fathers and Brothers had been taken away to the general camp for all foreigners: Italians, French, Poles, etc. The Father Superior, Rev Fr Mirahana, a naturalised Japanese, was permitted to remain at the monastery until August 15 for the profession ceremony, on that feast, of five Japanese Brothers in minor orders. We did not know what the guards were stowing in the monastery and the six gentleman of our camp were not allowed to go over there during these days. We thought it was an ammunition dump and one night an American plane came dashing, downflying over, just grazing the monastery building and our roof on a reconnaissance flight. Then we thought our hour had come to be a target.
To add to our misgivings, one of the young police guards began to sharpen his sword. It is a custom in Japan from the earliest centuries – one only has to read their history to verify it – that in times of enemy invasion it is thought merciful to put all prisoners to the sword. Our Manchurian fellow internees asked us what this guard was doing. We did not tell them this fact as it was useless to aggravate the already trying circumstances of this awful week. At last one of the British ladies could not stand it any longer. She went to the guard the next time he began to sharpen his sword and said: “What are you doing?” He desisted for a moment, looked up and smiled. Then he said: “I am cleaning off the rust.”
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