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Shockwave | 
| Author: Stephen Walker
Publisher: John Murray Publishers Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: $41.35
Buy New: $10.42
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Avg. Customer Rating:  39 reviews
Sales Rank: 3556508
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.5
ISBN: 0719566258
Dewey Decimal Number: 940
EAN: 9780719566257
ASIN: 0719566258
Publication Date: July 18, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: In stock - Sent fast from British booksellers.
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Product Description
A riveting, minute-by-minute account of the momentous event that changed our world forever On a quiet Monday morning in August 1945, a five-ton bomb—dubbed Little Boy by its creators—was dropped from an American plane onto the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On that day, a firestorm of previously unimagined power was unleashed on a vibrant metropolis of 300,000 people, leaving one third of its population dead, its buildings and landmarks incinerated. It was the terrifying dawn of the Atomic Age, spawning decades of paranoia, mistrust, and a widespread and very real fear of the potential annihilation of the human race. Author Stephen Walker brilliantly re-creates the three terrible weeks leading up to the wartime detonation of the atomic bomb—from the first successful test in the New Mexico desert to the cataclysm and its aftermath—presenting the story through the eyes of pilots, scientists, civilian victims, and world leaders who stood at the center of earth-shattering drama. It is a startling, moving, frightening, and remarkable portrait of an extraordinary event—a shockwave whose repercussions can be felt to this very day.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 34 more reviews...
 Historical Novel: One Approach July 26, 2008
"Shockwave: Countdown To Hiroshima" by Stephen Walker
HarperCollins Publishers, New York 2005
With an historical novel, the author knows that the reader knows what happened where and when. The task of the writer is to develop, if not suspense, at least tension with the historical facts. As you sit and read this review, you are aware that the explosion of the first atomic bomb in the New Mexico dessert did not ignite the earth's atmosphere and destroy the world.
Stephen Walker has used his experience as a television director to write a tense and exciting book about the bombing of Hiroshima, the first time using the atomic bomb in anger. Excellent writing; excellent story telling. For example, "Enola Gay" was the name given to the B29 bomber that carried the atomic bomb to Hiroshima. This is in most history books and caused some difficulty, recently, at the Smithsonian Institute. In the book, however, it is not until page 194 that you finally, (finally!) read how Col. Paul Tibbets named the aircraft after his mother. This is truly tension.
The author gives many details: technical details (red plugs and green plugs) mixed in with the contemporary diplomatic scrambles of the Japanese to enlist the Soviet Union in the peace process. Walker presents all these details through the point of view of the American airman and the point of view of the Japanese solider in Hiroshima. With all these details, I just wonder aloud why the author did not mention that the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady was at the hypocenter in the Nagasaki attack.
One editorial detail: page 201, the middle paragraph begins, "Despite the short ages and the blackout ...". Back at Bridgewater State college, my historiography professor used to say that Spell Checker does not cut it. You have to review each line, using an old wooden ruler. Spell checker permitted "...short ages..." when the author wanted "shortages". Editors at HarperCollins should pull out those rulers.
Great Introduction for Those Not Familiar with the Subject July 10, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
There are a lot of books out there on the subject of the the atomic bombing of Japan, more of them about Hiroshima than Nagasaki. Stephen Walker's "Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima" focuses on the former. In a clear and fast-paced style of a film director, Walker focuses first on the development of the bomb through the Manhattan Project. Once the bomb is developed, he turns to the 509th Composite Group and the crew that would deliver the bomb. Walker also manages to weave in little about the Japanese government's attempt to secure a negotiated pease, a personal story of two Japanese forever separated by the blast, and the experiences of other Japanese civilians and military personnel who survived the bomb. Fact-filled yet easy to read, and unburdened by scholarly footnotes, "Shockwave" is a terrific introductory read for anyone interested in this fascinating yet tragic period of history.
One of the best non-fiction books I've ever read May 31, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I had to read this book for my Chemistry class in high school and I couldn't be more thankful. This book is a masterpiece that I hope to have in my collection forever. Even though you know the outcome of the book, Walker writes it in a thrilling way that puts you on the edge of your seat. The book starts out with the first test at the Trinity site. The book jumps between various perspectives: from leading scientists on the project, to president Truman, to Japanese citizens, to the crew of the Enola Gay and others. Any fan of nonfiction should read this book and anyone who wants to learn more about the Atomic Bomb owes it to themselves to read it.
Witnesses to Armageddon April 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Even blades of grass were driven into flesh." - Author Stephen Walker about the shockwave of the Hiroshima A-bomb
The world already knows the ending to Stephen Walker's book, SHOCKWAVE. But here, he brings the story of the atomic bomb up close and personal in a narrative based on eyewitness accounts of the Trinity test at White Sands, NM, on July 16, 1945, the dropping of "Little Boy" by the B-29 named the Enola Gay on Hiroshima On August 6, and the plight of Japanese survivors of the blast.
The development of humankind's ultimate weapon at Los Alamos, NM, was an ultra top secret project accomplished by an army of scientists and technicians headed by J. Robert Oppenheimer and Major General Leslie Groves, many of whom, including one who was a Soviet spy, watched in stunned awe as a nuclear device was first successfully detonated at White Sands. But perhaps no experience of the event matched that of Georgia Green:
"Fifty miles north of Ground Zero, an eighteen-year-old girl was traveling in the front seat of a car next to her brother-in-law, Joe Willis. The girl's name was Georgia Green, and Joe was driving her to an early-morning music lesson in Albuquerque ... As they passed the town of Lemitar along an empty Highway 85, a flash of extraordinary brilliance suddenly filled the landscape. Georgia grabbed her brother-in-law's arm. 'What was that?' she cried."
Georgia Green, you understand, was blind.
The story next shifts to the Pacific island of Tinian where the 509th Composite (bombing) Group commanded by Colonel Paul Tibbets, after extensive training of his command in Wendover, UT, prepares to receive, assemble, and deliver the world's first atomic weapon on one of three Japanese cities, the ultimate target to be chosen only after the mission was already in the air and twenty-five miles from the coast of Japan. For the Enola Gay's crew, the six and one-half hour flight from Tinian to Hiroshima encompassed drama and boredom:
"On (Little Boy's) upper surface were the three green safety plugs that blocked the firing signal from the fuse. For a moment (bomb technician) Jeppson stood beside the trembling bomb holding his three red plugs. He was alone in the bomb bay. Many years later the thought occurred to him: 'If I had removed the green safety plugs and then simply tossed the red ones onto the bomb-bay doors, the bomb would have been a dud and there would have been no evidence. I'm willing to believe that a dud would have forced some high-level considerations. Possibly the invasion of Japan would have happened.' In a very real sense the power to change history now rested directly with him."
"In the narrow, thirty-foot pressurized tunnel that separated the nose and the waist compartments, Jake Beser lay stretched out, his first chance to sleep in twenty-seven hours. (Tail gunner) Bob Caron, assistant engineer Robert Shumard, and radar operator Joe Stiborik took turns rolling oranges down the tunnel toward him. Finally one bounced on Beser's head, waking him up."
Walker's brilliant achievement with SHOCKWAVE is the terrible fascination and foreboding engendered in the reader as the bomb inexorably approaches its target because interspersed within the narrative are sections which focus on the lives of several unsuspecting Hiroshima residents: army physician Dr. Shuntaro Hida, press photographer Yoshito Matsushige, schoolgirl Taeko Nakamae, army corporal Toshiaki Tanaka, engineering student Sunao Tsuboi, and Special Attack Forces volunteer Isao Wada. On the evening of August 5th:
"In the stillness of the Shukkeien Garden ... Sunao Tsuboi and his lover, Reiko, lay side by side on the grass. They had entered the garden at dusk. The cool dark lake spread before them, crisscrossed by its tiny wooden bridges and miniature teahouses. The thick scent of flowers carried on the night air, like the perfume of the letters she sometimes sent him. Occasionally they heard the splash of carp ... Or perhaps the old heron had woken ... (They lay) like this together for hours on the still-warm grass, their fingers barely brushing for the very first time. She had such beautiful fingers, thin and white and delicate. For the rest of his life Sunao would always remember their touch, just as he would remember the stars shining out of the clearest, widest, emptiest sky."
At 9:17 AM local time on August 6, what God had wrought was torn asunder by Man in an act of war, for justifiable reasons or not. Making his way to the city center from six kilometers out after the blast, Dr. Hida nearly collided with an object:
"He could not tell what it was. It did not look like a human being. It looked monstrous. Every part of its body was black, its arms, its head, its legs, its grotesquely swollen face. Its eyes protruded horribly like golf balls. It had no nose or hair. Its mouth gaped open like a huge hole. Its black lips were half the size of its face ... Black rags hung from its arms and torso. For a moment Hida thought these were pieces of burned clothing. Then he realized they were burned flesh ... Hundreds of shapes were coming up the hill toward him."
SHOCKWAVE contains a photo section featuring images from all points of the story, including the famous pictures of the mushroom cloud taken by Bob Caron, and a pair captured by Yoshito Matsushige, virtually the only ones depicting Hiroshima survivors on the day they encountered Armageddon.
"(President) Truman never swerved from (his decision to use the Bomb). In 1958 he wrote a letter to the Hiroshima City Council confirming that he would order the bomb to be dropped again, given similar circumstances. 'We'll send it airmail,' he is reported to have told his secretary. 'Be sure there are enough stamps on it!'"
After emerging from a forty-day coma, Sunao Tsuboi lived on to marry ten years later and father three children. At the time of this book's writing, he lived alone, a widower, in Hiroshima. How Reiko died on that fateful day remains unknown.
SHOCKWAVE is a mirror that shows humans what horrors they are capable of wreaking upon themselves. It's not pretty.
Excellent! February 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It has been a long time since I have sat down and read a book cover to cover at one sitting.
This book takes you into the lives of those that participated in the building, planning and execution of the first atomic bomb as well as those on the receiving end. You feel as if your part of history being made and you finish with a different outlook on the events that took place.
From the honorable men that were doing their jobs, to the horror the Japanese people experienced you will feel like you were there as history unfolded only to leave hoping that we never see anything like this ever happen again.
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