With Doves and Sirens, Nagasaki Recalls a Terrible Day 40 Years Ago

Five hundred white doves of peace flurried into skies that once witnessed a nuclear fireball as 24,000 people joined Friday to commemorate the atomic attack on Nagasaki 40 years ago.

Bells tolled at 11.02 a.m. in Buddhist temples and Christian churches, marking the time a U.S. B-29 bomber dropped “Fat Man,” the second atomic bomb used against Japan. The bomb killed at least 70,000 people and injured about 70,000 more, but it brought an end to World War II.

As the bells tolled and sirens wailed, the participants in Peace Park near the blast’s ground zero observed a moment of silence. The doves were released during the ceremonies.

The bombing of Nagasaki came three days after the first atomic attack on Hiroshima. Japan surrendered six days after Nagasaki’s devastation.

Addressing the crowd Friday, Nagasaki Mayor Hitoshi Motoshima noted that “the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union are scheduled to sit together at nuclear disarmament negotiations in Geneva this autumn.

“It is my fervent hope that they will make this 40th anniversary of the atomic bombings a joyful year in which the dark postwar history of the nuclear race makes a sharp turnabout,” he said.

Participants included mayors from 81 communities in 23 countries attending the First World Conference of Mayors for Peace through Intercity Solidarity, an event jointly sponsored by the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In a statement, the mayors agreed to call for an early opening of the third special session of the U.N. General Assembly, which will be devoted to disarmament.

They also called on “the heads (of) the United States and the Soviet Union, as part of the summit talks scheduled for this fall in Geneva, to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki to realize the true nature of the atomic bombings.”

The mayors had already held a two-day session in Hiroshima to coincide with 40th-anniversary events there early this week.