war? what war?

My Engineer daughter is going to Japan in a week’s time on business, and as she is travelling to Hiroshima, I thought I’d browse the Web pages, and see what the Japanese say about this city, the name of which entered the history books on August 6th 1945, when the first atomic bomb exploded over the city centre after being dropped from the B-29 bomber Enola Gay.  The web-site pages are full of the Peace Memorial, and ‘Steps towards Peace’ and even the dreaded term ‘Multiculturalism’ has reached this city which has arisen from the very atomic ashes; but strangely enough, the only sentences which refer to the War are short, evasive and abrupt, and equally strangely the reasons why the blasted thing was dropped on Hiroshima in the first place are not even mentioned!

At least the web-page refers to the fact that the Japanese started the war by striking at the Malaysian peninsula, and, almost as an afterthought, also acknowledges that they attacked Pearl Harbour! The Chinese conflict is dismissed as two ‘Incidents’ followed by war, and then the whole of the Second World War, is also covered by the bald statement “Japan rushed into the Pacific War”.

My mind is inevitably drawn to the work of Orwell, and his classic “Big Brother”, and the adherents of the thinking behind the phrase, “Tell a big lie long enough, and everybody will believe it!” Here we have a whole city labelling itself as ‘Never Again’, and ‘Peace at any Price’ whilst avoiding the whole issue of why the city suffered this devastation! There is no mention of the fanatic Japanese defenders of Iwo Jima, and of their tenacious defence of the island; where they suffered over 20,703 casualties before the surrender. This same defence convinced the American Commanders that the 25,000-odd American casualties would and could be multiplied ten- or twenty-fold if the Japanese homeland was invaded in a classic sea-borne invasion, and the knowledge that the super-bomb was available tipped the balance as to it’s deployment!

To quote a Scots author, one Stuart McHardy, "History beuks are written/ wi the winner's frame o' mind."; but it looks to me as though the revisionists have been at the Hiroshima books, and cobbled together a little recipe which ignores the realities, and concentrates instead on getting rid of the Bomb! Some ‘Peace’, which writes off the reasons, and talks instead about the hoped-for outcome!

Comments

[mahons]

Given the recent and odd developments in the Japanese leader's efforts to deny forced sex slaves during that conflict, I am not shocked. Other than grasping for domestic support, I don't see any benefit to his claims.

[alan]

Thank goodness there's only one veraion of Irish history!

[alan]

sorry! - version

[mahons]

Alan - This is far more than a different version or interpretation. It is the deliberate attempt to erase historical fact.

[mahons]

Alan: Where did you go? Was that a kamikaze run?

[Eagle]

I think Okinawa had even more of an impact than Iwo Jima. Okinawa had a population of around 400,000 and was populated by Japanese people,

The US thought Okinawa was a good test of what they'd get when they invaded Japan proper. 12,000 killed and 38,000 wounded among the Americans and over 100,000 Japanese soldiers were killed. But, just as telling, the deaths among the civilian population were thought to be around 100,000. When the US authorities contemplated what that might mean in Japan they realized it could easily tens of millions of deaths among the Japanese population.

I think it's inarguable that the two A-Bombs helped save millions of lives, but I also hope to God we never see such weapons used again.

[Ernest Young]

Germany seems to be attempting a similar tactic. Perhaps not quite so blatantly, but definitely a rewrite of history.

You would think - in both cases, - that they at least would have the sense and good grace to wait until anyone with a living memory of those times, had passed on...

Are they worried we may ask for reparations?

Perhaps they have plans for making another move in the same direction, or maybe it is just an attempt to assuage any guilt feelings among the younger generations.

Is sixty years penitence long enough to expiate the horrors of that war, for either side, not just for the aggressors, but also for the defenders who seem to feel very uncomfortable with the fact that they were obliged to go to such extremes, as using 'the bomb', to finalise the war.

It would seem easier for the aggressors to forget the past, they have nothing more than national dishonour and a lot of guilt, to lose.

For the defenders, the past is not so easily ignored, nor should it be, for those who made the ultimate sacrifice in defence should long be remembered.

No-one has forgotten the Spartans have they?...

[DSD]

I'll never forget my daughter watching the Japan oriented episode of World at War and seeing in horror the small children her own age in military uniform wielding bayonets and machine guns in Japanese propaganda films, in preparation for war on their own soil.

Gave her Year 3 teacher quite a shock when he tried to gloss over the reasons for dropping the Bomb in much the same fashion as described above...he admitted to being (grudgingly) impressed that she wouldnt allow him to describe the event in isolation without context...