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Authors: Susan Carol McCarthy
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could.
He walked about, following Charlotte in and out of the tents in search of Sarah’s “Grandma’s Pantry” display. He listened to the barkers hawking the lifesaving advantages of their wares. He nodded, in acknowledgment but not necessarily agreement, at the government man’s explanation that, although an underground basement was most easily adapted to family shelter use, Florida’s high water table, its universal lack of basements, presented challenges that were “easily overcome so long as you followed government standards to achieve ninety-nine percent reduction in gamma ray exposure.”
Avery heard the hype. He examined the shoddy workmanship of what one local contractor called his “guaranteed watertight, airtight, radiation-tight Florida Igloo in aqua blue.” (The guy’s primary business was building swimming pools.) He shook his head at the men walking around like clowns in transparent plastic bags advertised as “Civilian Fallout Suits, only $19.99.”
Unfortunately for the hucksters, Avery was no rube on the subject. On V-J Day, he’d been a part of the massive American “Show of Strength” flyover above Tokyo Bay and the defeated emperor’s Surrender Ceremonies on the deck of the USS
Missouri.
Heading back to base on Tinian Island, the crew had lobbied their pilot, amiable Cap’n Tex Ritter, to swing west for a bird’s-eye view of what was left of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Avery, facing east in the tail turret, was the last to see the green islands dotting the blue Hiroshima Bay then, opening like a miles-wide mouth of hell, the decimated delta city recognizable only by its distinctive river channels, four fingers and a thumb, flowing into the bay. Worse yet was the sulfurous stench of fiery death that filled their plane at five thousand feet and lingered for days as a black taste on Avery’s tongue. Circling back, Cap’n Tex said quietly over the intercom, “Seen enough, boys?” and headed home without further comment. In the tail, Avery got the last, long look at the devastation. How was it possible? he wondered, sickened that a single bomb dropped by a solo plane could do so much damage.
Photos published later in
The New Yorker
for the rest of America to see fell far short of conveying the actual horror that still haunted his dreams. John Hersey’s chilling account of the bombing came closer, but did little or nothing to stop further nuclear testing by the Americans at Enewetak and Bikini, the British in Australia, the French in the Sahara, and the Soviets in Kazakhstan.
Avery knew, quite rightly, that no man-made structure could survive a direct hit from today’s more powerful hydrogen bombs. And even if the hit was indirect, the chances that he and Sarah and Charlotte would be in the same place at that time were slim. For that reason, he agreed with Ike, who’d said, “If I were in a very fine shelter and [my wife and children] were not there, I would just walk out. I would not want to face that kind of world.”
A barker strode by calling “Any Catholics in the crowd?” and thrust a yellow flyer into Avery’s hand. It was a mimeographed copy of a magazine article by a Father L. C. McHugh proclaiming,
Nowhere in traditional Catholic morality does one read that Christ, in counseling nonresistance to evil, rescinded the right of self-defense which is granted by nature and recognized in the legal systems of all nations. To love one’s neighbor as thyself,
the priest wrote,
is, undoubtedly, an heroic Christian virtue, but it is not a Christian duty.
Indeed, this Father McHugh implied, it would be misguided charity
not
to shoot a neighbor trying to invade one’s jam-packed shelter!
Avery had had enough. He crumpled the flyer, tossed it into the waste barrel of a vendor hawking Double Decker Moon Pies, and called to his daughter’s back. “Charlotte…Charlotte!”
She turned, eyes bright. “I think I see her…in
there.
” She pointed to the entrance of a nearby
He walked about, following Charlotte in and out of the tents in search of Sarah’s “Grandma’s Pantry” display. He listened to the barkers hawking the lifesaving advantages of their wares. He nodded, in acknowledgment but not necessarily agreement, at the government man’s explanation that, although an underground basement was most easily adapted to family shelter use, Florida’s high water table, its universal lack of basements, presented challenges that were “easily overcome so long as you followed government standards to achieve ninety-nine percent reduction in gamma ray exposure.”
Avery heard the hype. He examined the shoddy workmanship of what one local contractor called his “guaranteed watertight, airtight, radiation-tight Florida Igloo in aqua blue.” (The guy’s primary business was building swimming pools.) He shook his head at the men walking around like clowns in transparent plastic bags advertised as “Civilian Fallout Suits, only $19.99.”
Unfortunately for the hucksters, Avery was no rube on the subject. On V-J Day, he’d been a part of the massive American “Show of Strength” flyover above Tokyo Bay and the defeated emperor’s Surrender Ceremonies on the deck of the USS
Missouri.
Heading back to base on Tinian Island, the crew had lobbied their pilot, amiable Cap’n Tex Ritter, to swing west for a bird’s-eye view of what was left of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Avery, facing east in the tail turret, was the last to see the green islands dotting the blue Hiroshima Bay then, opening like a miles-wide mouth of hell, the decimated delta city recognizable only by its distinctive river channels, four fingers and a thumb, flowing into the bay. Worse yet was the sulfurous stench of fiery death that filled their plane at five thousand feet and lingered for days as a black taste on Avery’s tongue. Circling back, Cap’n Tex said quietly over the intercom, “Seen enough, boys?” and headed home without further comment. In the tail, Avery got the last, long look at the devastation. How was it possible? he wondered, sickened that a single bomb dropped by a solo plane could do so much damage.
Photos published later in
The New Yorker
for the rest of America to see fell far short of conveying the actual horror that still haunted his dreams. John Hersey’s chilling account of the bombing came closer, but did little or nothing to stop further nuclear testing by the Americans at Enewetak and Bikini, the British in Australia, the French in the Sahara, and the Soviets in Kazakhstan.
Avery knew, quite rightly, that no man-made structure could survive a direct hit from today’s more powerful hydrogen bombs. And even if the hit was indirect, the chances that he and Sarah and Charlotte would be in the same place at that time were slim. For that reason, he agreed with Ike, who’d said, “If I were in a very fine shelter and [my wife and children] were not there, I would just walk out. I would not want to face that kind of world.”
A barker strode by calling “Any Catholics in the crowd?” and thrust a yellow flyer into Avery’s hand. It was a mimeographed copy of a magazine article by a Father L. C. McHugh proclaiming,
Nowhere in traditional Catholic morality does one read that Christ, in counseling nonresistance to evil, rescinded the right of self-defense which is granted by nature and recognized in the legal systems of all nations. To love one’s neighbor as thyself,
the priest wrote,
is, undoubtedly, an heroic Christian virtue, but it is not a Christian duty.
Indeed, this Father McHugh implied, it would be misguided charity
not
to shoot a neighbor trying to invade one’s jam-packed shelter!
Avery had had enough. He crumpled the flyer, tossed it into the waste barrel of a vendor hawking Double Decker Moon Pies, and called to his daughter’s back. “Charlotte…Charlotte!”
She turned, eyes bright. “I think I see her…in
there.
” She pointed to the entrance of a nearby
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