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On the 40th, 50th and 60th anniversaries of D-Day, Presidents Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush traveled to Normandy to lead us in tribute to the bravery of the Greatest Generation of Americans, who had liberated Europe. Always a deeply moving occasion. The 40th, 50th and 60th anniversaries of the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, however, were not times of celebration or warm remembrance. Angry arguments for and against the dropping of the bombs roil the airwaves and fill the press. And the reason is obvious. While World War II was a just war against enemies...

NAGASAKI, Japan (AP) -- A siren wailed and a bronze bell rang out through the air Tuesday as Nagasaki marked the exact moment 60 years ago that an American airplane appeared in its skies and dropped the plutonium bomb "Fat Man," killing some 80,000 people and sealing Japan's defeat in World War II. About 6,000 people, including hundreds of aging bomb survivors, crowded into Nagasaki's Peace Memorial Park, just a few hundred meters (yards) from the center of the blast, for a solemn remembrance and moment of silence. When the silence ended, Nagasaki Mayor Iccho Itoh had some angry words...

OAK RIDGE - Protesters who briefly blocked the roadway next to the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant's main entrance on Hiroshima Day had their day in court on another nuclear anniversary - six decades after an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. "It's Nagasaki Day,'' demonstrator John E. Heid told Anderson County General Sessions Judge Ron Murch on Tuesday. "It's the 60th anniversary of the nuclear cloud that hangs over this community.'' Heid traveled from Luck, Wis., to join more than 1,000 other peace activists in the Oak Ridge demonstration Saturday. Scheduled to coincide with Hiroshima Day, the Y-12 peace...

LIVERMORE - Dozens of activists were arrested this morning in front of the west gate at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory as part of a protest honoring the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. The march and rally, entitled "Nagasaki Never Again!," drew nearly 100 protesters -- about half of the number that showed up for a similar rally Saturday evening at the lab. That protest was one of four nationally coordinated rallies held that day at major U.S. weapons labs or test sites. All of the protests called for abolition of nuclear weapons and marked the 60th anniversary of...

In 2005, when you say "Fat Man and Little Boy," you could be referring to Michael Moore and Robert Reich, but 60 years ago, devices sporting those seemingly innocuous monikers caused historically unmatched destruction, and ended a long war. Poll questions surrounding the 60th anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan contained a universal question: "Was it necessary?" The polls that I've seen don't ask, "Was it the best option?" but rather focus on an absolute necessity for the bombings. Most things aren't absolutely "necessary." There are always other options – options that may seem especially viable while...

August 6 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the devastating atomic bomb attack against the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. For the most part, up until the 1960s the predominant view was that the U.S. was justified in its decision to use nuclear weapons against the Japanese. There was a general consensus to accept, at face value, that American leaders had determined that Japan would not surrender, and that their determination to fight to the death against an invasion would have cost the lives of hundreds of thousands,...

I have always despised authors who write books outing dead people who can’t defend themselves. I feel the same way about the books that come out every August castigating President Truman for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Once again, let’s review some facts. Truman was facing intelligence estimates that an invasion of Japan would cost a million American and many more than a million Japanese casualties. These estimates were based on known plans of Japanese defenders and the bloody results of the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Okinawa, a home island of Japan, resulted in more than...

August 6, 1945, a bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later a second bomb was dropped on the City of Nagasaki, thus marking the end of the bloodiest war in human history. In all there were 60 million military and civilian casualties from all countries involved. Germany had been defeated and Hitler had committed suicide in his bunker, however in the Pacific war raged on with no end in sight. The Japanese Emperor Hirohito vowed not to surrender as long as there was a single Japanese standing. The only other way to defeat Japan was...

REMEMBERING HIROSHIMA : AUGUST 6, 1945 All over the world today, people are coming together to tell us how awful it was we dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They have their memories – and I have mine. Sixty years ago, I was with my Dad and my brothers : haying in the hot August sun. We had a portable radio with us, and we stopped work to listen to the broadcaster – who spoke of a bomb – hotter than the sun – that had been dropped on, and that had utterly destroyed the entire city of Hiroshima....

Reuters reports: “As the world prepares to mark the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the 1st atomic bomb on Saturday, some American media experts see uncomfortable echoes between the suppression of images of death and destruction then, and coverage of the war in Iraq today.” Reuters cites an article in Editor & Publisher by Greg Mitchell, claiming American officials seized film after the “atomic attacks” on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to prevent us from seeing the devastation. Mitchell compares this to Iraq: “The chief similarity is that Americans are still being kept at a distance from images of death, whether...

E-mail Author Author Archive Send to a Friend Version August 05, 2005, 7:14 a.m. 60 Years Later Considering Hiroshima. For 60 years the United States has agonized over its unleashing of the world’s first nuclear weapon on Hiroshima on August 6, 2005. President Harry Truman’s decision to explode an atomic bomb over an ostensible military target — the headquarters of the crack Japanese 2nd Army — led to well over 100,000 fatalities, the vast majority of them civilians. Critics immediately argued that we should have first targeted the bomb on an uninhabited area as a warning for the Japanese...

Today--or August 6 in Japan--is the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, which killed outright an estimated 80,000 Japanese and hastened World War II to its conclusion on August 15. Those of us who belong to the postwar generations tend to regard the occasion as a somber, even shameful, one. But that's not how the generation of Americans who actually fought the war saw it. And if we're going to reflect seriously about the bomb, we ought first to think about it as they did. ...No surprise, then, that when news of the bomb reached...

US bishops mark anniversary of atomic bombings, condemn ‘total war’Washington DC, Aug. 04, 2005 (CNA) - The 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki provides an opportunity to reflect on the lessons of the Second World War and to recommit to efforts for a lasting peace built on justice, said the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). “Hiroshima and Nagasaki are permanent reminders to the entire human family of the grave consequences of total war,” said USCCB president Bishop William Skylstad yesterday in a letter to Bishop Augustinus Jun-ichi Nomura, president of the bishops’ conference of Japan.The...

EACH AUGUST THE DEBATE RETURNS, this year won masterfully by my Front Page Magazine brother columnist Ronald Radosh: Should the United States on August 6, 1945, have dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima?  Given that the alternative would have required invasion of Japan and the deaths of perhaps a quarter-million Americans, a million or more Japanese, and prolonged suffering on both sides, most moral people answer Yes, we should have dropped the bomb.  We had only three bombs, one to test and two to use and none to spare on a demonstration for the Emperor. But we should also ponder...

In August 1945, two atomic bombs fell on Japan, killing tens of thousands of people instantly. Yet all 24 Australian POWs in Nagasaki - close to ground zero - survived. Patrick Carlyon reports. The August sun hangs like a red balloon. Smoke smudges the sky, as it has since the American planes began dropping bombs. The Japanese expansion had spread like an angry tumour across Asia and the Pacific. Now, after 14 years, the aggressors are losing. An Allied invasion appears certain. In the hills of Nakama, a small Japanese mining town, Australian prisoners-of-war dig pits to store potatoes. They...

How many nations could genuinely say that they had the real potential to conquer the world or destroy it? How many nations had an arsenal capable of obliterating any other nation without risking retaliation? How many nations, with an army and navy superior to any others, an industry and economy capable of producing more weapons and material than any other, with forces already deployed for conquest, how many nations would try to conquer the world while they had such advantages? Sixty years ago, this was exactly situation in which the United States of America found itself. American military forces were...

How many nations could genuinely say that they had the real potential to conquer the world or destroy it? How many nations had an arsenal capable of obliterating any other nation without risking retaliation? How many nations, with an army and navy superior to any others, an industry and economy capable of producing more weapons and material than any other, with forces already deployed for conquest, how many nations would try to conquer the world while they had such advantages? Sixty years ago, this was exactly situation in which the United States of America found itself. American military forces were...

How many nations could genuinely say that they had the real potential to conquer the world or destroy it? How many nations had an arsenal capable of obliterating any other nation without risking retaliation? How many nations, with an army and navy superior to any others, an industry and economy capable of producing more weapons and material than any other, with forces already deployed for conquest, how many nations would try to conquer the world while they had such advantages? Sixty years ago, this was exactly situation in which the United States of America found itself. American military forces were...

Hiroshima and Nagasaki While most may not remember the details, they do know about that famous B-29 bomber which dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan, for all practical purposes ending World War Two. The Smithsonian has completed a cosmetic restoration of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the bombs, and is now on display. As expected, a large sized hullabaloo has arisen over the way Harry Truman decided to end the war. Various old saws are paraded about, such as the hackneyed and untrue one that, "The Japanese had already sued for peace," "Atomic weapons shouldn't...

OSLO (Reuters) - Sixty years after the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, guardians of the Nobel Peace Prize could confirm a once-a-decade trend in 2005 by honoring work to prevent nuclear Armageddon. The five-member awards committee, which will hold several meetings before announcing the winner of what many see as the world's top accolade in October from a field of 199 candidates, declines even to give out names on its short-list. Yet if history is a guide, the anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima on Aug. 6 and of Nagasaki on Aug. 9 may help decide the winner. About 200,000...