From: L' Ermit (lhermit@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Feb 14 2002 - 12:34:56 MST
In early 1999 somebody here (perhaps Magic Jim?) suggested that we "leaflet
bombed" Hiroshima prior to eliminating it and that it was a legitimate
military target. I rejected this and asked for a source for these
assertions. Unfortunately, there was none forthcoming. Today I was working
through material designed to mould public opinion on the use of WMD when I
came across the following link that may shed some light on what has for me
been an ongoing puzzle:
Source: [url=http://www.gthunt.com/smith4.htm]"Massacre at the Smithsonian"
Part IV[/url] accessed 2002-02-17
[quote]On March 16, 1995, The Washington Post ran an interview with Gavan
Daws about his book Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the
Pacific (New York: Morrow, 1994). Daws was troubled by the Japanese refusal
to face up to the darker side of their history, especially their brutal
treatment of prisoners in World War II. He pointed out that usually Japan
had been very punctilious about international law, and had treated prisoners
decently in other conflicts, so the great crimes of World War II cannot be
shrugged off as due to some defect in Japanese culture. Daws recalled his
service on a UN committee on the "Scientific and Cultural History of
Humankind," and said, "Western scholars were the only ones who would admit
that their people had ever done anything wrong. Everybody else insisted they
had been a blameless victim throughout history, just like the Japanese." (7)
The interviewer, Ken Ringle, who had covered the Enola Gay dispute along
with Meyer, maintained strict silence on the obvious parallel.
When the exhibit finally opened on June 28, 1995, it turned out that the
operative part of Heyman's announcement had not been his ostensible
neutrality but his promise to let the crew speak for themselves. Heyman let
them turn the show into a strident proclamation of the wildest of the
pro-bomb fancies. As visitors waited in line to see the Enola Gay they were
bombarded by several large screens showing a fifteen minute film of
interviews with Tibbets and his crew, along with historical footage.
Affirmative lies put forth by this film included a description of Hiroshima
as a "military target," a suggestion that Hiroshimans had been warned by
leaflets, (8) and a statement that the Nagasaki bomb was necessary because
the Japanese had denied that the Hiroshima bomb was nuclear. (9) And the
promise to let the crew speak for themselves was not complete. Ellsworth
Carrington (10) was conspicuously absent from among his colleagues in the
509th. One of the most painful moments in the film was the prayer of
Chaplain Downey invoking the name of Jesus Christ for the success of the
mission, but there was no mention of Chaplain George Zabelka, who has said,
"We should have felt horror then . . . yet it never occurred to us."
(11)[/quote]
I recommend that to access the article you go to the first page, i.e.
Source: [url=http://www.gthunt.com/smith1.htm]"Massacre at the
Smithsonian"[/url] accessed 2002-02-17
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