The space where the hypertext takes place is a village called Kokura. Kokura is a real space located near Nagasaki. Both cities were bombed in the Second World War. The impact was extremely devasting. Shortly after the bomb strikes,an enormous fireball was formed whose temperature was superior of 1820 ºf. From a more place it was possible to distinguish a hungus shape.This day was recorded at the people's mind during a long time, even later people died because of the radiations.

On the other hand,the sequencies that the text talks about, is the place where the explosions took place. It was the place where the Army made its practices.

If you want to see the Jornada de Muertos’ map you have to go to the text web site. Knowing this, we can also deduce that it is where the bombs exploed.Althouhg the map does not give us more information, we can suspect it is the state of Nevada.Some clues that the text gives are the following words such as “VADA”,”INDIANS SPRING”...We understand that the author's main objective is not to locate geographycally where the text takes place but,stiring up our interest that it could be even our own town or any town.Nevertheless,even through their interest is to confuse the text location,the text awakes readers interest. These interests are,for instance, American nuclear experiments in the Nevada desert. In the Kokura text we can observe these references on the horizontal sequencies that it is constantly moving.

In the real space, Kokura is a Kitakyushu's neighbourhood that belongs to Fukuoka prefecture as we observe in the following map.

As far as the fictitious space is concerned in the hypertext Kokura, the author presents it as the first objective of the north American atomic bomb against Japanese interests in 1945.

While everybody remembers Hiroshima and the facts that surrounded this tragedy, little is known about the history of the second atomic bomb, which was much more powerful, thrown over Nagasaki the 9th of august 1945. The setbacks that this mission directed by the captain Charles Sweeney in the aeroplane Bock’s Car had to face, are according to some historians, the causes of this oversight. The Bock’s Car copilot Don Albury was one of the first members of the crew that revealed details of the mission that on the 9th of august 1945 threw the second atomic bomb over the Japanese territory. On an interview to the norht American newspaper The New Herald in 1995, Albury reminded the bad climate conditions that prevented to bombard Kokura and the sensation that he experimented when he saw how the bomb exploded over Nagasaki. “ I saw the sparkle”, he said, and “I thought, God, what have we done?” Albury, who was then 24 years old, admitted that before boarding he asked for God to be the last time they had to destroy and kill people. Who was then the copilot of the Bock’s Car left the north American Army and started a commercial degree, working for 34 years in Eastern Airlines.

When the bomber B29 called Bock's Car,took off from the air base of Tinian in the Maldives Islands on 9^th August 1945 its main objective was the Japanese city of Kokura and its mission was to drop the second nuclear bomb in the Japanese territory in order to force the Japanese troop's definitive capitulation.Nevertheless,due to the bad weather,plans changed and nowadays everybody does not remember Kokura's destruction but Nagasaki destruction.A tragedy that speeded up the final of Second World War,but very often it is forgotten of what happened in Hiroshima three days before.

The reasons for that oversight, according to some historians,would be in the fact that Bock's Car mission (called like this because the aeroplane was piloted by Fred Bock) was ready to become in one of the United States most military failures in Second World War. General Frederick Ashworth, who was in charge of the mission,said last year to a Japanese newspaper that the decision of dropping a bomb to that city was owing to the aeroplane was running out of fuel and it was neccesary to act quickly.

Bock's Car left from Tinian,carrying the second and last nuclear bomb that existed in that moment in the world. Baptized as “Fat Man”, the bomb was bigger and powerful than “Little Man”,which three days before destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Carrying plutonium and not uranium as the first one,its detuctive effect was equivalent to 22 kilotron and not 13 as the “Little Man”.

The aircraft was piloted by Captain Charles Sweeney,who travelled with other 12 men,including the copilot Charles Albury and Kermit Beahan,who was the responsible for activating the mechanism to launch Fat Boy to Nagasaki.Before getting on,Sweeney had a feeling that something was wrong, and even he repeated to his mates that he just expect that the mission does not complicate it. His fearings started turning later into action,when a flashing in the mechanism which controlled the bomb let out that something was not working properly. Any damage was affecting Fat Boy and if it was not identify inmediately,Bock's Car could exploded in the open air.

Fortunately,the problem was solved,but would have other problems to be solved yet. When the aeroplane arrived at the town, the bad weather hampered seeing the city,so Sweeney decided to go around the objective with the hope that the sky would recover,but this never happened. Meanwhile the aircraft had used fuel.

Just over 1 hour flying Kokura with any positive results,another technical hitch affected Bock's Car

With the tank almost empty,it was impossible to use it. The aeroplane could not maintain in the open air during half an hour.Sweeney turned bomber off from its original target and he went to Nagasaki, other possible city to drop the bomb.

The situation there was not better. The city was covered by clouds.Although Nagasaki was less lucky than Kokura and shotly after, the sky opened and Kermit Beahan did not dubte to launch Fat Boy.It was 9^th august 1945 11.02 a.m. And Nagasaky was totaly destroyed. Seventy thousand people died and other seventy thousands died in the following years due to illness relationed with the bomb. The bomb's effects were great than the Hiroshima ones since covered a 500 metres radius longer and it could have caused more destruction, but the topography helped a lot. Nagasaki lies at he head of a bay and its surrounded by mountains which helped to contain the effects. 

[second paper] [general view] [spatial space] [conclusion] [bibliography]

© http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokura

Página creada y actualizada por grupo "mmm".
Para cualquier cambio, sugerencia,etc. contactar con: fores@uv.es
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
Universitat de València Press