The US and North Korea seem to be on the threshold of starting a nuclear warfare almost every single 24-hour interval here in 2018 . But even if a nuclear bomb is used and billion die , whatever homo allow for surviving will endeavor to achieve some storey of normality in the aftermath . How do I sleep with that ? In 1946 , American troops played a football plot in Nagasaki after drop a nuclear turkey on it .
The United States became the first nation to ever use a atomic weapon on August 5 , 1945 when it send packing an atomic bomb on Hiroshima . And then it did so again on August 9 , 1945 in Nagasaki , killing over 80,000 people in that metropolis alone . But that did n’t stop the Americans from taste to change by reversal Japan into a plaza they could enjoy after fight had ceased . Even in a world that come along nothing brusque of apocalyptic , humans just want things to find normal again .
The American occupation forces were understandably low-spirited about the death and destruction that surrounded them , even if they rationalized the use of the bomb calorimeter as good and justify to end the war . The footage taken in the following months by both American and Japanese camera operator was curb by the US military for decades , showing the butchery and the downright miserableness of what had been unleashed on Japan .
American commander tried to brainstorm a number of ways to lift the intent of their troops , many of whom did n’t have much to do because the US military had n’t expected them to survive beyond a few days of the invasion . So they put on a football game secret plan . But the “ Atomic Bowl ” as they called it had to be converted to two - hand touch . The reason ? There was still right smart too much impoverished glass everywhere in the city .
The story of the ‘ Atom Bowl ’ is one of the most flaky tales in the wake of the atomic turkey being dropped on Nagasaki , Japan — pitting the makeshift team the Nagasaki Bears against the Isahaya Tigers . The Bears ’ quarterback was Angelo Bertelli , who won the Heisman prize in 1943 while playing for Notre Dame . Bertelli enlist in the Marines in 1942 but was n’t deploy until the fall of 1943 . The Tigers had Bullet Bill Osmanski , an NFL virtuoso who play for the real lifetime Chicago Bears and led the conference in rushing in 1939 with 699 yards .
The Tokyo Files Archives has aphoto from that day on January 1 , 1946 , taken from the “ Pictorial Arrowhead Occupation of Japan by Second Marine Division,”—a yearbook of sorts for American troops in Japan . The picture is just one among dozens in the Word that probe the destruction that was unleashed on that urban center .
Newspapers of the time also secernate the story of the roughly 2,000 servicemen and women who endure the winter cold to watch the Atom Bowl . A syndicated news report in the January 2 , 1946 edition of the Moorhead Daily News in Minnesota explain to Americans at home that our troops in Japan were maintain their spirits up with a football game :
Bill Osmanski , former Holy Cross and Chicago bear star , ran and plain his “ Nishshaya Tigers ” to a 14 - to-13 victory over Angelo Bertelli ’s “ bear ” in the first atom bowl football plot today .
Several thousand servicemen and women huddle in the winter stale to watch the game on the Nagasaki gridiron , carved by marine from the rubble and rubble of this atomic bomb target today .
Osmanski , a maritime first Lieutenant , score both touchdown for the Tigers and reboot both extra points — all in the second half — after navy Lieutenant Bertelli , former Notre Dame great and captain of the Bears , had passed his ball club to a 13 - to-0 lead at halftime .
Back in 2005 , the New York Times talked with one of the people who was there , Gerald Sanders , a Marine Corps Reserve colonel from Oxford , Ohio who was 81 - years - sometime when the newspaper speak with him . Just happy to be alive , Sanders said they saw nothing strange about putting on a football biz in the char stiff of Nagasaki .
“ We thought it would be totally appropriate and symbolic of a festivity , ” Sanders tell theNew York Times . “ It was certainly not to look like there was a jubilant glee in what had happen there . It had an emotional effect on us . We were there , yet we had many buddy that did n’t make it through the warfare . ”
Some peculiar Japanese civilian ascertain the game , “ from behind the eggshell of scorched building , ” as the New York Times put it . But most had other things to occupy about , like the effect of radiation orfinding a piazza to catch some Z’s .
Humans will always prove to obtain some agency to experience the familiar even in the middle of staring and everlasting devastation . But have ’s just hope that we do n’t involve to see that sort of thing happen again anytime presently . With the unhinged hot air of both President Trump and Kim Jong Un we may see a 2d Atom Bowl within our lifetimes . But given how in advance nuclear weapons have become since 1945 , they probably wo n’t be play in San Francisco or Seoul or Tokyo . How ’s Australia this time of year ?
Nuclear arm
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