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| Fifth Column | |
| Enola Gay Flies into | |
| 2003-11-10 | |
| Tip to WND. In a determined effort to rewrite history and cast the U.S. as the bad guys
.. Fifty-eight years after turning Hiroshima into a nuclear Hell, the US plane that dropped the first atomic bomb used in combat has detonated a fierce row over its debut at America’s top museum. Controversy is raging over plans to put the restored Enola Gay, which dropped the "Little Boy" bomb, on public display in a new wing of the world-renowned Smithsonian Institution next month. (I have no ‘Controversy’ over this historic plane) Activists want the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space museum to detail the death toll from the August 6, 1945 blast alongside the shiny, metallic Boeing B-29 Superfortress with its characteristic fishbowl window nose. A total of 230,000 people are thought to have perished, both in the initial firestorm which consumed the Japanese city and in subsequent years from toxic radiation. (A good IDEA! How about we also include the death toll of Americans that died in WWII?)
(Boo FRIGGIN HOO, don’t start a war if you can’t handle the consequences) "They will see in all its glory, the plane that incinerated the city," said Kevin Martin, Executive Director of Peace Action. Activists are not opposed to the aircraft going on display, but want to see it presented in the context of the raid in the dying days of World War II. They also hope to stir debate about the tens of thousands of warheads in the current US nuclear stockpile and plans for mobile, battlefield nuclear devices. "We don’t want this just to be an argument about what happened in 1945 ... the first concern was about current US nuclear policy," Martin said. (What concern? We have yet to use it again.) The National Air and Space Museum says its display will reflect the fact that the Enola Gay was, in its time, the most technologically advanced aircraft in the skies. A decision to put it on display "does not glorify or vilify the role this aircraft played in history," it said. But the descriptive label attached to the exhibit will mention the notorious raid only in passing. The aircraft "dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan," says the label. This, the museum says is consistent with the mission entrusted to it by US Congress, which is to display and preserve historic and technologically significant air and space craft. "In the end, the Enola Gay played a decisive role in World War II," the museum said in a press release prompted by the controversy. "It helped bring the war to an end in that after the bombing of Nagasaki, shortly after the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, surrendered unconditionally. "But perhaps more critically, it profoundly affected our concept of major conflict and the importance of maintaining global peace." One survivor of the blast, speaking in his home city in August, savaged the decision to put the Enola Gay on display. "For us, the Enola Gay just equals the atomic bomb," said Sunao Tsuboi, 78. "Displaying the plane is not only an insult to us but also glorifies the bombing," said Tsuboi, scarred by burns to the head and suffering from cancer believed to be caused by radiation exposure. (I am squirting tears here Tsuboi! Do you cry for those that died in the Philippines? Nan King? Burma?) The activists, under the umbrella of the Committee for a National Discussion of Nuclear History and Current Policy on Wednesday presented the museum with a petition calling for changes in the exhibit. (Which they the put in the circular file.) Signatories include the mayor of Hiroshima Tadatoshi Akiba, author and activist Noam Chomsky and film director Oliver Stone. (Usual suspects here) Akiba has been harshly critical of President George W. Bush and in August accused Washington of worshipping nuclear weapons as "God." I was not alive in WWII but my Grandfather was. He was VERY happy not to invade the Japanese Islands because of the Enola Gay. Did a lot of Japanese suffer from the blasts? Yes. But even after the first blast, the Japanese refused to surrender. Mr. Martin thinks the country should carry some shame because we did use the weapons but overlooks the deaths caused by the Japanese Army/Navy. Dead is dead, be it by nuclear of by a sword. P.S. I would add that ’war is hell’ but that is a given. | |
| Posted by:Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) |
| #34 See "Views of American Military Leaders on the Atomic Bombings of Japan" for more info. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-11-16 5:56:52 PM |
| #33 New assignment: Commander of God's Bodyguard. :) What does God need with a Sorry, couldn't resist..... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2003-11-10 11:16:22 PM |
| #32 Hey, in lieu of the Enola Gay being put on display, we could present the Japanese with the (open) containers of mustard gas they left behind in China. |
| Posted by: Bill 2003-11-10 6:23:24 PM |
| #31 Chesty Puller wherever he is You don't know where he is? New assignment: Commander of God's Bodyguard. :) |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-11-10 6:18:09 PM |
| #30 Last night I was watching a rerun of the Longest Day. In it one of the characters made a statement to the effect that "they were in an operation that would be talked about long after all the partipants were dead and buried." In reading what is available about the intended invasion of Japan I cannot help but think that if it had happened the aftermath would have been so terrible that D-Day would hardly be a blip on the map of history. BH, backwords or farwards, amen to to your observation. |
| Posted by: Michael 2003-11-10 6:00:30 PM |
| #29 Sorry, got those numbers backwards. |
| Posted by: BH 2003-11-10 5:38:00 PM |
| #28 Hiroshima - 40,000 Nagasaki - 80,000 Bringing the war to an abrupt and decisive end - Priceless |
| Posted by: BH 2003-11-10 5:37:28 PM |
| #27 1. One account I recently read (can't find the cite) says 80,000 killed at Hiroshima, 40,000 at Nagasaki. I think this was estimates of initial effects. 2. Here is an article giving some numbers for immediate and 5-year death tallies. 3. Japanese still count those people who pass away today as "victims of the atomic bombs". Reference this article from 2003. 4. Interesting letter to the Smithsonian in 1994, in the context of the previous controversy over the Enola Gay exhibit, which excoriated the US and glossed over Japanese culpability in the War which of course led to the bombing. |
| Posted by: Carl in N.H. 2003-11-10 5:26:22 PM |
| #26 JFM, copy your last, & thanx. I will see if Fred can send you my home email address. If not, I'll just post it next time. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2003-11-10 5:05:32 PM |
| #25 BH & Shipman, thanx. It is indeed a happy B-Day! We had our USMC Ball over the weekend. We had today off. I actually have to go to my MBA night class tonight - freakin' bummer. However, afterwards I will prolly drink a 6-pack of PBR, toast Chesty Puller wherever he is, then watch my old version of the D.I. with Jack Webb. "228 years of rompin', stompin' death, my father was the devil and my mother was an M-16, I was conceived in a trench and born in a bomb crater, I eat barb wire and piss napalm, I am a minister of death, every night I pray for war...." (or something like that) ;) |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2003-11-10 5:02:06 PM |
| #24 "Activists are not opposed to the aircraft going on display, but want to see it presented in the context of the raid in the dying days of World War II." Dying days of World War II? That would have been an appropriate name for the period of time around a U.S. invasion of the Japanese mainland. There's also this: "They also hope to stir debate about the tens of thousands of warheads in the current US nuclear stockpile and plans for mobile, battlefield nuclear devices." I am not up on the numbers of warheads in the U.S. stockpile, but I'd bet it's a lot fewer than "tens of thousands." |
| Posted by: Tibor 2003-11-10 4:28:34 PM |
| #23 At the end of the war B-29s were used to drop thousands of shallow water mines throughout the home islands. Imports of food were next to impossible. Japan was saved from starvation. BTW Jarhead. Happy B-Day... Regimental Night? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-11-10 4:06:52 PM |
| #22 The father of my best friend was a gunner on an Avenger torpedo plane flying from an escort carrier in the Pacific in mid-1945. My friend, quite the liberal actually, tells his own children the following: "You're alive because I'm alive. I'm alive because your grandfather is alive. And he's alive because Harry Truman dropped the bomb." |
| Posted by: Steve White 2003-11-10 3:57:21 PM |
| #21 Anyone who is interested in the point about the lives saved should take a look a Downfall by Richard B. Frank, which is a masterpiece of history. It especially crushes the argument that the Japanese government was about to surrender. |
| Posted by: Matt 2003-11-10 3:50:03 PM |
| #20 The atomic bombs saved millions of Japanese lives, as well. Check out the death toll from the firebombing of Tokyo - far higher than from both atomic bombs together (one raid destroyed 16 square miles of the city, and caused 185,000 deaths. No mention of other casualties). Without the atomic bombs, we would have continued to use firebomb raids on Japanese cities until none were left. The Japanese should be thankful we ended the war when we did, before even more of their nation was turned to cinders. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-11-10 3:43:26 PM |
| #19 Jarhead A couple of days ago you asked me a question I didn't see until after rantburg had warpped over. If you are still interested (or for future cases) send me your e-mail address Regards |
| Posted by: JFM 2003-11-10 3:39:12 PM |
| #18 We should do this just as seen as Japan makes an offical apology and reparations to the [comfort] women it forced into sexual slavery and the descentants of the Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans, etc... the Imperial Japanese murdered during the war, and the Death March victims and their descentants.... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2003-11-10 3:27:05 PM |
| #17 AP, re. the Imperial War Museum exhibits at Duxford – there’s also one of each of the V-weapons on display in the atrium of the main IWM in Lambeth, London proper, along with a small number of other aircraft, vehicles, guns and even a sub or two! I spent most of the day there on Thursday, and spent the majority of that time in a new holocaust exhibition they have upstairs. If anyone’s going to London: that exhibition’s a definite must-see (but children under a certain age won't be permitted to enter). It’s far and away the most affecting exhibition I’ve ever been to. Museums aren't there to show what's palatable - they're repositories for what's been important. Pull the Enola Gay because it's "controversial" and there's no end to what horrors the sensitive public will have to be 'protected' from. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2003-11-10 3:01:26 PM |
| #16 hey Jarhead, Happy Birthday! |
| Posted by: BH 2003-11-10 2:56:16 PM |
| #15 The bomb saved American lives. Of course. It also saved millions of Japanese lives: given the habit of Japanese military to suicide in verge of defeat and force Japanese civilians to suicide, the Americans estimated thare would be ten million Japanese dead. Finally, the bleeding heart liberals seem to forget (or perhaps they don't care) that the Japanese Army was killing about 250,000 Chinese and Filipinos a month so if the bomb shortened the war by a mere month then the number of Chinese spared exceeds the number of Japanese killed. It is a pity that Nagasaki was one of the cities bombed since it was predominantly Catholic and its population didn't share the agressive and genocidal nationalism of the Shinto regions. But see above. |
| Posted by: JFM 2003-11-10 2:54:03 PM |
| #14 "We don’t want this just to be an argument about what happened in 1945 ... the first concern was about current US nuclear policy," Martin said. -Ah yes, waste people's time w/an argument on one thing in order to further your ajenda on another. I was stationed on Okinawa for 4 months and on mainland Japan for 2 months. I don't feel the least bit bad we dropped two big-ones on them. An invasion of the mainland would've cost us a million men and a 10 year land war (that's U.S. mil historian estimates based on Japanese defenses on their island in '45). It would've also cost the Japanese millions of other deaths due to seppuku and hari-kari suicides when eventually "embarassed them" by taking their homeland. F*ck peace action and the horse they rode in on. Save your belly-aching for someone who cares - pussies. F*ck the mayor of Hiroshima to. Don't like nukes? Then don't act like such an asshole that we have to use them on you. Won't matter in about 10 years anyways because most of the survivors will be gone. Get over it you bunch of b*tches. If they had the bomb in '41 they wouldn't of hesitated to drop it on us from the get go. This 'gaijin' laughs at you. The more terrible war is, the quicker its over according to WTS. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2003-11-10 2:51:24 PM |
| #13 Jeebus. It was 58 years ago. Get over it already. And next time, pick on somebody who can't kick your ass. |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-11-10 2:23:27 PM |
| #12 My uncle died last Friday - he was also a Marine waiting for the invasion, having been through the rest of the South Pacific. Frankly his life was worth more than 230,000 Japanese IMHO |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-11-10 2:13:09 PM |
| #11 Hey about condemning the Japanese efforts to nuke us! http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/japan/nuke/ |
| Posted by: Greg 2003-11-10 2:00:17 PM |
| #10 Oh..hell, why not placate every politically correct group? Has anyone here ever been to the Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor? I have several times and due to the large percentage of Japanese tourists that go there, the original movie/documentary as well as the exhibition that visitors are to see before being ferried over to the ship have all be sanitized to reflect almost zero (pardon the pun) responsibility behind the Japanese government's action. |
| Posted by: jim 2003-11-10 1:51:55 PM |
| #9 Screw these jerks. They've had their opinions aired, and that's it. Freedom of speech does not grant these people a "right" to provide some sort of response to a museum exhibit. Put the plane on display and be done with it. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2003-11-10 1:43:40 PM |
| #8 "Attica" Tsuboi, bummer for you that Japanese people followed it's military and started it's war. My dad, US Army, was on a troop ship from Tacoma heading to Manilla when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the Philappines. Lucky for me his ship was diverted to Australia. How he loved to watch Auzie's march. Ya see Tsuboi, if he had set sell a few days earlier and made port in Manilla, I would, most likely, not have made it to this world. Batan Death March and all. Banzi Bro. |
| Posted by: Lucky 2003-11-10 1:20:06 PM |
| #7 The Filipinos cheered when they heard of the bomb. |
| Posted by: buwaya 2003-11-10 1:16:37 PM |
| #6 Cause and Effect, morons. You attack somebody, you have no room to bitch when they kick your ass. |
| Posted by: Laurence of the Rats 2003-11-10 1:08:16 PM |
| #5 Sunao Tsuboi should be damn grateful for the atomic bomb: the alternative, a U.S. invasion of the Japanese mainland, would have ended up exterminating millions of Japanese, perhaps tens of millions. The Bomb knocked some sense into Japan's militaristic leadership- and it is that leadership, not us, that Sunao Tsuboi ought to blame for what befell Hiroshima and Nagasaki. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2003-11-10 12:57:13 PM |
| #4 This story fits nicely with the articles I've read lately about Germans boohooing about the firebombing of Dresden. Don't start sh*t you can't finish. |
| Posted by: BH 2003-11-10 12:49:50 PM |
| #3 The Enola Gay is an important part of history. Having that aircraft on display brings another dimension to understanding the war for people who want to know. At the RAF Museum in Hendon (north of London), there are numerous displays of V-1 and V-2 rockets and German aircraft. They also cost the British thousands of civilian casualties, but there they are, bigger than any history book. Being revisionist about history and the Enola Gay just enables future generations of ignorance. My dad was with the 1st MarDiv on Okinawa at the time. He said that there were literally miles of rows of equipment staged for the invasion of Japan. Okinawa cost us thousands of casualties. The invasion of Kyushu was going to cost the Japanese and the Allies hundreds of thousands if not millions. The dropping of the two atomic bombs was the shock that finally moved the Japanese to surrender. Now we know how terrible those weapons are. The Enola Gay was part of that history, like it or not. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-11-10 12:48:17 PM |
| #2 While they're at it, see if they can find one of the B-29s that took part in the firebombing raid on Tokyo in March 1945... same death toll (~100,000 killed). While we're on the subject, let me know when Japanese society begins to feel true remorse for Nanjing, Manchuria, and the other involuntary members of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. I'm glad we finished it when we did -- my father was scheduled for transshipment from the Europe to the Asian theater when the war ended -- I'd hate to have missed playing Doom for the first time... |
| Posted by: snellenr 2003-11-10 12:46:31 PM |
| #1 Let's send Japan a few planeloads of Korean "pleasure girl" survivors, some Chinese victims of chemical and biological weapons, and the few survivors of Bataan that are left alive. Personally, I'm sick of the peoples that started WWII acting like they were the victims. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-11-10 12:36:56 PM |