Happy Hiroshima Day!

Happy Hiroshima Day! 

It's Hiroshima Week here at WilliamStroock.blogspot.com as we commemorate, celebrate, analyze and deconstruct one of the momentous events in human history.

The atom bomb and the destruction of Hiroshima are uniquely American events. Most European wars end with a treaty and very rarely a decisive victory.* The treaty of Westphalia (1648)  bought peace to an exhausted Europe and ended the 30 Years War by resetting things the way they had been.

But American wars (the existential ones) end with a great victory or event , Yorktown in 1781, Appomattox in 1865, and Hiroshima.

Forty years later us kids knew all about Hiroshima and the bomb and counted the Manhattan project as great American achievement, like the Moon Shots.

Back during our professorial days we'd try to get some students to say they opposed dropping the bomb. Only one or two ever did, and even then they seemed uncomfortable with the unpleasantness of the act, not with the act itself. Which is quite right. It was an awful thing. Most sensible people understand President Truman did what had to be done.

*Prussia's triumph over France in 1871 was all the more traumatic for France becuase of it's uniqueness to their history.

Happy Hiroshima Day!

We love Hiroshima Day, the meaning, the celebrations the deployment of biblical level firepower....

To that end, here's your Hiroshima Day reading list:

Blankets of Fire, by Kenneth Wirrell: Chronicles the 20th Air Forces strategic bombing campaign, Curtis LeMay, (PBUH) figured out that most Japanese structures were made of wood, hello incendiary bombs. By March of 1945 the 20th Air Force was taking out two or three cities a week and by the end of the war they had annihilated 50% of Japan's Urban area.

Neptune's Inferno, by James Hornfishcer: Chronicles the naval battles around the Solomon Islands in excruciating detail. Just an excellent book. There will never be better book on the subject.

The Fleet at Flood Tide, by James Hornfischer: Begins in 1944 with the Saipan campaign. By this point in the war the Pacific fleet is massive, battle hardened and has the momentum of a steamroller. Just a great title.

MacArthur, By Arthur Herman: fifty years after the great man's death a biography free of the biases of the time. Well worth the read.

Oh, might we also suggest:

No Need to Apologize

So the Japanese Prime Minister is visiting Pearl Harbor, which I admit is a little weird. When my wife and I went to Hawaii in 2000 Japanese tourists were at Pearl harbor. Hell, Japanese tourists were everywhere. One afternoon I was the only American on Waikiki.

The signs to Pearl Harbor were printed in English and Japanese.

You didn't have any trouble finding it the first time, did you?

Then again it has been 75 years.

The Japanese government has announced that Prime Minister Abe wont's apologize:

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will honour war dead but won't apologise when he becomes the first Japanese leader to visit Pearl Harbor this month, a top government spokesman said on Tuesday.
The move follows Barack Obama's historic May trip to Hiroshima, the first by a sitting US president, where he spoke of victims' suffering but offered no apology for dropping the world's first nuclear bomb.

Why should he? 

Maybe the British should apologize for torching Washington in 1812? I know, France could apologize to Germany for Charlemagne's war against the Saxons in the 8th century.

I'd like to apologize to Amy Goodale for breaking her heart in 1989.

Abe's visit is a nice bit of reciprocity after Obama's visit to Hiroshima.

What good would an apology do? Was Abe a guard on the Bataan Death March or something?

We have moved on.

After the Tsunami hit Japan I explained to my daughter that Japan and America used to be bitter enemies. Now we were allies, and not just allies but friends.  Our two nations and peoples actually like one another. That's not only remarkable after WWII but after the Japan Bashing of the 80's and early 90's. Younger reader(s) should see 'Rising Sun' for context.

So, Prime Minister Abe, visit Pearl Harbor, lay wreath, say a few words and move on.

You have nothing for which to apologize.