70th Anniversary of the Amazing Hiroshima Eight
Hiroshima before the bombing.
Early on August 6, 1945, a lone American B-29 Superfortress bomber
circled in a vividly blue sky over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The
unsuspecting inhabitants on the ground barely glanced at the plane. They
were unaware of the deadly payload it was about to unleash on them,
ushering in the atomic age with unimaginable death and destruction.
As one single bomb neared the ground, a city died in an instant.
Houses crumbled, people evaporated, an immense ball of fire shot
skywards, and a terrible wave of super-heated gas bulged out from ground
zero, flattening buildings for miles.
Atomic
cloud over Hiroshima. The cloud rose to over 60,000 feet in about ten
minutes, while smoke from the burst of the first atomic bomb had spread
over 10,000 feet at the base of the rising column.
Amongst the unsuspecting inhabitants of Hiroshima was Fr. Schiffer, a
Jesuit missionary assisting the many Catholics of that city. On the
morning of August 6, 1945, he had just finished Mass and sat down at the
breakfast table. As he plunged his spoon into a freshly sliced
grapefruit, there was a bright flash of light. His first thought was
that a fuel tanker had exploded in the harbor, as Hiroshima was a major
port where the Japanese refueled their submarines. Then, in the words of
Fr. Schiffer: “Suddenly, a terrible explosion filled the air with one
bursting thunder stroke. An invisible force lifted me from the chair,
hurled me through the air, shook me, battered me, whirled me round and
round like a leaf in a gust of autumn wind.” Next thing he remembered
was that he opened his eyes and found himself on the ground. He looked
around, and saw there was nothing left in any direction: the railroad
station and buildings in all directions were gone. Yet, the only harm to
him was a few slight cuts in the back of his neck from shards of grass.
As far as he could tell, there was nothing else physically wrong with
him.
Father John Seimes, S.J., one of the eight Jesuit Fathers that miraculously survived the atomic bombing.
The small community of Jesuits to which Fr. Schiffer belonged lived
in a house near the parish church, situated only eight blocks from the
center of the blast. When Hiroshima was destroyed by the atomic bomb,
all eight members of the small Jesuit community escaped unscathed, while
every other person within a radius of one-and-a-half kilometers from
ground zero died immediately. The house where the Jesuits lived was
still standing, while buildings in every direction from it were leveled.
Father Hubert Schiffer was 30 years old when the atomic bomb exploded
right over his head at Hiroshima. He not only survived, but also lived a
healthy life for another 33 years!
Our Lady of the Assumption Church and the Jesuit Rectory.
How did this group of men survive a nuclear blast that killed
everyone else, even people over ten times further away from the blast?
It is absolutely unexplainable by scientific means. An interesting
detail is that this group of Catholic clergy was made up of ardent
enthusiasts of the Message of Fatima. They lived the Message. Was their
fidelity to Our Lady rewarded by this stupendous miracle of their
survival?
Atomic cloud over Nagasaki from Koyagi-jima on August 9, 1945.
Even more astonishing is that the story was to be repeated a few days
later at Nagasaki, the second Japanese city to be hit by an atomic
bomb. In both Hiroshima and Nagasaki the survivors were Catholic
religious. Most other buildings were leveled to the ground, even at 3
times the distance, but in both cases their houses stood – even with
some windows intact! All other people, bar a handful of scattered
mutilated survivors, even at thrice the distance from the explosion,
died instantly. Those within a radius ten times the distance of the
Jesuits from the explosion were exposed to fierce radiation and died
within days.
After the American conquest of Japan, U.S. army doctors explained to
Fr. Schiffer that his body would soon begin to deteriorate because of
the radiation. To the doctors’ amazement, Fr. Schiffer’s body showed no
radiation or ill effects from the bomb. All who were at this range from
the epicenter should have received enough radiation to be dead within a
matter of minutes. Scientists examined the group of Hiroshima Jesuits
over 200 times during the next 30 years and no ill effects were ever
found.
Hiroshima after the bombing
Could it have been a fluke? Could the bomb’s makers have designed it
to avoid killing U.S. citizens? There is no known way to design a
uranium-235 atomic bomb so it could leave such a large discrete area
intact while destroying everything around it. The Jesuits say: “We
believe that we survived because we were living the message of Fatima.
We lived and prayed the Rosary daily in that house.” Fr. Schiffer feels
that he received a protective shield from the Blessed Virgin, which
protected him from all radiation and ill effects. Fr. Schiffer
attributes this to his devotion to Our Lady, and his daily Fatima
Rosary: “In that house the Holy Rosary was recited together every day.”
Secular scientists are dumbfounded and incredulous at his explanation.
They are sure there is some ‘real’ explanation. However, over 60 years
later the scientists still have not been able to explain it.
From a scientific standpoint, what happened to those Jesuits at
Hiroshima still defies all the laws of physics. It must be concluded
that some other force was present, whose power to transform energy and
matter as it relates to humans is beyond our comprehension.
Urakami
Cathedral after the bomb. Only 500 feet from the hypocenter of the
blast stood the original Urakami Cathedral, a center for Nagasaki’s
Catholic community. Catholic missionaries first came to Nagasaki in the
16th century, and within several decades hundreds of thousands of people
in Southwestern Japan were practicing Catholics.
Dr. Stephen Rinehart of the U.S. Department of Defense is widely
recognized as an international expert in the field of atomic blasts.
Says Rinehart: “A quick calculation says that at one kilometer the bulk
temperature was in excess of 20,000 to 30,000 degrees F, and the blast
wave would have hit at sonic velocity with pressures on buildings
greater than 600 PSI. If the Jesuits, at one kilometer from the
geometric epicenter, were outside the atomic bomb’s “plasma” their
residence should still have been utterly destroyed. Un-reinforced
masonry or brick walls, representative of commercial construction, are
destroyed at 3 PSI, which will also cause ear damage and burst windows.
At 10 PSI, a human being will experience severe lung and heart damage,
burst eardrums and at 20 PSI limbs can be blown off. All the cotton
clothing would be on fire at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and your lungs
would be inoperative within a minute of breathing even one lungful of
air at these temperatures.
Hypocenter of the blast in Hiroshima was Shima Hospital.
“No way could any human have survived nor should anything have been
left standing at one kilometer. At ten times the distance, about ten to
fifteen kilometers, I saw the brick walls standing from an elementary
school and there were a few badly burned survivors; all died within
fifteen years of some form of cancer. Reconnaissance pictures taken of a
panoramic view from epicenter of the blast, at Shima Hospital looking
towards the Jesuits’ house, did show some kind of two-story building
totally intact, at least from what I could make out, and it looked to me
the windows were in place. Also there was a church with walls still
standing a few hundred yards away, but the roof was gone.
“The Department of Defense never commented officially on this and I
suspect it was classified and never discussed in open literature. I
think it is possible the Jesuits were asked not to say anything either
at the time.”
For
God, who made all matter and energy, it is simply a matter of willing
it and the laws that govern them are suspended. This is what happened at
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It also happened in ancient times, to the loyal
servants of God Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, as is related in the
Book of Daniel (3:19-24):
“Then was Nebuchodonosor
filled with fury: and the countenance of his face was changed against
Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, and he commanded that the furnace should
be heated seven times more than it had been accustomed to be heated. And
he commanded the strongest men that were in his army, to bind the feet
of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, and to cast them into the furnace of
burning fire. And immediately these men were bound and were cast into
the furnace of burning fire, with their coasts, and their caps, and
their shoes, and their garments. For the king’s commandment was urgent,
and the furnace was heated exceedingly. And the flame of the fire slew
those men that had cast Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago. But these three
men, that is, Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, fell down bound in the
midst of the furnance of burning fire. And they walked in the midst of
the flame, praising God and blessing the Lord.”
Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 486
Mary adorns her clients with
her merits, assists them with her power, enlightens them with her
light, and kindles them with her love. She imparts her virtues to them
and becomes their security, their intercessor, and their all with Jesus.
