Allan Appel Photo
Joshua Buddington — who was born on Aug. 6, the date in 1945, that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima — happened to be wandering near the flagpole of the New Haven Green at precisely 11:02 on Tuesday morning.
That’s when the bells of Center Church rang out to mark the 71st anniversary of the bombing, three days after Hiroshima, of Nagasaki.
Buddington noted 20 members of the Greater New Haven Peace Council standing with signs, documentary photographs, and paper doves held aloft in memorializing silence for three full minutes.
Buddington and his friend Felicia Stolz signed the petition.
At least 20 years members of the council, which is allied with the city’s Peace Commission, participated in the worldwide marking of the only atomic bombings the world has known.
While a current of ever-present danger always underlies these memorializing occasions, on Tuesday, the undercurrent was palpable.
Council Co-Chair Mary Compton said a sense of urgency stemmed from $1 trillion that President Obama proposal to spend $1 trillion to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal, along with NATO’s nuclear-armed weapons pointing at Russia at its borders — making the weapons of two major nuclear powers facing each other just miles apart.
After the silent vigil, the reading of remarks from Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Tave and several personal testimonies, participants gathered signatures for a petition protesting Obama’s plan..
Jim Pandaru with graphic images of post-Nagasaki bombing, borrowed from the collection of the New Haven Free Public Library.
The petition and an accompanying letter are being sent to Connecticut U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal and to New Haven U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro.
In addition to requesting removal of the US/NATO troops on Russia’s border and opposing the $1 trillion nuclear modernization, the letter asks the Connecticut legislators to block approval of research funding for nuclear cruise missiles.
When Buddington signed the petition, he added below his name, for a flourish, his Aug. 6, 1984 birthdate.
“It’s a scary thing even to think about. You can’t get the real facts from anyone out there,” he said.
His friend, Felicia Stoltz, was taking a day off from her job at a bagel store in Shelton. She said she signed the petition because “anything that prevents innocent people from getting in harm’s way” is worth the effort.
In addition to the approximately 20 vigil participants, another dozen passersby signed the petition, said the Peace Commission and Peace Center’s Joelle Fishman.
Although the current presidential contest did not come up in any of the speakers’ formal remarks, the Peace Council’s Jim Pandaru said, “[Republican candidate DOnald] Trump says he wants South Korea and Japan to possess nuclear weapons. And that will lead only to more [possibilities of] mistakes happening and our going into World War III.”
The same group gathered last Saturday at 8 a.m. for a similar vigil to mark the bombing of Hiroshima.
The next peace event in the city is scheduled Sept. 18. That’s when a gingko tree sent to New Haven from Hiroshima, will be planted in the Peace Garden at West River Memorial Park, as part of the Peace Commission’s participation in a International Day of Peace event organized by the West River Neighborhood Services Corporation.
We were fire bombing the Japanese, the allies were killing a lot more Japanese with bomber raids then with the two atom bombs. So really if you worry about nuclear weapons you should be worrying phosphorous bombs more since they killed many many more civilians in both Japan and Germany. Nuclear weapons have prevented the kinds of casualties those types of attacks carried. And until they are no longer a deterrent they are the greatest peace keepers ever.