THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1946.
MUST THE WORLD
By
BEGIN
James Cameron
"THAT ROSY COLOUR in your spectacles, gentlemen, is blood"-thus James Cameron appeals to the politicians and the people of the world. It is the most relentless warning ever printed by a newspaper.
Cameron is the only British newspaper writer to have seen the mushroom of devastation at Bikini. For many months he has been collaborating with John Deane, who was in atom-bombed Hiroshima, and Chapman Pincher, expert on the new warfare.
The result of this research and collaboration is to-day laid before the readers of the Hongkong Telegraph,
THELLE in scarcely any likelihood of this being
way
pleasant, or diverting, or in any comfortable to read. It has not been particularly pleasant or consoling to write. It has had to be done quickly, rather painfully, because there is not much time.
The world is in a tragic mess, which grows *** rather worse every day. From every evidence it Is clear that we are being shamefully and bitterly let down by what we fulsomely called Peace.
I hold that anyone who at this moment does not live in a perpetual state of anxiety and concern is either an archangel or an imbecile. am of the opinion that human beings should not
I
. CAMERON
Aped 31. Scottish-
bor educated of schools in England
Balf-a-doren
and France. First
on
writer with his ro
port on falta in
Ehp Daily Express
be asked to continue in such an intolerable ver que Since condition.
It is fair to say that on almost every question of real importance the people are ahead of the poli- Uelans all the time. I think they are still.
then has travelled 40,000 mlic for the Express.
AGAIN?
THE CASE OF MR. TANIMOTO
Among those toho survived the Arat flash at Hiroshima was Mr Kiyoshi Tanimoto, pastor of the Hiroshima Methodist Church. Of him John Heracy, in his famous New Yorker report, saus:-
WHEN he reached the park it
was still very crowded, and to distinguish the living from the dead was not easy, for most of iny still with their
eyes
And when he gave water
toll some whose faces had been almost blotted out by flash burns, they took their share and, then raised themselves a little and bowed to him, in thanks
Mr Tanimota began to look for boat in which he might carry some of the most severely injured across the river away from the spreading fre.
Soon he found A good-sized punt drawn up on the bank, but! in and- around it was an awfut tableau-five dead men, nearly naked, badly burned, who must have expired more or less ell at once, for they were in attitudes
which suggested that they had worked together to push the boat down into the river.
alive."
Mr Tanimolò lifted them away) from the boat, and as he did so he experienced such horror at disturbing the dead-preventing them, he momentarily felt, from going launching their craft and
he on their ghostly woy-that Heald out loud: "Please forgive The intervening period will bene for taking this boat, I must less agreeable. There will be these it for the others, who
are spilling of blood and the laceration of flesh, unimagined pain and hurt, maiming and crushing, widowhood and despair, madness and misery But these demonstrations of inter-
and the impact of repellent and national backchat that In
same unforeseen disease, disruption and quarters
for statesmanship decay puss
and,
In the nowadays, have already put the
at the more quantities average citizen in such a sinte of
death. confusion
practically that he has
im-
Own
ati
abandoned all concentration everything except his mediate bothers, which dest knows are bothersome enough.
The Stupidity
THE present situation is more than
disastrous; in the light of the ordinary man's common sense it is Judicrous. It is stupid.
Perhaps only the mare, sentt- mental and sanguino of us expected the Peace Table to conjure Utopia
out of the hideous ashes of 1939-45.
We did, however, feel that the emergency was sufflently on the going back to old-fashioned war so manifestly impossible, that the world might be forced into the ex- periment of running its affairs on the principle of ethics and common- or-garden horse-sense.
procedure,
However, we argue and shuffle trivial frontier problems that reasonable men would печег have allowed- to--arise.--
uncountable fortunate,
These are not the possibilities of atomic warfare; they are the in- evitabilities, establisted by
pre- cedunt. It is no use calling them "nameless horrors," and deducing that their maker them unlikely. Have a look at them a little more closely.
Let us consider Hiroshima. Out of a city of 445,000 people more than 100,000 were killed in the instant the bomb fell,ot a quar- on the morning of ter past eight August last year.
50
He found about 20 people on the sandsplt. He reached down Band took a woman by the hands, but her skin slipped off in huge, Eglove-like pleces. He was
alckened by this that he had to sit #down for a moment.
He had to keep consciously re-#
"Theso are peating to himself: human beings."
2
THERE was, for example. Yoshio Nearly 200,000, were injured and Nishina who oddly is himself many of these died afterwards, an atomic scientist, and of whom either from their wounds or from more later. He told Potter!-- the frightiul death-retching which was a strange aftermath of the ex- plosion.
The Horror
To put to Potter the question: "What was that like?" is setting
"There was hardly a trace of the city when I arrived. You stumbled through the evil-smelling dust and flames, and you fell over things. You could not tell whether they were dead or alive or if they had been human beings.
COMMENT By "Candidus"
SOME fifty odd years or
so ago, the Law of Eng-
and hunger, as it was weeks before land required a man with a
anything like a rescue servicp,could | be started."
PINCHER
The Rays
con elaborate:--
the bomb changed from a small,
red flag to walk in front of mechanically-propelled
a
vehicle. While his presence was mainly to warn oncom- "In that instant the uranium in ing drivers of frisky horses cold lump of metal to a mass of that a somewhat frighten- swelling tas millions of degrees ing contraption was coming hot. Round it grew art ball of Incandescent air. immenso along, the authorities of the day realised that the high- ways were potential sources of danger, if not properly| controlled.
"A shower
of gamma-rays-- lethal radiations penetrallon feet thick walls sped out with the
speed of light, and with them un- scen bullets: the alpha and neutron particles of the split uranium atoms. "Then followed the shock-wave of the bomb rippling through the air, shattering buildings and bodies, Then the hot blast of expanding air,
en.
Progress in mechanical gineering deprived the man with the red flag of his job,
a noisy super-hurricane, instantane In his stend, Governments have
ous but long enough sustained to developed "Safety First" codes. whirl the charred wood and stone Controlled. Greas, warning
into dust.
"Those who died in the blast had a relatively merciful end. It was the shelterers who suffered most Many seemed uninjured. Their death was slower, but certain.
The Sick
•
"GAMMA rays destroy
algns.
white lines, night reflectors and numerous other devices in an effort to save lives. In spite of these, the love of speed and, in far too many cases, the disregard for trame laws, cause thousands of deaths throughout the world daily.
on
This line of thought was borne of experience which befell me the other evening when strolling back living to the city via Battery Path. I had issues, like those of the
just reached the French Mission brain, liver and heart. Ninety-five Building when headlights suddenly per cent of the people within half came rushing up from Queen's Road. a mile of the bomb who survived That I am able to pen these notes the explosion died after a few hours is doubtless of no concern to the or days of sickness, fever and driver who drove on a “No Motora" hemorrhage.
road so crazily
"Those further from the but still in range of the
active shower, died more
bomb radio- slowly,
That driver is an example of the criminally thoughtless being against
The soft marrow of their bones was taken very strong action must be
destroyed where blood cells to re- place those lost in daily body wear are made.
After a
it we are to reduce the heavy tolt of lives on our roads. Since the war, Hongkong has witnessed more reckless driving and there have been more deaths and Injuries than incurable anaemin.
"So these people developed an many years of pre-war conditions. fort-No longer do we see the constant hight their hair fell out. Then their motor-cycle
combination patrols or gums began to bleed. Patches of which
discouraged the their skin rotted.
reckless. That the Trame "Depart ment is handicapped by the shortage of personnel is obvious, but the sooner it is brought up to full ani effective strength, the better.
were
"Most of them eventually suffocated. Their blood became too thin to carry sufficient oxygen to
their lungs."
That we must bear in mind was war in its groping ex- perimental bow-and-arrow stage..
The Weapon
"The explosion disintegrates bomb, quenching the stomic when only a tiny fraction of total energy has been released.
The bomb can be and will improved
without altering
certainly
0 0
or
on
somehow the momentary picture, the remem-atomic
NOTHER disquloting aspect is thù namelessness brance of detail. Thus is Potter's story reinforced by the stark report
fact that a number of drivers drive at night do unquestionably 'of John Hersey, quoted on this page -to the credit of the magazine New
whilst Under the influence of will tell 'Yorker, which boldly gave
DINCHER it an
you:, "The alcohol, an offence in Great Britain entire issue, and for your tears).
atomic bomb as it exists, now isor the United States which is treated an extremely ineficient weapon. It very sternly, whetlier the state of The Victims
contains no more than 150 pounds incapability causes an accident of plutonium or uranium. When not. Τα
may sound a this some, this explodes the blast effect is somewhat unjustified allegation. greater than that from 20,000 tons have, however, attended a number of of T.N.T. Yet this represents only cocktall and other parties, when one-tenth of one per cent. of the numbers of people have driven away total energy in the bomb.
distinctly under the alcoholic In the fluence. This is not as it should be. Are The wise man declines to take un- the necessary risks, and those who break the law by doing so (if driving in bo HK
under "the influence" is the the law) can only blame themselves me the against weight of cxplosive in it, that if they are heavily punished. its power will equat
If a London or New York trame tons of T.N.T. And this is assum-constable and a police surgeon could ing that its emelency will be in be stationed at one of these. Hong, creased to only 3 per cent. a low kong rendezvous when the convivial are starting up to drive home....a of them would be com- "1 quote the Smyth
pelled to Should a scheme be devised for Some of the worst offenders are converting to energy just a few per drivers of Service vehicles, and cent. of the matter in the bomb,
ivilisation will have the means to aurely they are not a law unto them-
scives. tommit suicide at will."
In the urgent interest of publie "Nor is this, the limit. The weight safety, it is time the Colony Indl- of explosive con be increased ad lib. There is no doubt that one cated the controlled areas, for with the overcrowding, hawkers and other bomb capable of obliterating the whole of London
be aspects of severe congestion, strong will shortly
control is needed. Finally, fingrant possible."
cases of recklessness must be dealt with in d`manner which will deter others from committing offences to
a practically impossible task, as "Streaming out of the town were, hundreds of correspondents and ob- hysterical mothers carrying dread- servers have found. Potter says:fully burned babies Naked people, "I cannot ask you to try to fried like sausages, lay at the side Somehow or other the feeling is | imagine what the death of 100,000 of the roads; when you went to pick upon, us, the saddening, dispiriting feeling that the prospect can only
be some compromise, sume balance
of power, some new variety of
temporary impasse between patiens
to put off the day of settlement.
What day of settlement? Another war.
And that means the end.
It is truly a desperate com- mentory
on the state we are in that saying "It means the end,' is now a platitude. One has heard it so often one no longer reacts,
Do you know what it means? When we hardened our nervous fibre to the spectacle of death, Lo the point where mass slaughter became bearable (as we did in the war), we lost our sensitivity to physical disaster in general.
The Blood
·
Next Week:
"Those
Who
Know Most
Are Most Afraid."
GRAN CARRANZARALTINÉTURSANGIZIRANJE ZARAUAKE ATAS CASEJEONARDO SERIE JONESTORATIT MEJA ATA ROTUNEINBLOO
them up sometimes an arm or a leg! just fell off like #rotten branch,"
tuman beings in two seconds means, because such 4 thing hing never happened before.
"All 1 know Is that I left Hiroshima quite suddenly Brst visit because I felt sick with horror. My shoes seemed heavy
with dead men's
dust.
estimate.
.
one
The Lesson
so
million
report: Roud mik.
From Nishina and scores of others WILL you now read those words the danger of life and limb.
Potter pieced the story together so that he says, it is now quite clear
his mind.
"They all say that practically the "AS 1 tramped around the miles whole police force was wiped out, of nothingness I had the sensation the mayor and council were dead, that tiny particles of thousands of there were practically no hospitals. dead people were clinging to my There were no ambulances,
of John Hersey again? And Potter's? Will you consider for a moment the condition of you and your family, me and my family, everyone and everyone's family, exposed to an incandescence
that
moment of time? grills the flesh from your bones in a
Is that a bigger thing than the there biggest business, the most pon- I began long ago. For of
derous of national prestige? Nunking, the evisceration of
Reflect on these things at the Ethiopians, they were things that happened far away. Now we have
diplomacy that has were never been re-examined in the light all seen something of that, to u (It is obvious that the tale of burned to death in tho fires that of such a threat. greater or less degree. And the war Hiroshima cannot be told by statls-wept the city a few hours after. is over. Another war is "unthink-ties or accountancy. The impact- Others died
Do not be heartened by the fact of luss of blood, or that this is the end of the page. able."
Some even died of thirst There is more, and worse, to come.
I pray you, think about it. Another war will produce only; "nameless horrors."
This report proposes to name them.
Man' is too clyllised, too shrewd, too learned-too self-seeking, If you like to contemplate starting the folly again. ..
Is he? That rosy colour in your spec- tacles, gentlemen, is blood..
The Bomb
have seen it at work.
locs, I had to have several baths
were no fire-engines.
to remove the thought that it was still clinging to me, like stale cigar "Thousands of injured people lay mercy of A smoke:"-"
in the ruins in pain. Many
so I have felt, at least-comes from gangrene.
G.O.M. Of G.M.T.
LOCK with a variation of only 1.112.000 of a second
a year brought the world's time |kroping record to Britain.
missed
WILLIAM. HICKEY
MORE OBITUARIES
Passed away: Eliza Kidd,
On Saturday at four.
She'd found the beer the old man
hid
Behind the pantry door.
༦་་༣་ Hundreds Raw the cortege poss
Of Ebenezer Flite.
+
He looked for an escape of gas,
And used a naked light.
Little Alastair McFee Threw a pebble at a mine;
And the wreaths were very fine.
ANSWERS
(Questions on Fage Four)
to master time: clocks with
-no terest when a velvet-lined tray, springs and no winding.
olight with diamonds, is passed bo-Strolling by the summer sea, Burgess gave the B.B.C.-not mefore them, yet make a first bid of the pip.
£10,000 by just batting an eye, "Time flew:
nearly We
discreet about their They are Record is Britain's still, and the lunch.
clients: buyer of £15,000 worth of clock shows no sign of wear after 20
emerald ring usually has a burglary- years: is the master rincks at Green-D Etonlan G. 11. A. CART bug. wich, nrbiter of “G.M.T.
WRIGIFT wants the school to i In 64 minutes £120,317 was pald Pride in telling me that yes- play more lawn tennis, tells the for diamonds, pearls, sapphires, T WANT to draw your attention to terday
become
Mr. CHARLES Eton College Chronicle that the rubies, in this impoverished England. ARE YOU SURE? the fact already it seems for- || OCKLESHAW,
game "may well become the prin- rotten, and in no circumstances ever His firm, made this master clock, cipal medium of international sport." discussed at the Pouce Tablo-that set up such standards of accuracy And eventually win the peace on THAT magnificent pirate of a man, There is in existence an article that astronomical observations are the hard courts of Eton?
Lieut-General Sir ADRIAN Inown as the Atom Bomb, I can now checked, by the clock instead of
CARTON DE WIART, is homing say that with some certainty, as I the other way round.
from China. Prime Minister Attco At 73 he is irrepressible: monocied, CAPITAL was being invested on praises him publicly. China sends There are, in places
october 16 when Lady LUD-lm off with her top-ranking de could char-loving, a mortal and namo but, inust not, a great many
Jikeable
old Father Time, whose LOS Jewels were auctioned at coration. Atom Bombs. If we are not pretty terrory he has been infringing for Christie's biggest Jewel sale in the
the In
dark days, admiring smari, pretty urgently smart,"
1. White, yellow and black; 2. history of thot famous firm. years.
Americans dubbed him the perfect Sleeping, sielchces: 3. Finland; 4 of them will go off somewhere.
Discussion was really about the It is Interesting though unproft- symbol of Britain, "battle-scarred, Covent Garden Theatre; B. Tha Maybe by chance, maybe by de- | vognelen of slectric gineks."
able to speculate on who in this tax-be-medalled and to-morrow victoriour seasons of the year; d. In the algn. And all that no and "fancy Mr FRANK WILLIAM BURGESS, ridden country hins so much money dus."
Prevalence
Now equipment in Oak Ridge, Washing who began clock-making at the to
United States, Iceland and ton, Dident, and for all I know bonch,
He was born a Belgian.
Zealand; 7.
B. The Montezuma; English among the is now on the board, ex-
'ostrich; 9. Norway; 10. Launcelot Omale ani Oslo too, devoted to the plained, and non-technically at my saleroom possibly provides, a clue: study of human destruction abruptly succeed in touching off not affected by master clocks are but stir came from dealers.
affected by changes in frequen-men, who evidence no apparent In
There are very ordinary looking DRAWING two circles on menund Elaine; 11. The fog is down lo such an explosion that all the gear cles from power stations. will vanish, and we can all begin They make their own Impulses
cheese maggot from conan billion years ago; -13. Golden Gate again, worshipping upright posts and control the accuracy of all- and dancing round the tribat bon-their subsidiary clocks. Many large • Britain's richest widow left fro.
factories and offleo blocks now work | £2,020,000: death duftes, £1,710,000,
one
•
one,
45
wil
moro
spare.
of Lad
crush in the
n
cardo, City lunchers are putting
of over-ripe Danish. In centre of each, "speculating on which "guts out first.
Widow's mite?
12. ground;
In Yellowstone park, U.S.A. Its canyon walia con- hyers of rock formed more than
Bridge, San Francisco, California- 9,940 feet long; 14. Jason; 15. 90%; 10. Queen Christina.l
5
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