Shimomura recalls dropping of bomb on Nagasaki

November 3, 2015

Japanese Nobel laureate recounts atomic bombing 

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20151104_01.html

Nov. 3, 2015 - Updated 16:54 UTC

A Japanese Nobel laureate has shared his experience of the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki at an international meeting of scientists on abolishing nuclear weapons.

Osamu Shimomura, a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008, spoke on Day 3 of the Pugwash Conference in Nagasaki on Tuesday.

Shimomura recounted his sighting of the bomber that dropped an atomic device on the city.

He said he spotted the plane when he was working at a factory of the now-defunct Imperial Japanese Navy in Isahaya, a city neighboring Nagasaki.

Shimomura said he saw bodies of A-bomb victims being recovered in the days after Japan had surrendered.

He said the terrible, cruel scene was so shocking that it changed his view of life.

The scientist said that though he has tried to forget the atomic bombing, memories of it are always at the back of his mind and have never faded.

Shimomura also touched on how he felt when he gave a lecture at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US state of New Mexico in 2013. Scientists at the institution developed the first atomic bombs.

Shimomura noted that none of the young researchers asked him about his experience of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. He said he got the impression that young people regard the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as little more than footnotes in history.

Shimomura said many people would have survived if Japan had surrendered 2 weeks earlier. He said war is the root of all evil, and that all he hopes for is a world without conflict and nuclear arms.