mercedo's Journal: Kokura

As my bio tells, I was born and raised up and educated till the age 20 in Kokura. Probably the name Kokura is associated with the second target of atomic bomb after Hiroshima, at that time there was a huge ammunition warehouse in Kokura, but thanks to the bad visibility the plan was never carried out but under the sky of Nagasaki instead. We were lucky as a man who happened to be born in Kokura.

Kokura has been a smokestack city. There have been many long and large chimnies and they have been emitting lots of harmful chemical polluted materials into the air, so the air of Kokura has never been clear except after the storm was over. I raised up such a environmentally very problematic area, so my deteriorating health conditions in my highteens were sure to be related to its surrounding pollutions in air and contaminations in water, et cetra. Successfully I was able to run away from Kokura at age 20 and I never returned to my hometown so far, that being said, Kokura is my hometown, I sometimes visit.

On my way back from her room, I went to Kokura to see the changes, probably I'd never been there for more than 3 years.

Still large chimnies were working and the air was still bad. Besides strickingly lots of people were walking with smoking. Here in Fukuoka very few people walk and smoke, here it is regarded as very offensive. Fukuoka has no chimnies. No factory. So I was suffered from double attack from both smokers and chimnies. Certainly here is not my place to live. Kokura is one of the biggest cities in Japan -its polpulation is over 1 million. So I was glad to see the development of its downtown area -River Side Walk, Cha Cha Town, Large wheel cars, etc. But essentially speaking nothing changed yet. Dirty, Muddy, Unprosperous city.

Seismologically unsound as well

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I've seen a geological theory that says we were very lucky NOT to hit Kokura- if we had the war would have ended VERY differently. The Japanese plate, according to this theory, is like a child's toy balanced on three mountains. If this theory is correct- hitting Kokura with even the relatively small nukes the United States had back in that time, would have unleashed earthquakes and volcanos- with the end result being the major three islands sinking into the Pacific.

Re:Seismologically unsound as well

[Shadow Wrought]

Wow, I'd never heard that before. Can you direct me towards some of the info on this? Sounds pretty interesting.

Re:Seismologically unsound as well

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Unfortuneately , it was MANY years ago (pre web) on a PBS program, and that's all I remember about it...

Some information may be found here a description of the early dawn of the nuclear age [nuclearweaponarchive.org] or here which seems a greatly expanded copy of the same thing [stealthskater.com] but I don't see the drawing I remember from the original PBS program back in the 1970s.

Re:Seismologically unsound as well

[mercedo]

When I was young or much younger than now I am, I read many articles related to the justification of enforcing an atomic bomb over the sky of Hiroshima, Nagasaki.

Their points were concentrated on two,

1. The use of atomic bomb acceralated the end of war.

2. The death toll of Hiroshima was less than the death toll caused by the big fire after incendiary bombs were used as a carpet bombing in Tokyo.

But probably I have to add one more on the list of justification -

3. The atomic bomb in Nagasaki saved milli