Hiroshima 65 Years Later: US Offers No Apology

[Richard]

The US sent its first delegation to Hiroshima's annual memorial ceremony. Some Japanese would like the US to apologize for nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

And so it goes...

Richard

Hiroshima 65 Years Later: US Attends Ceremony, But Offers No Apology
CSM, 5 Aug 2010

Sixty-five years after the United States dropped "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, effectively ending World War II and ushering in an era of nuclear dread, the US sent its first delegation to the annual ceremony to remember the over 100,000 Japanese who lost their lives in the bombing.

Britain and France also sent representatives for the first time.

While some Japanese hailed the presence of the US and other nuclear powers as a sign of commitment to eventual nuclear disarmament, for others it was too little, too late. Some Japanese still want an apology for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while others complained about the absence of President Obama.

Some of Hiroshima’s hibakusha – as atomic bomb survivors are known – criticized the US ambassador for failing to meet with them, apologize for the bombing, or even offer a floral tribute. Others however, saw his visit as a sign of progress.

On the streets of Tokyo, there were mixed feelings regarding the US delegation’s attendance. “It’s good they’ve come, but why has it taken 65 years?” asked an office worker who was watching the morning’s ceremony from Hiroshima on public broadcast NHK. “And really, Obama should be here after the speeches he’s made about nuclear weapons."

US Ambassador to Japan John Roos was joined by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and delegates from over 70 countries as Prime Minister Naoto Kan implored the world to “accept the Japanese people's hope that nuclear destruction never takes place again."

In the traditional peace declaration, the mayor of Hiroshima, Tadatoshi Akiba, called on the central government to continue Japan’s policy of not producing nuclear weapons and to remove itself from the protection of the US nuclear umbrella.

In a press conference after the ceremony, Kan said that while “we share strong hopes for nuclear disarmament,” Japan had to face the “reality that nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction are spreading,” and that “nuclear deterrence continues to be a necessity for our country.” The US maintains military bases in Japan that are politically controversial.

The UN’s Ban also visited Nagasaki on his trip, the first by a secretary-general to the cities, declaring, "The only way to ensure that nuclear weapons will never again be used is to eliminate them all."

At the ceremony, the names of a further 5,501 recently confirmed to have died from radiation aftereffects were added in two books to the memorial to the dead. The cenotaph now contains almost 100 books containing the names of 269,446 people.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-...ers-no-apology

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by NORMAL550GIRL

My first reaction: "Aren't these the same people that, when they knew they were losing, locked POWs in barracks and set fire to said barracks??"

My second reaction: " It was 65 years ago, maybe the best thing for the world is to let it be in the past and move forward. A simple apology doesn't hurt anyone. "

Am I the only conflicted one?

The Japanese are, IMHO, culturally in denial about their military aggression as the primary cause of WW II in the PTO, and the atrocities that their soldiers committed, not just against the US military, but against military and civilians in virtually every country that they invaded. China and the Phillipines spring immediately to mind as examples.

Perhaps if they were to apologize and accept the fact that they started the war in the Pacific (many years before Pearl Harbor) and their crimes against humanity, they would see that the measures we took to end the war, while harsh, were no more than was reasonable at the time.

Burned to death by a nuke or an incendiary is all the same to me. I do not see a nuclear weapon as anything more than a time and space saver. Dead is dead. Would the Japanese be happier if we took the time and resources to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki into rubble like Tokyo, then burned them to the ground conventionally and conducted an amphibious invasion of the island, losing a million American lives and the majority of their civilian population in the process? Look at the civilian casualties from Okinawa (including suicides) as a predictor.

I do not see an apology being necessary. Both sides did what they had to. The Imperial Japanese could have either not attacked the US, or sued for peace at any time they chose, which they did, after the two nuclear weapons were employed. I have no issue with the targeting decision. The intent was to get the Emperor and his military staff to see the futility, suffering and cost to the Japanese people of protracting the lost campaign.

Just my .02, YMMV.

TR

[Richard]

My idea of an apology for such a situation would be along the lines of:

To the people of Japan,

On behalf of the American people and their commitment to our national ideals, we remain saddened that the Imperial Japanese government forced us to engage the Japanese people in a terrible war which - based upon the actions of the Imperial Japanese military during that war - led our national command authority some 65 years ago to believe that the use of atomic weapons was necessary. It is our sincere wish that we are never again forced to use such weapons for such a purpose.

On behalf of the American people,

BHO
President of the United States and Commander-In-Chief

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02

[mark46th]

A few things come to mind-

1. My dad drove a landing craft in the PTO. I think my brother and I are probably here because of the A bombs on Japan.

2. We fought the war according to rules the enemy(Japan) understood. Thank God for MacArthur who understood the mindset of the Japanese and for Truman who had the stones to drop said A bomb.

3. Japanese casualties from an invasion of the home islands were estimated in the millions. How many of the ingrates protesting realize they wouldn't be living right now if the U.S. had invaded?

Japan is lucky it isn't a series of barren rocks....

Another interesting point- Hiroshima and Nagaski were supposedly going to be glowing in the dark for thousands of years. They glow in the dark now but because of neon lights. These two cities have been completely rebuilt...

[Utah Bob]

As stated, the Japanese are culturally in denial about their actions in WWII. The other belligerents, not so much.

I read Last Train from Hiroshima a while ago. I've read plenty of other first person accounts from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I've also read plenty of American Pacific Theater POW first person accounts.
War is nasty business.

Am I sorry for the loss of life in those cities? Sure. Dresden and Cologne to.
But apologize? No, certainly not.

[greenberetTFS]

I have no sympathy for the Japanese, my dad served in WW2 as a Combat Medic in the PTO and he told me enough about them............... Screw them if they expect an apology!.............. To bad we didn't drop the 3rd one on Tokyo ................

Big Teddy

[akv]

In a way it reinforces the notion you can export culture a la the Romans. The Japanese started that war and lost. Just as our parents and grandparents of the greatest generation ,who are no longer with us, might turn over in their graves at the "pussification" of America. It seems with democracy, capitalism, Mcdonalds, blue jeans etc, apparently the Japanese have also learned how to whine like hypersensitive liberals who ignore their own history. Their culture preferred death to surrender only 65 years back, and now they want an apology for losing a fight they started? If this is our biggest issue with Japan, splendid! This bodes well for Iraq in 50 years, I hope they too are sipping Shamrock shakes, enjoying the fruits of a stable democracy and whining about global warming...

[Sten]

Our apology could be rebuilding their manufacturing infrastructure and taking great pains to rebuild their government with no demands of war reparations. Oh wait..

[rdret1]

It is all due to the liberal trend at "world apologetics" just for us being who we are.

[alelks]

I have a picture on my computer at our store as a lady came in to have it scanned and blown up. It was a picture of her deceased husband on a landing strip standing by a tent. In the background were several aircraft. One of them was the Enola Gay. He had just loaded the bomb on the aircraft. You can zoom in on the photo land see the name painted on the aircraft. He had no idea what he was loading at the time.

[mojaveman]

If the Japanese would not have bombed Pearl Harbor we never would have dropped two atomic weapons on them.

They started it.

We had to use that level of power to end hostilities in the Pacific because WWII was bankrupting America.

My father went through both Nagasaki and Hiroshima while on leave during the Korean War and told me that at that time they were both still devestated.

[abc_123]

In my book, no apologies necessary. THe A bombs just saved us the trouble of firebombing those cities to the ground one night anyway.

I have long wondered why we didn't use poison gas in the pacific against the japanese before the A bombs were developed. Gas would have saved lots of American lives on Iwo and Okinawa.

Edited to add: ...well maybe not. YThis article takes the position that chemical weapons would not have been of help in the pacific http://books.google.com/books?id=3wU...heater&f=false

[Sigaba]

FWIW, for decades, diplomatic historians have agreed broadly that factors beyond military expediency shaped the decision to use atomic weapons. Not the least of these factors was how having atomic weapons might shape America's relations with the USSR following the war. Moreover, scholars have challenged the long-standing belief that hundreds of thousands of servicemen would have perished had the U.S. invaded the Japanese home islands. For instance, Rufus Miles found that military planners never projected casualty figures close to Truman's oft-cited 500,000. Barton Bernstein found that worst case scenarios had projections of 46,000 casualties. Bernstein and Robert L. Messer believed that Truman used such a large number to assuage lingering ambivalence over his decision.*


__________________________________________________ _________
* J. Samuel Walker, "The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historiographical Update," Diplomatic History , 14:1 (1990): 97-114, but especially104-106; Walker, "Recent Literature on Truman's Atomic Bomb Decision: A Search for Middle Ground," Diplomatic History, 29:2 (2005): 311-344. especially, 325-326 and 328-329.

Considering the total number of potential human lives that would have been lost, both measured in military and civilian lives, it was the right decision.

I think it's time for anther bomb or two, but that's just me.

WD

[ZonieDiver]

Originally Posted by Sigaba

FWIW, for decades, diplomatic historians have agreed broadly that factors beyond military expediency shaped the decision to use atomic weapons. Not the least of these factors was how having atomic weapons might shape America's relations with the USSR following the war. Moreover, scholars have challenged the long-standing belief that hundreds of thousands of servicemen would have perished had the U.S. invaded the Japanese home islands. For instance, Rufus Miles found that military planners never projected casualty figures close to Truman's oft-cited 500,000. Barton Bernstein found that worst case scenarios had projections of 46,000 casualties. Bernstein and Robert L. Messer believed that Truman used such a large number to assuage lingering ambivalence over his decision.*


__________________________________________________ _________
* J. Samuel Walker, "The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historiographical Update," Diplomatic History , 14:1 (1990): 97-114, but especially104-106; Walker, "Recent Literature on Truman's Atomic Bomb Decision: A Search for Middle Ground," Diplomatic History, 29:2 (2005): 311-344. especially, 325-326 and 328-329.

Sometimes, academics are just that.

There were 27,000 US casualties, including 7,000 dead, during 7 weeks of combat on Iwo Jima. There were 50,000 Allied casualties during 3 months of fighting on Okinawa. To think that there would only be 46,000 casualties in the conquest of the Japanese mainland is preposterous.

As one whose father wad slated to be in the invasion, I am glad Pres. Truman had the brass to drop the bombs (of which there were only two).