{"id":54550,"date":"2025-08-14T13:04:46","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T21:04:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=54550"},"modified":"2025-08-14T13:05:33","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T21:05:33","slug":"the-miss-atom-bomb-beauty-pageant-in-nagasaki-after-the-a-bomb-fell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/14\/the-miss-atom-bomb-beauty-pageant-in-nagasaki-after-the-a-bomb-fell\/","title":{"rendered":"The ‘Miss Atom Bomb’ Beauty Pageant in Nagasaki, After the A-Bomb Fell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell\u2019s newsletter Oppenheimer and the Legacy of His Bomb<\/a>.<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

My award-winning film<\/a> \u201cThe Atomic Bowl\u201d started streaming on PBS.org and PBS apps last week and via Vimeo (you can easily watch it via links here<\/a>), plus it is airing over many PBS stations. In addition, my previous film, \u201cAtomic Cover-up,\u201d is receiving free PBS showing here<\/a> in its \u201cshort\u201d (28 minutes) version. You can still subscribe to this newsletter for FREE. And there is now a companion e-book<\/a> for \u201cThe Atomic Bowl\u201d with the same title, more here or order<\/a>. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

As you probably know by now<\/strong>, my current PBS film<\/a> (see links above) revolves around the January 1, 1946 all-star U.S. military football game played in, of all places, Nagasaki less than five months after one of our new weapons destroyed half the city and killed at least 75,000, overwhelmingly civilians.<\/p>\n

Beyond the Atomic Bowl, there was a second highly revealing (of American occupation attitudes) episode a few months after that.<\/p>\n

By the summer of 1946, most of the Marine occupiers of Nagasaki had been sent home. Before departing, some helped promote and\/or served as judges for a Miss Nagasaki beauty pageant, which they took to calling the “Miss Atom Bomb” contest. The contestants, whose ages ranged from 17 to 25, were young Japanese women, surely some of them widows or daughters of men killed in the Pacific war or in the atomic bombing. They had entered by responding to ads in the three leading local newspapers calling for young women who symbolized \u201cNagasaki rising from the ruins.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Three U.S. Marines were among the ten judges<\/strong> in a competition that somehow took three days to complete (April 29-May 1). It was staged in a dance hall in the southern part of the city, well outside the zone of worst destruction. (Remember, the bomb exploded more than a mile off target, so \u201conly\u201d half the city was wiped out.) The hall had become slightly notorious as it was a prime site for occupying troops to pay money to dance with and maybe woo local women.<\/p>\n

Presenting roses to the winner (above) was Marine Sgt. Robert McMenimen, who had earlier served as one of the referees at the Atomic Bowl.<\/p>\n

Here is a clipping from Pacific Stars & Stripes<\/em>, covering it at the time, and more photos that my research team found in U.S. archives.<\/p>\n

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And a photo taken in that period at the same dance hall:<\/p>\n

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And there is now a companion e-book<\/a> for \u201cThe Atomic Bowl\u201d with the same title, more here or order<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Thanks for reading Oppenheimer and the Legacy of His Bomb! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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