Atomic Bomb (1)

Bob Choi & Others

19 September 2013

Bob Choi: A friend sent me this translated speech (see attachment) allegedly given by one of the pilots on the mission to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.  The speech was delivered at the US Congress in 1995.  I have not read the original and have not verified the authenticity of this translated copy. The contents of the speech are shocking.

Attachment

atomic bomb.doc

C.C. Lin: Bob, thanks for posting that interesting article. While I am unable to verify its authenticity and translation into Chinese, I have reasons to believe that it is reasonably unbiased assessment of the historical events based on my studies of the US Historic Archives and other sources. In addition, I had many discussions with my close friends in the US from Japan, Germany and Korea who lived through the 2nd World War in their respective countries on that issue.

My Japanese-American friends told me that the Japanese government ruling circles are dominated by right wing politicians with views on "Japanese Superiority, Militarism and Dominance". For generations, Japanese children are taught to obey and follow authority without questioning through their biased education system in terms of distorted historical events.

My German friends told me that after the 2nd World War, they have been taught to be "free thinking" and encouraged to discuss their own points of view with appropriate reasoning.

My Korean friends told me that after the 2nd World War, they have been taught the history of Japanese atrocities during the many years of Japanese colonial occupation of Korea.

The end result is that many Japanese living in Japan have their official distorted point of view on the Japanese historical events during the 2nd World War. The German Government officially apologized to the world on the Nazi atrocities committed during the 2nd World War. In 1970, the West German Chancellor, Willy Brandt spontaneously knelt down at the monument to victims of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Many generations of Koreans still have bad feeling of the Japanese Government as a result of the historic Japanese atrocities committed during the historic Japanese colonial occupation of Korea.

The following is the full text of US Air Force Major General (Retired)Charles W. Sweeney's 1995 testimony before US Congressional Committee:

I am Maj. Gen. Charles W. Sweeney, United States Air Force, Retired. I am the only pilot to have flown on both atomic missions. I flew the instrument plane on the right wing of General Paul Tibbets on the Hiroshima mission and 3 days later, on August 9, 1945, commanded the second atomic mission over Nagasaki. Six days after Nagasaki the Japanese military surrendered and the Second World War came to an end.

The soul of a nation, its essence, is its history. It is that collective memory which defines what each generation thinks and believes about itself and its country.

In a free society, such as ours, there is always an ongoing debate about who we are and what we stand for. This open debate is in fact essential to our freedom. But to have such a debate we as a society must have the courage to consider all of the facts available to us. We must have the courage to stand up and demand that before any conclusions are reached, those facts which are beyond question are accepted as part of the debate.

As the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki missions approaches, now is an appropriate time to consider the reasons for Harry Truman's order that these missions be flown. We may disagree on the conclusion, but let us at least be honest enough to agree on basic facts of the time, the facts that President Truman had to consider in making a difficult and momentous decision.

As the only pilot to have flown both missions, and having commanded the Nagasaki mission, I bring to this debate my own eyewitness account of the times. I underscore what I believe are irrefutable facts, with full knowledge that some opinion makers may cavalierly dismiss them because they are so obvious - because they interfere with their preconceived version of the truth, and the meaning which they strive to impose on the missions.

This evening, I want to offer my thoughts, observations, and conclusions as someone who lived this history, and who believes that President Truman's decision was not only justified by the circumstances of his time, but was a moral imperative that precluded any other option.

Like the overwhelming majority of my generation the last thing I wanted was a war. We as a nation are not warriors. We are not hell-bent on glory. There is no warrior class - no Samurai - no master race.

This is true today, and it was true 50 years ago.

While our country was struggling through the great depression, the Japanese were embarking on the conquest of its neighbors - the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. It seems fascism always seeks some innocuous slogan to cover the most hideous plans.

This Co-Prosperity was achieved by waging total and merciless war against China and Manchuria. The Japanese, as a nation, saw itself as destined to rule Asia and thereby possess its natural resources and open lands. Without the slightest remorse or hesitation, the Japanese Army slaughtered innocent men, women and children. In the infamous Rape of Nanking up to 300,000 unarmed civilians were butchered. These were criminal acts.

THESE ARE FACTS.

In order to fulfill its divine destiny in Asia, Japan determined that the only real impediment to this goal was the United States. It launched a carefully conceived sneak attack on our Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor. Timed for a Sunday morning it was intended to deal a death blow to the fleet by inflicting the maximum loss of ships and human life.

1,700 sailors are still entombed in the hull of the U.S.S. Arizona that sits on the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Many if not all, died without ever knowing why. Thus was the war thrust upon us.

The fall of Corregidor and the resulting treatment of Allied prisoners of war dispelled any remaining doubt about the inhumanness of the Japanese Army, even in the context of war. The Bataan Death March was horror in its fullest dimension. The Japanese considered surrender to be dishonorable to oneself, one's family, one's country and one's god. They showed no mercy. Seven thousand American and Filipino POW's were beaten, shot, bayoneted or left to die of disease or exhaustion.

THESE ARE FACTS.

-To be continued-