Ugly History Hides in Plain Sight

Los Angeles Times ^ | 12-17-2003 | Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin

[boris]

The Smithsonian's display of the Enola Gay bomber sidesteps any controversy over the atomic attacks on Japan.

By Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin are co-authors of a forthcoming biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, to be published by Alfred A. Knopf.

This week, the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum unveiled a fully restored, finely polished artifact of World War II — a Boeing B-29 "Superfortress." This particular airplane — the Enola Gay — is the centerpiece of the museum's sleek new $311-million annex.

[snip]

Of course there is, and the museum's brief label provides a hint. Its final sentence notes, almost as an afterthought, that "On August 6, 1945, this Martin-built B-29-45-MO dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan."

Some curious children might want to ask questions about that last sentence. What does an atomic bomb do when it is dropped? Why was one dropped on a city? What happened to the people in Hiroshima? Was it necessary to drop it?

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I guess Pearl Harbor never happened.

[Frank_Discussion]

Some folks just don't get it. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were our way of saying:

"Do you here me now? Good!"

[elephant]

What did the Japanese do to the Chinese.....or do they know their history?

[TheBigB]

What does an atomic bomb do when it is dropped?

It explodes.

Why was one dropped on a city?

Because we were at war.

What happened to the people in Hiroshima?

Many survived, many became crispy critters.

Was it necessary to drop it?

Yep.

Next question.

[2banana]

Better still if we invaded Japan and killed millions of them. Heck, they would still be trying to rebuild...

[dagnabbit]

Some curious children might want to ask questions about that last sentence

And some incurious 18-60 year-old children, with no knowledge of WWII, will actually believe platitudes such as those in this article.

Beautiful plane the Enola Gay. Can't wait to see it myself.

[Arkinsaw]

I am ashamed that World War II vets have to hear this crap. If not for the Enola Gay quite a few of them would not have lived past 1946.

[ElectricStrawberry]

I guess I'll be awaiting the next installment in the series, that which concerns the USS Arizona Memorial.

[sonofatpatcher2]

Re: Some curious children might want to ask questions about that last sentence. What does an atomic bomb do when it is dropped?

Well, kiddies, it brings out the woods pudnockers like the Los Angeles Times' Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin.

[Hanging Chad]

"...Some curious children might want to ask questions about that last sentence. What does an atomic bomb do when it is dropped? Why was one dropped on a city? What happened to the people in Hiroshima? Was it necessary to drop it?..."
- - -
Some curious children who had not been taught properly
at home or in public school might ask those questions,
however, children in my familly could explain the answers
to those questions to the author of this article.

[Porterville]

I was on another website yesterday flaming liberals and expressed surprise that liberals would support an Axis Power that killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese.... I said that they are supporting Nazi regimes... they said I was a "depleted myopic half-wit"... I just called them Nazi supporters.

[Smokin' Joe]

No, sure didn't, or it was all our fault. Just like the Bataan Death March...

[boris]

Editor
Los Angeles Times

Sir:

Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin parade standard-issue leftist anti-Americanism in their critique of the Enola Gay. They omit that millions of lives were SAVED by the atomic bomb; that a U.S. invasion and "conventional" victory would have cost more lives--both Japanese and American--than did Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

As an American, I am PROUD of the technology and the guts that produced the first atomic bombs, and I offer no apology for their use. Let Bird and Sherwin contemplate Pearl Harbor if they seek a reason for using atomic weapons. Sneak attacks during peacetime which also killed civilians evidently do not matter to them. And they have no tears to spare for the British victims of Hitler's "vengence weapons" nor even the civilian victims of Doolittle's raids.

I believe it was Senator Fritz Hollings, who--responding to a Japanese politician's remarks about "lazy and illiterate Americans", told workers in South Carolina to "draw a mushroom cloud and put underneath it: ‘Made in America by lazy and illiterate Americans and tested in Japan'."

I wish I'd said that.

--Boris

[StatesEnemy]

[FierceDraka]

I have to say that I am PROUD of what our military did in order to prevent an even greater human catastrophe, the Invasion of Japan.

What these communists conveniently forget is that, had we not demonstrated our nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and forced them into an unconditional surrender, the invasion would have involved using up to 7 nukes on Japanese cities, followed by a massive invasion by Allied troops with virtually no protection against radioactive fallout. The result of which would have been around a million American casualties, and up to 10 million Japanese casualties.

Idiots. Useful idiots.

[martin gibson]

opps...didn't you forget the 'EXPLOSIVE PROJECTILE VOMITING' alert?

[Paladin2]

It's just a J.F'nKerry plane (though I always thought model B-29s were cool as a kid).

Maybe if they had some original, prototype A-bomb cans, people would have some hardware to protest that might then make some sense. The original planes were not specifically designed to drop A-bombs, just bombs in general (like B-52s). Give us a break.

[skeeter]

Leftist scum, keep your hands off our history.

The History Channel did as bad a hatchet job on the story of the Alamo last night as this article does on WWII. There ought to be some sort of fraud law against this kind of historical misrepresentation.

[Jim Cane]

Why was one dropped on a city?

Good question. Now why would an isolationist nation like the U.S. drop a bomb on another nation? Hmmmmm...could it be that was a response to an attack by an agressive empire which had no regard for human life?

What happened to the people in Hiroshima?

Much the same thing as happened to thousands of Brit civilians who died under waves of He-111's.