Transcripts For CSPAN3 Hiroshima Nagasaki And End Of World War II 20240712

American airplane dropped one bomb on hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb has more power than 20,000 tons of tnt. The japanese began the war from the air at pearl harbor. They have been repaid many fold. And the end is not yet. With this bomb, we have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction so supplement the growing power of our armed forces in their presence forum these bombs are now in production and even more powerful arms are in development. It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the far east. We are now prepared to destroy more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the japanese have in any city. We shall destroy their docks, theyre factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake, we shall completely destroy japans power to make war. It was to spare the japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of july 26th was issued at potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack, will follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware. Ian toll is an author and independent scholar, a pacific war historian and set to release his latest book twilight of the gods, war in the western pacific 1944 to 1944. Welcome to washington journal on this 75th anniversary. Thank you very much. Im glad to be here. We have heard from the former president harry truman after the hiroshima bombing. From your research and study of the war and the bombings in particular, why did harry truman do it . Well, you know, i think the decision to use the bomb was really implicit in the manhattan project. So it was really assuming from the time before the time that truman came to office in april, after the death of fdr, that this weapon, if it worked, that it would be used. And so it may be more accurate to say that there was a nondecision essentially. Truman did not decide to intervene, to stop a project that was very much in train when he came into office. The assumption had been made that if that if we built the bomb and if we had the bomb we would use the bomb to bring the war to an end and i think the perspective that we have now that the atomic bomb, you know, is different, essentially different from convention weapons, that is something that we have with hindsight. For truman and his advisers, in 1945, i dont think that was clear. That the atomic bomb was fundamentally different from conventional bombings and we had already wiped out an enormous percentage of japans urban areas with conventional bombing and incendiary raids so using the atomic bomb did not seem like a sort of a break or a departure from what they had been doing already. It is really with hindsight that we understand that weapon to be something basically different, in a different category. Is it true that harry truman, when he assumed the presidency, after fdrs death, april 12th of 1945, in a harry truman did not know anything about the manhattan project, and, two, how did he learn about it in the space of less than four short months . How did he become confident in his decision to use those weapons . Yes, it is true that he was not briefed on the manhattan project. He been vaguely aware that there was a very large, very secret, very expensive project underway. In the senate, before he was put on the ticket as fdrs Vice President ial candidate in 1944, the most important thing that he had done in the senate, the thing that made his name was that he chaired a committee which investigated corruption and waste in the munition industry. This is called the truman committee. And in his capacity as chairman of that Senate Committee he learned about these enormous plants that were being built in tennessee and in Washington State and he hadd inquired to determine what exactly was happening there. And secretary stimson, Henry Stimson was the secretary of war, essentially went to truman and said were doing something really important and it is very secret and were going to ask you not to inquire any further and truman agreed. So when he very suddenly with fdrs death was elevated to the presidency, he was briefedond stimson and by james burns who was the war mobilization czar who truman appointed as secretary of state. And he was fully briefed within about 24 hours of assuming the presidency on the state of the manhattan prect. It is the 75th anniversary of the bombing of hiroshima. Were talking about it with eye an toll whos brandnew book is coming out in september, twilight of the gods, war in the western pacific, 1944 to 1945. The lines as they were last hour for the eastern and central time zones, and mountain and pacific, 2027488001. For those of you that are world ii vets or family, 2027488002 and ian toll, one of the questions that came up last hour, why didnt the u. S. Do some demonstration of the bomb to show the japanese power instead of actually using it on a city . Yeah, i mean, i think that that is a hard question. In my view, the really hard questions when it comes to the atomic bomb is not so much should we have used the bomb or not. Given the circumstances in the summer of 1945, the urgent need to end the war and quickly without an invasion, i think in those circumstances using the bomb, i think, was defensible. Dropping it on a city is a different question. And i think im in a minority among military historians in feeling and this is a preference that i had, that i would have liked to see it used against a military target. The question of a demonstration has been raised. There are arguments against a demonstration are that number one, it might have backfired. If you would have announced you were going to demonstrate the bomb and it hadnt worked which was a real possibility, that would have doubled japanese determination to resist. I do think there would be a way to demonstrate the bomb. Without running into that problem. Dropping it very high in the atmosphere, off the coast, say of tokyo, off of tokyo bay. It would have made an enormous flash. It would have sent a message to the japanese. I dont think that would have prompted a rapid surrender. So, you know, the reason that you might have done that really is abstract. It is an abstract reason. You do it because in the long run it may be it may enhance the countrys moral standing. I do think that is important. But youve had some callers who have fathers or grandfathers who were in the war, for American Veterans particularly those who would have participated in the invasion of japan, the atomic bomb has never been an abstraction to them. It is something real. It is something that they believed saved their lives and that is belief is something i think we need to acknowledge and respect. And so that is essentially where i come out. Looking back, i would liked to see the bomb used differently, not dropped on a city. The first one dropped on a military target. I think that would have been more defensible in the long run. Was there any military or miltrelated targets in either of those cities . Well, yes. Hiroshima had a really important Regional Military headquarters. The second army was headquartered in hiroshima. Hiroshima had been an army town, really going back to the premagi days, the days of samurai. So there was an important military target in hiroshima. The city was not chosen for that reason, however. None of the four cities on the target list for the atomic bomb, hiroshima, nagasaki, nagata, on the sea of japan and kokur on the island of kyushu and they had not been chosen because of military character and the military installations in those cities were not specified as the aiming points for the bombs. The cities were chosen because they had been relatively unscathed in conventional bombing raids. And the idea was that you wanted to drop the bomb on a city that would have the topography and the conditions that would provide the greatest demonstration to the bombs power. And so yes. No, finish your thought. Yeah, so, it is true that there was, you know, an important army base in hiroshima. Now in the clip that you played from by president truman, upon announcing the first atomic bomb he said we hit an important Japanese Army base. Well hiroshima was a large city, it was the seventh largest city in japan with a base in it. So, i think just from the point of view of looking back with 75 years of perspective, in that situation, you would prefer that the president of the United States look into the eye of the camera and tell the world exactly what we had done without mincing words, without using that circum lokusion. And was that a third bomb ready to be dropped in case the japanese did not surrender . The third bomb would have become available by the end of august. So, on august 6th we hit hiroshima. August 9th we hit nagasaki. We did not have a third bomb at that point. It would have been another two to three weeks. Ian toll is our guest. And your calls are next. And first up is charles in richmond, virginia. Good morning. Caller good morning. It is very interesting when you hear those one thing about why they dropped the bomb because america was so passive against japan. Japan had pulled a sneak attack on pearl harbor. And we didnt even know that the war was it should have been a war declared. But japan didnt do that. And what happened, when the bomb became available, truman didnt know a thing about it. All he knew was you just become president , they didnt really like him. And they put it to him and said, look, this is it. You have this bomb. To me, it was you cant drop an atomic bomb and say, well lets drop it tomorrow, lets drop it next week. They had already planned and everything was planned for the bomb. And it didnt make too much difference what truman had to say because it was in the works and the United States was going to drop that bomb. All right, charles, eian tol, do you think the president had a say in that . Absolutely. The constitution confers powers, virtually Unlimited Power as commanderinchief in wartime. So truman had the power to simply tell his cabinet and his military leaders, you know, we will use the bomb. We wont use the bomb. Were going to use the bomb in the following way. So i dont think there is any question that he had the power to make the decision. I do think it is true, as charles said, that motive of revenge was in the mix there. I think that was i wont say that was the reason that we used the weapon the way that we did, but it certainly did set the context. The sneak attack on pearl harbor and the treatment of prisoners of war, these were all factors that played into the decision to use the atomic bomb and also to burn down japanese cities with incendiary bombing raids. But truman certainly could have simply decided, he wouldnt have had to ask for permission or have his military chiefs or his cabinet take a vote on the question. He could have simply said, were not going to sit a city or we are going to explicitly warn the japanese that we have this weapon. In fact, in his private diary, on july 25th, there is a very strange entry where he said, i have instructed secretary stimson, the secretary of war, to use this weapon against military targets. And not against women and children. And i have already instructed them that well make an explicit warning to the japanese telling them to surrender. That is odd because he didnt give that order. But in his diary he seems to have believed it or perhaps he wanted to, you know, have future historians believe that the whole decision had been made differently. But certainly he had the power. And one of the fascinating counter factual questions is if fdr had lived, how would fdr decided to use the bomb . He certainly wouldnt have been at all he wouldnt have hesitated at all to make his own decision. He was accustomed to doing that. Lets hear from anthony in north creek, new york, on our line for world war ii veterans and families. Caller hi. Good morning. Im calling for my father and his two brothers. My father went into the army in february of 41. He fought in the philippines. He fought in iwo jima and also in okinawa, and then also in the occupation in japan. He came home sometime late in 1946. But we never really found out why he he never really talked about the war until he got older and he was against them dropping the bomb. But then he says if we would have had to fight, fight them and when we had to invade japan, i probably would have never came home. So it was a flip of a coin. If i had to make that decision, i would say, yeah. Brothers were one was in normandy, he was a paratrooper in the 101 and my other uncle was a medic. So those people, from that generation, they fought hard and fought for our country. And when i talk about my father and his brothers, im very proud of them. Because that is something today maybe we wouldnt be able to do. And ion toll, a map from your book on operation olympic, one of the planned invasions of japan, is that figure of a predicted anticipated 1 million u. S. Military casualties fairly accurate in terms of across the board . Is that from your research as well . Well, no. I mean if the question is at the time that were planning operation downfall, operation olympic was the first stage of downfall. That was the invasion of kyushu, at the time that our military leaders were planning that operation, there was never a point at which they were projecting casualties on the order of a million. There has been quite a lot of work done on this by historians and researchers because of how often you hear that kind of figure we might have lost a million or half a million. The answer seems to be that the casualty projections were significantly lower than that. And, you know, it is a disputed point and there were different casualty figures, different ways of thinking about it. But at no point did our military leaders, while planning that operation, at no point did they expect something on the order of a million casualties. The projections were much lower. Maybe as many as 200 total casualties. Now, you know, that doesnt really tell us much about the atomic bomb decision. There is not a you cant say well the casualties would have been lower so we should have invaded. I think invading would have been a disaster. Regardless of what kind of casualties we would have taken. And so avoiding a bloody invasion of japan was absolutely essential. And that is why i think using the atomic bomb was inevitable. As i say using it against a city is a different question. I dont think we should have dropped it on a city. We should have avoided that. I believe. That is just my preference. My belief. But, you know, as the caller mentioned, there are so many people in this country who have fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers, uncles who were veterans of that war and who really believed that their lives were on the line. And that is something that i respect very deeply. It is interesting that the caller said that his i think it was his father, who he said had been in japan with the occupation after the war. Yeah. And that his personal belief would been that we should not have dropped the atomic bomb. One of the interesting phenomenon, when you look at veterans of the pacific war, those in japan after the war, with the occupying forces, they tended to have a much more kind of nuanced view of the japanese. In fact, many of them came to like the japanese generally as a people. And they were more ready to kind of make the distinction between the way Japanese Fighting forces have behaved during the war and the way that the japanese people are in general. There were more willing to make that distinction. Because of the personal exposure they had had to japan and to the japanese in the nation of after the war. Our line for japanese americans is 207488003. On that line in los angeles is scott. Good morning. Caller good morning. Im half japanese and my father was drafted in world war ii. My grandfather was drafted by the Japanese Army and fought in manchuria. I keep seeing every year when they talk about pearl harbor, that america was attacked unprovoked. Which is not true. Truman said on that clip that youve shown and like charles said on the call, that japan bombed pearl harbor unprovoked. That is not true because the flying tigers were flying under secret order of the president and until 1996 when either, i think it was either reagan or clinton acknowledged that the flying tigers were part of the military so they could get the v. A. Benefits and then under military payment through the United States government through the company of shinoat so i keep hearing this japanese unprovoked attack but thats not true. Im not saying that the war wasnt a bad tling because it was a terrible thing of what japan did to china, and parts of russia, to the philippines, to the americans and people who actually ended up fighting with them. It was terrible things that happened. Scott, well get a response from our guest ian toll. Yeah, well, i mean, i think that the account against the japanese for the way they began the war was not so much that it was an unprovoked attack. Yes, fdr did say it was unprovoked in the speech to congress the day following at tack, but there was no formal declaration of war prior to the attack. So the idea of a sneak attack. A surprise attack that reallyin fury ated americans. The attack had been planned undercover of diplomatic we were engaged in negotiations with the japanese government to try to adjust the differences that we had in the pacific and that attack descended on pearl harbor without a declaration of war and so, yeah, i think that played into the particular brutality of the pacific war. Scott didnt say what his father did when he was drafted. But one of the, i think, most interesting stories about the pacific war and little heard is the role of japanese americans who worked as interpretered and language officers and developed propaganda to aim at the japanese and it was an essential role in places like okinawa, the heroism of the japaneseamerican soldiers who went down into the caves and negotiated directly with japanese forces, trying to encourage them to surrender at enormous personal risk. That is one of the Great Stories about the pacific war, that is not as familiar to people. To jean in bowie, maryland, on the line for vets and families. Caller good morning. I was 12 years old when we declared war on the japanese. I was the youngest of five children. My three brothers and a sister were all on active duty in the military. For two reasons, one personal and one family. We loved trumans decision. My two brothers at the time, just before the invasion, my two brothers were in combat, two of them were combat in the navy, one in pd bose and the other on a navy fuel tanker and both had close calls with death and my brother ill never forget now my mother was absolutely terrified every time the telephone rang for about the last four months of the war. A second reason, and this one is more personal for myself, this i cannot forget about the japanese, im sorry but the way they treated prisoners. My sister was a naval nurse at Chelsea Naval hospital. There were ten nurses. She wanted to stay in the navy but she wanted to get married in october of 41 and as a naval office she was not allowed to stay in the navy. That was the rule. So they had to leave the navy and get married. The nine girls that were with her and i remember them vividly and they came to our home in newton, massachusetts and they were full of life and wonderful young ladies. They were caught in the death march and after the war, after my sister called and the supervisor and see what happened to those young ladies there was nine of them, seven died and two were, quote, strapped down. They didnt have the medicine for people who had been through what those girls had been through. So in words we thought of trumans decision. And there is one other fact and i almost never heard mention but i think it may be true, that the People Killed in the hiroshima bomb were not all japanese. In hiroshima, killed by that bomb, more than 20,000 korean slave workers and i believe it is true in nagasaki. I would like if the historians could help, is that true . There were tens of thousands of slave workers killed in these bombings and it is never mentioned. Yes, it is true. It is true. There were i dont know if it was 20,000, but that sounds like it might be about the right number of koreans who were worked in hiroshima. And an enormous number of koreans. And to a lesser extent chinese were killed in the atomic bombings and in the conventional bombing raids. There were also westerners in japan. There were about almost 1 of the population of japan during the Second World War had been christians or were christians. Some were secretly christians. So christianity had a foot hold in japan going back several centuries because of the missionaries from portugal and spain. And some of the most compelling eyewitness accounts of thing of hiroshima are by jesuit catholic priests who were european or german. And so the cities, i wouldnt say they were international, but to the extent that this were foreigners living in japan, they tended to be living in the large cities, so yes, they were affected in both of the atomic bombings. Were there american p. O. W. S in either city. Yes. There were american p. O. W. S in both the area of hiroshima and nagasaki. And a number of personal accounts came out after the war about the having witnessed the bombings. I believe there with p. O. W. S who believed that they had heard or seen a flash for both hiroshima and nagasaki, which gives you some idea of how far away it was possible to see and hear these explosions. Next up is frank in lexington, north carolina. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for letting me share and im calling in for my father. I have his new testament that he carried and made notes in this during his service. He was a navy corpsman, attached to the marine corp and i just like to share. This is the aftermath of dropping of the bomb. Left saipan, japan, september, 16, 1945. He been training for the invasion, attached to the marine corp. He arrived in japan september 22nd, 1945. Sasabo japan is the sea port next to inland nagasaki. Nagasaki. Yep. Caller two weeks after being there, two weeks after being there and he was on both sides at least from the veterans administration, information he was around nagasaki and he talked to me some about treating the people that had been survivors. But within two weeks his whole unit got deathly sick. And they were at that point moved to mo jo japan half way between hiroshima and nagasaki. As his surviving son, my father passed away at age 54 in 1977 and all of his siblings, my aunts and uncles have lived to ripe old age and i to this day believe that the radiation from the bomb, there in september, his whole unit was exposed and i just think that was part of the reason for his premature death. He was questioned thoroughly by doctors about his cancer and his service in japan in 1977. My mother was a registered nurse so he had a asked a lot of questions. And i think was about 10 years old and i asked my father, i heard the word armageddon at sunday school and i asked him about it and he said ive already been there and you never want to see it. Frank in north carolina. Ion toll, your thoughts. Well, yes, of course, if you want to talk about how the atomic bomb was different from conventional bombings, the issue of radiation is one of the first things that you consider. It was, as late admiral William Leahy was the chairman of the joint chiefs after the war left a scathing passage in his post war memoir saying that he thought it had been sort of a moral atrocity to drop this weapon a city. And it was this revelation that he had that this was a poison weapon. He didnt understand that until the bomb was dropped. And you had the reports of radiation poisoning. And i think that our government and i think general mcarthur as Supreme Court commander in japan after the war, they suppressed really all discussion of this issue of radiation. And they did so in a way that allowed some of our own servicemen to be exposed, which i think is really, it was a historical, you know, great disgrace. It was a great disgrace that we allowed our own forces to be exposed in hiroshima and nagasaki without allowing them to fully understand the risks involved in radiation. Last thing that he said that his dad was a navy corpsman. They were among really the most heroic people on the battlefields. They exposed themself directly to enem to en to enemmy fire and to pull wounded off the field to safety and also suffered some of the highest casualty rates at places like iwo jima and in particular okinawa. Ian toll is our guest, the book, the latest and published in september, twilight of the gods, war on the western pacific 1944 to 1945. We welcome your bup z5ey for those of you who are world ii vets or the families, the line 2027488002 and for japanese americans 207488003. Ian toll, we have a photo in the book and showed a video of what tokyo looked like after repeated fire bombings of the city. Why did the u. S. Not continue with that strategy. It appearing to be equally as destructive of the video we see of nagasaki and hiroshima. Yeah, well, i mean the fire bombing were continuing ready up to the end of the war. We were still running conventional bombing raids over japan even after nagasaki. And as you say, those incendiary bombing raids most likely if you take all of the incendiary and conventional bombing raids, the number of japanese civilians killed in the conventional bombing attacks exceeded the number that were killed in hiroshima and nagasaki. The first great fire bombing, the enormous fire bombing of tokyo that occurred on the night of march 10th and 11th, 1945, it is very hard to say exactly how many people that killed partly because all of the government records in the neighborhoods that were wiped out were destroyed. And had people moving in and out of the city in the time of war. So you could only vaguely estimate exactly how many people were killed. But almost everyone in the japanese government who studied the issue believed it was at least 100,000 and could have been 150,000 possibly. It is conceivable in the one night fire bombing raid, you had more People Killed than hiroshima and nagasaki combined. At least initially, if you dont counts deaths from radiation afterwards. So the scale of these fire bombing raids was really enormous. And i think that is partly the reason that the kind of assumption that we would drop these weapons on cities wasnt challenged by truman or by any of niz principal advisers because there was this feeling that we had already taken this step to start essentially attacking japanese Population Centers from the air. Lets hear from mara calling from salt lake city. Good morning. Caller good morning. My brother fought in world war ii. Because of that, ive always been extremely interested in American History and specifically world war ii. I watched all of the documentaries that ive been able to find. I have Cable Television and i have access to about 40 channels. And, now, i dont obviously have the education or the i dont know what else to say, about the gentleman that youve had on here before, but i would like to say that im from kansas city and ive been to the Truman Library and the eisenhower library. And its my humble opinion, based on the documentaries ive watched, that if we had to invade japan, they would have fought us with everything they had. I mean even pitch forks. Mmhmm. Caller anything they could put their hands on, tooth and nail. I mean every step of the way. Okay. Mara, ian toll how prepared were the japanese for an invasion . Well, how prepared were they . You know, at that point, you know, japanese strength was kind of down to its last drop. But it is true, as the caller says, that the japanese were essentially pouring all of their remaining strength and military strength and their civilian population, they were preparing to meet the invasion and to fight us as she said tooth and nail. You had women and children even being organized into militias, being trained how to fight with bamboo spears, being told to use, you know, kitchen knives if necessary. And so, i think, avoiding an invasion of japan was absolutely critical. And i think it was so critical that if it was true that, you know, really if you could say that the choice was bomb two cities with an atomic bomb or launch a bloody invasion, it was either one of those, one or the other, door a. Or door b. , i think that using the bombs exactly the way we did, hitting cities without a prior explicit warning, i do think that you could defend that. The traditional way in which americans have understood the atomic bombings, sets up this kind of forced binary, where you have to choose either hit these cities without warning, or launch an invasion. And i dont personally think that that is right. I think that there were many other options other than just those two. And i think you could make a pretty good case, although as a counter factual, that an invasion would not have been necessary with or without the atomic bombs. Keep in mind that the invasion of kyushu, the first stage of the planned invasion, the target date was november 1st. Thats almost three months after the bombing of hiroshima. And so, the idea that the bombing were a last resort to an invasion just about to happen, that is not quite right. But as i say, i mean, veterans of that war had their own very, very strongly held beliefs about what had happened at the end of the war. And as a historians, interviewed hundreds of world war ii veterans, ive never made it a practice to argue with world war ii veterans about this. I present my views, but i think it is important to recognize and to honor the feelings, the very strong feelings that veterans have about this subject. Twilight of the gods is your third in the trilogy. How long you have been working on the trilogy . How many years . A long time. 14 years, i would say. 14 years, yep. Phil is next up, mammoth lakes, california. Go ahead. Caller hi. Thank you for taking my call. Im 80 years old. My grandfather was in the army air corp, served at Wheeler Field on december 7th and my fatherinlaw served in the u. S. Navy for three years and most of that time in south pacific. Ironically the ship that he was on, the uss craven was decommissioned and used as a ship for testing, the atomic tests that were done in bikini. I have a lot of feelings on this from a humanitarian point of view. You know, the japanese empire was really defeated in 1944. It was an island country. As were all of the islands that the u. S. Army and the marines fought their way up to japan. The fire bombing of the civilians in japan was just, in my opinion, inhumane. The war was over. They were a defeated country. And an invasion was not needed. The bombs were not needed. You have an island nation who lost their navy, they had no air force. The army had been defeated. We could have put an embargo, surrounded the country for years if we had to. We occupied it for years afterwards. I think it set the stage the future. I know as a young man in t the 50s going through and in grammar school, conduct drills for the atomic bomb and the nuclear age and the terror and all of the rest of it. Weve all had to live with since then. And i think it was unnecessary and it sets the stage for the bad things that have happened since and the threat of nuclear war in this world. Okay. Phil, one more thing on that, ian toll, tacking on to that, a question about would a naval blockade have been effective, a question from a viewer in huntington wood, michigan, our previous caller mentioning Something Like that . Well, yeah, i mean, really we had a naval blockade in place at the end of the war. We had essentially destroyed japans merchant marine oil tankers. The kind of background of the pacific war was that japan is a place that has virtually no Natural Resources at all. It has no oil to speak of. Some lowgrade coal. And very little mining minerals. So why did japan strike out to seize this enormous empire in asia and the pacific. Above all, i think it was this desire that their impeeralist regime had to control, the oil most important. The oil fields they took were in modern day indonesia and then the east indys on the islands of borneo and sumatra. And that is 3,000 miles from japan. So they had to import their oil through this 3,000 mile artery that could very easily be attack and was attacked by our submarines, but our air power and by really the third month of 1945 we essentially had cut that line completely. So, you know, it is true, absolutely agree with the caller that the japanese war machine essentially was kind of sputtering to a complete halt by the time that we ended the war with the atomic bombs. And it certainly is, you could make a good counter factual argument, if we didnt have the atomic bombs, forget whether we decided to use them, say if we didnt have them, most likely the japanese would have surrendered by some point in the fall of 1945. So was the japanese fleet defeated at that time . Absolutely. And the fact is that the japanese fleet didnt exist. We had destroyed it. We had sunk all of their ships. What little remained of their navy was in harbors an we attacking with our planes and they were finished by the summer of 1945. So yes, i do agree that a blockade most likely would have forced a japanese surrender. But how long would that have taken. That is hard to say. The Japanese Army, which really had control of the country, the rank and file of that army was determined not to surrender. And so, you know, really what youre asking is a political question. In tokyo, how would you have created the conditions for the emperor to be able to say, we are going to accept this Unconditional Surrender and to have that decision stick across the military, as i say, i think you could make a good argument that that would have happened even without the atomic bombs, by the fall of 1945. But that is a counter factual argument. So as a historian and scholar you have to acknowledge there is uncertainty there, there was ambiguity. What was going on between the nine days of the bombing of hiroshima and the announcement of ser render on august 15th. What took so long . You have turmoil in the capital. The rank and file of the Japanese Army, the elite kind of middle echelon of the officer corp at the imperial headquarters in tokyo and at the Army Ministry were dead set against anything resembling surrender. The idea of letting an Occupying Army, let the enemy send an Occupying Army on to japanese soil without a fight, that was an anthema to them. Within the sinner circle of the group, you had a deadlock between those who, by that time, were saying we dont have any choice, the nazis have been defeated. We are alone. We have to ser render. And we have to be rational about this. And then the military sort of die hard, hard line fight on faction, it was a deadlock within the ruling group. And it took, you know, all of that time to resolve that deadlock. So, you know, we hit hiroshima on august 6th and hit nagasaki on august 9th. On august 9th another important thing happened which is that the russian declared war on the japanese and rolled their army, their tanks and their enormous numbers of troops from the siberia into manchuria. So there was this sudden soviet attack and i think it was that soviet attack that was really sort of the final straw that convinced the ruling group of japan that they had no other choice. And it created the conditions where the emperor, who generally did not intervene to make decisions, was able to say, im making the decision that we surrender and the Japanese Military then accepted that decision. And so it was a difficult process for them to kind of reach that point of consensus that explains that delay. The first decision, the decision to surrender on the part of the japanese really came on august 9th. But they responded to our demand for surrender by saying, we want to preserve the status of our emperor. And so there was a last round of negotiations between our government and the japanese government in those last five days. So that explains part of the delay as well. Is bill in waynesboro, pennsylvania. Go ahead. Caller hello. My dad was a medic in okinawa during world war ii. He treated people there who had lep resee. I was proud of what my dad during world war ii. Im ashamed of what my country did by introducing introducing e weapon to the world. The fact is there were people in hiroshima and nagasaki who were instantly vaporized when the bomb was dropped. There were people whose flesh was burned off their bones. I read one account that said people walked around silently right after this happened, believing that they had died and gone to hell. This is the horror the Nuclear Weapons. Now, if we go to today, our Nuclear Weapons are hundreds of times more powerful than those original bombs we detrostroy th entire planet quickly if we didnt kill all life immediately, everything, everyone would die after the Nuclear Winter from radiation, from the dust cloud that were block out the sun. My i think that could i say one more thing . Sure of the go ahead. Caller . It may sound crazy to say we should ban Nuclear Weapons, but how insane is it to maintain these weapons . I would like to ask your guest, how do you feel about a worldwide ban on pursuing a true ban of Nuclear Weapons as opposed to constantly updating and refining the Nuclear Weapons. Ian toll . Yeah. Just to take that last question, you know, if it was possible to ban all nukes in the hands of all governments around the world, and to, you 72 iknow, decisively deal with the potential problem of a nonstate actor getting access to a nuke lea weapon, then absolutely it would be in the interest of not only this country but the world to get rid of these weapons. Theres a Silver Lining in this conversation. Its 75 years today since the first weapon was used, and three days later, but of course nagasaki. In 75 years weve not had another nuke used in any war, in any conventional war against any civilian population, against any military population. We have never seen a nuke used. In 1945 people at the end of the war americans at the end of the war looking forward i think would have been absolutely surprised that that had been the case. There was an assumption there was a new era of warfare, and of course throughout the cold war, this was a constant terror. We had generations who grew up having to do the duckandcover drills in classrooms. We came very close on several occasions during the cold war to a nuclear exchange. The cuban missile crisis. There were potential accidents, so we had been very fortunate that we havent seen they weapons used again. So i think thats something that we can celebration today. A couple more calls here. Bea in texas . Caller good morning. I just wanted to say it seems awfully easy for a lot of people to be saying we shouldnt have done this, or we shouldnt have done that when they werent here, and they werent living through this. Those of us who were were damn glad when it was all over i had two uncle who were japanese p. O. W. S, one went through the death march. My family just rejoinsed when the war was over. People were getting killed regardless, and this this put an end to it for a while, at least. How soon after the bombings did americans know the news . Know the news that we had dropped the bombs. One of these weapons . You played the clip of president trumans newsreel announcement aboard the augustus. So the same day, i believe within an hour, we had the white house issue a statement explaining we had this new weapon and we had dropped it, unfortunately respect you know, from looking back with hindsight, we said we had dropped it on a Japanese Military base, which really isnt true. It would be like say if he dropped a nuke on san diego, it would be like we hit an American Naval base. Well, theres a big city there. If youre going to do that, you ought to be able to say this is what we did. I think that looks better in the long lens of history. As the last caller said, for americans who were fighting in that war, you know, they se abstractions were not important to they. How does it make us along as a one in the long material . Those are abstract questions. If youre fighting on the ground, if youre a marine, a soldier, a sailor, you expect to be deployed in this final invasion of japan, you know, the issue looks much, much different. At that point, youre willing essential for your country, your president to do anything at all to end this war, independence it quickly and end it without an invasion. In addition, it was the brutality of the war. I think in 1945, we should be clear about this, the American People polling shows this understood the atomic bombings in part as an act of revenge. This was an act of revenge against the japanese for the way that they had treated civilians throughout asia, and in particular the way they had treated our prisoners. And, you know, in the way the sort of orthodox or traditional defense of the atomic bombings we hear most often, that issue of revenge is removed from the equation. Its more, you know, we hit these two cities because the total number of dead would have been lower than an invasion. It was sort of you can use what we call utilitarian reasoning. Thats the defense, not as an act of revenge. Really that initial feeling we had that this was an act of sonde of condigned retribution against a barbaric enemy, that owned once we started getting graphic accounts of what happened in hi rosh man and nagasaki. When John Hersheys article was published in the new yorker. This was a year after the bombings, thats when the American People began to wrestle with this and to realize this is not how we think about ourselves as a country. We dont take revenge on women and children in cities. Thats not who we are. So then the you know, the explanation changed a bit to, well, we had to do that, it was a horrible thing, a terrible tragedy, but we had to do it, because the alternative would have been even worse. Ian toll, author of twilight of the gods third and final volume of his pacific war trilogy. We appreciate you joining us on this 75th anniversary. My pleasure. Our program continues, more of your phone calls ahead. We are joined next, though, by mary yamaguchi, an Associated Press reporter in japan, calling us this morning from hiroshima, who was reporting this morning on the 75th anniversary there. Mary yamaguchi, good morning. Good morning. Im not in japan, but yes, good morning to you. What can you tell us about the ser myothat took place today, in the peace park, is it . Yes. Its the Peace Memorial park but this year has been significantly scaled down because of the coronavirus problem, so there were only about fewer than 1,000 people attended, which is about one tenth of the usual attendance. I understand the mayor of hiroshima spoke. What did we hear from the mayor . She said that despite the coronavirus scare that he called for leaders to so to cooperate together more than ever and called World Leaders to visit hiroshima to see first hand the reality of that atomic bombing, so that they will be more and obvious he noted that and asked for the japanese government to do more, to take leadership in playing the bridge between Nuclear States and nonNuclear States so that they will work harder toward Nuclear Weapons ban. Mari yamaguchi, youve been reporting on the survivors, the victims of hiroshima, how they have been stigma advertised over the yea stigci constituent ma rather rather than the government, i think citizens groups and pacifist groups are helps work i ing. However, some local groups are setting up occasions for them to tell their stories, to share with the younger people so that they will learn their lessons in their lifetime theres also project initiated by hiroshima and other cities to train young people to learn specific survivor stories so they can continue to tell their stories on their behalf. Associated press reporter Mari Yamaguchi joining us this morning, reporting on the 75th anniversary. Thank you so much. Thank you. Theres more ahead, another hour here on our program of your calls and comments. Up next, we will continue our discussion on the anniversary with Clifton Truman daniel, grandson of former president harry truman. First up, though, here is the former president explaining his decision to use atomic weapons. This video is from outtakes from a television series, looking back at the major events of his presidency. So when we issued the ultimatum to japan to surrender, the only answer we got was to go to the devil, yet all this time, some of their people seemed to be acting behind their backs of the cabinet, trying to sue for peace in one underhanded way or another. Well, when they applied that way, we knew there was only one of two things to do. We advanced on japan and fight every inch of the way, losing a million of our own friends, or drop the atomic bomb. We dropped the bomb. Still, there was no reaction. We learned later that the japanese cabinet met and finally there were enough who agreed to surrender to split the cabinet in half. One half in favor of surrender, the other determined to fight on. In this spirit, the emperor was finally called on to give his opinion, an unprecedented move. He didnt want his people to die any more than they wanted to surrender, yet the military was so strong, they still were notify of their capitulation, so we had to drop a second bomb on nagasaki. That did it. Without those two abombs dropped on them, to show that we meant business, they might never have surrendered, even though they knew they would be licked, but they would have killed 3 million more people on both sides. Thats why there is no question that view of the whole Japanese Military had on their people, the dropping of an atom bomb was the only sensible thing to do. It was the only thing to do. There are a lot of cry babies around talking about what ought to have been done, and before he killed all those people, but i had the authority of the best man in the business. Thats henry l. Stimp son, the only operation that the japanese would have understood was what happened, and it stopped the war. I dont care what the cry babies say now. They didnt have to make the decision. Joining us from chicago is Clifton Truman daniel, the grandson of president harry truman, joining us this morning on this 75th anniversary of the bombing of hi rosh man. Welcome to washington journal. Thank you. You were 15 years old when president truman pass on passed amp. You said you never had a chance to talk with him directly about the decision to bomb hiroshima and nagasaki. What have been coupled to, in terms of his decision . Whats your view of the decision to drop the bombs . Why do you think your grandfather meat that decision . My grandfather always said he made the decision to save american and japanese lives. I understand thats thats a simplistic answer, but thats something he stick to all of his life. For me, ive been listening a bit to the previous program, the previous guests. It is still today a complicated issue whether that was the right decision or wrong decision, whether it ended the war, whether it didnt. Whether a blockade would have done the same thing, whether or not he would have had to invade. For me, working with survivors, working with the Truman Library, foe me its more important to listen to the stories, to understand why it happened, why the decision was made, so that we dont do it again, more broadly so that we can avoid future conflict. If we look at all the reasons we got to where we got in 1945, well have a better understanding of how to head it off again, though sometimes i dont have much hope for that. What sort of resources have you used in your quest to figure out that decision . Where are you looking for, for information on your grandfathers decision . Just reading broadly, biographies of my grandfather, his own memoirs, writing books that he wrote after the presiden presidency, so from his point of view, but also on the other side, talking to survivors, listening to the stories, trying to understand the Japanese Point of view. Just generally whatever comes my way, whatever is new, whatever i think i might be able to get more understanding from. You were well along in your career and profession, the life of a parent, when in 2012 you were the first truman to visit hiroshima as part of a visit there, and a program we aired in conversation with cspan back in 2012. What prompted your decision to go to japan, go to hiroshima. Ill try to shorten it. Its a bit of a long story. When my son wesley was 10 years old, he came home with a book of sedako and 1,000 cranes. This was a real little girl, who survived the bombing at the age of 2. She and her family were fairly lucky. They survived largely unhurt. They lost their grandmother in the attack. She went on to develop radiationinduced leukemia. She followed the tradition if you fold 1,000 cranes, she folded 1300 cranes, but sadly she dew died of leukemia. Theres a monument to sadako, and to all of the children who were killed or sickened or wounded by the bomb in the peace park today. Wesleys teacher, rosemary b barilla, took them japanese consult terr, she took them to a japanese restaurant, they had a tea ceremony. I found wesley in the living room wearing a kimono and green tea laid out. So she and wesley brought japan into our house. On subsequent anniversaries of the bombings, when jaap ease journalists called, i mentioned that story. I mentioned we had read sadakos story together. I told wesley at the time, that i thought it was important to understand his greatgrandfathers decision, his countrys point of view, but also to understand what that cost the people of hi rosh man and nagasaki. Wesley said he enjoyed the book, and what he said was it was different from all of his other books and it did not have a happy ending. Well, i think it was in 2005 i had a call from japan, from masahiro. He had read japanese journalists accounts of our interviews, and asked if we could meet someday and Work Together . I said yes. It took us five more years. We did not meet until 2010 in new york city. Masahiro and his son were visiting the 9 11 Tribute Center to donate one of the sadakos last original cranes as a gesture of healing for the 9 11 terrorist attacks. He dropped the crane into my palm and told me that that was the last crane that sadako had folded before she died. At that point he and his father asked me if i would consider visiting and going to the ceremonies, and i agreed. Our guest is clifford Truman Daniel. And were showing the video. Well get to more from that in just a moment. Well to make sure folks know our phone lines are open. For those of you who are world war ii veterans or families, theres also a line. During that trip, you spoke to several survivors. I wanted to play the video shot by your son, am i right . Your son shot some of this. Yes, that was wesley. I want to show a conversation one of the survivors telling his story, and well get back to your comments. All right. Trun translator i managed to remove a felled tree. In the front, the concrete foundation of our house was covered with a big pillar. I couldnt go forward. Mother was lying face up about a meter away. Her eyes were bleeding. Since i couldnt make it to her side, i asked, can you move . She said, no, unless you can remove this stuff from my shoulder, i cant move. But i couldnt. Translator i was a militaristic boy. I knew japan was cornered and going to lose soon, so i was always dreaming every day that i would get on a plane and throw myself directly on to the u. S. Battleships. I never imagined such a home court thing would happened to me. I had to say to my mother the fire is spreading so fast i cant help you. My mother said, get away from here quick i said, go visit my father, who passed away in may, i will follow you shortly. So i went away from the scene leaving my mother, knowing that she was going to die in the fire. Clifton Truman Daniel how did the story and your 2012 trip change the your perspective on the bombing . Obviously i think your viewers will also agree those are hard to listen to they call it testimony, survivors give testimony. We listened to more than two dozen on that trip in 2012. As hard as it is for me to listen to, you have to remember i have to remember that its much harder for the survivors themselves to relive it, and they do, day after day after day, when they tell those stories. Theyre committed to do that, again, so that we understand the horror of the nuclear attack, and prevent it, dont do it again. I was struck by the survivors by that kinds in, that generosity theyre willing to retell the stories over and over again for our benefit. Not one came to me in anger or recrimination. They simply wanted to tell me those stories, and asked me at the end of each interview that i would help keep telling those stories, again in the name of disarmament and peace. Those survivors obviously now eight years older. What do you see your role in telling the hiroshima story . To keep telling those stories, to keep openly and honestly telling those stories on both sides, telling the human story of world war ii and the atomic bombings, the decision, the effects, the reasons, to keep being open about that and keep telling those in the name of honesty and accurate history. Did it feel uncomfortable to be in the room, knowing that decision was made by your grandfather . No, and i will credit the survivors for that. Survivors and Masahiro Sasaki and his son, who were mire hosts. No. The atmosphere was respectful, open, and i was not uncomfortable in that regard. Clifton Truman Daniel, the oldest grandson of former president harry truman. On this 75th anniversary, or line for vets, william in boynton beach, florida. Good morning. Caller i landed on okinawa when i was an 18yearold boy. At that time they had about 2,000 landing crafts. They will be used to invade japan they had over 2,500 kamikaze planes waiting. Bill ely was a very good friend of mine. He was involve with general mcarthur and the invasion of japan. I asked when will it be . He said it will be november 1st. I said, we had a tremendous typhoon on okinawa in that month. I said what will have it done to the invasion . He said, it would have destroyed the invasion he says, i know, the winds were over 150 miles an hour, destroyed everything on okinawa, and there was no way that the invading fleet would survive. He says, in fact, general mcarthur sent bill ely to japan to check out the area. He was the First American in japan after the atom bombs, and he said the destruction was unbelievable, but what they had waiting for us, he says, was unbelievable too he said they had submarines, twoman subs, all kinds of fortifications, the civilians were all armed to their teeth waiting for the americans to invade. William, thanks for your call. Mr. Daniel . Ive heard similar stories. Im not familiar with the typhoon that william mentioned, but those are stories that i heard also from survivors that although there are some, of course, that feel japan wall street defeated and that it was only a matter of, i dont know, weeks, months, days before they surrender surrendered at the time they also talk about fighting with whatever they could. Groups of civilians would be attached to groups of soldiers to fight side by side, so those stories resonate with me. They said at the same time the civilians were terrified. This is not something they trained for it, but this is not something they expected. The japanese government was telling them they were all going to fall like the petals of cherry blossoms, and it was going to be a glorious mass suicide. So thats in line with stories ive heard. Clayton in north carolina, good morning. Caller good morning im an immigrant, and im a student of American History naturally for me, i wanted to find out more about the country in which im residing. So how would your i mean, would you tell a bomb taking into considering the decisions in february that took place in february 4th, 11, 1945, when Prime Minister winston churchill, president roosevelt and soviet leader stalin decided that the soviet union would enter the war against japan, and it did. At the time when the bomb was dropped. The soviet union basically took so much territory that japan occupied, and it was basically about to enter al qaeda the soviets, ann, right . Caller i mean, the soviet army was about to enter hokkaido at the time when the ball was dropp bomb was dropped, the first one. They were moving very past, and japan did, they were fighting fiercely, but at that time the soviet army was huge. So they were moving very, very fast. They were right there. Ann, ill let you go there. Clifton Truman Daniel, what did the survivors tell you that the state of the populace at the time . What was the population like . Were they prepared for any sort of potential invasion, be it soviet or american . They were preparing for the invasion, again, drilling with the bamboo spears, drilling with ar army units, but at the same time ian was saying this in the previous segment, they had very little left in terms of the civilians had very little left. There was no fuel. Food was scarce. One of the survivors in fact, the first survivors i ever heard a story from, he gave the acceptance speech when the International Campaign to abolish Nuclear Weapons won the nobel prize for peace, she is a nearly lifelong disarmament advocate. When the bomb was dropped, she was a 13yearold schoolgirl. They were in an Army Building in hiroshima, learning to use the japanese secret code machines. As she told me when we met, she said we had nothing. We had no food, we had no fuel, you had school girls learning how to use the secret code machines in advance of the invasion. So while both the occupation, the u. S. Government confiscated a lot of that because it was inflammatory. They figured that if you had a lot of it out there, people knew the horror of the bombings, it would make it harder to occupy japan, harder to rebuild, theres also resentment over the hospitals that were studying, not treat the disease. It was they felt a little like lab rats. Who were running the hospitals . It was the u. S. , us. Yeah. Kenji, go ahead. Caller i wanted to bring out two important facts im just visiting from japan, but first of all, most people seem to be unaware whenever the u. S. Bombed, they would drop leaflets, a total of 70 million that specifically said, we dont want to harm you, were working to bring peace to the country and would specifically warn people to leave the areas they would be bombing the next day. Over 70 million were dropped second, when youre in japan, they will never tell you this, but especially the older people. Ive heard from probably over 100 of them. When they heard the news of the bombing of hiroshima, they danced in the streets. I will give you a quote because that meant the war would finally be over. Mr. Fujita, the leader of the pearl harbor attack, met in 1959 with paul tibbetts, who was one of the ones who dropped the bomb. This is hiss quote you did the right thing. The japanese attitude at that time was fanatic. Every man, woman and child, would have resisted the invasion with sticks and stones. Finally, its very important that this narrative had developed, about you when you speak to the people who were actually adults and remember, they will all say when they saw the american bombers flying overhead and then when they heard about the bombs, they were so happen. They felt terrible, you know, for the ones who had passed away. They knew if the war came on land approximately at that time about 3 Million People would have died. The interesting thing is i was in baghdad before the war. It was the exact same situation. People were so desperate nothing could dislodge a bad ruler, and they said let the americans come. Some of us will die, but at least there will be pedestrian. Over 70 million leaflets were distributed. Theyre just amazing. They say the world is with you, japanese people hang on, everythings going to be okay were very sorry. Kenji, well let you go there, so we can get a response. Yes, thank you. Those are familiar to me, but i also think it makes me think of another story. She listened to the emperors broadcast surrendering on august 15th, she and her family. They had set up a loudspeaker or radio system, hanging the speaker from a tree. She remembers the people gathered around. People came they had gone up into the hills outside the city to escape the still by this time. She remembers people weeping, crying out, stunned. Both, as you said, both in relief, but also stunned that japan would surrender. Just as an aside, surprised to hear the emperors voice. I think that was the first time it was certainly the first time that all of them in the circle around the speaker had heard the emperor speak. He didnt often address the japanese people directly. There was an article about some of leaflets and how they were used. William, good morning. Caller yes, good morning. My take on all of this is quite different from what you have already heard. I was born in 1943, and my dad at that time until he retired was the Administrative Assistant to the admiral at the shipyard in vallejo, california, which was a submarine base. My understanding the lived in eureka, california, we lived in vallejo. It was my mothers brother. He was having trouble up here with his employer, so my dad asked if he could come down and live with them in the basement and he could work at the shipyard. He did the lettering on the doors to all the offices, stuff like that. Like today they have all that vinyl lettering. Anyway, it was an art that had to be done at the time. Anyway, as i was growing up, like i said, i was born in 43. My uncle lived in the basement. My parents were always gone on weekends. He was like a builtin ba babysitter. He would you say stone sober through the week, but then was really ever drunk. I never could understand that. I thought, well, thats just the way he was, but he was suffering from now what we call posttraumatic stress disorder. As i got older, he started talking about the war. He was in the army. One time he scared the living daylights out of me. He brought out hi gun, you know, a rifle, and then he reached in this private area he had, he brought out a bay onnet. He strapped it on the end of that gun and started telling me how he was killing japs, thats what he called them, japs. He was mean. Oh, he got furious. Then he settled down, because i gets he realized he was a little kid. He apologized. But he would talk about it every time he was drunk. My perspective on the whole thing is my uncle didnt want to kill anybody. William in california. Thank you. I think of fred mitchell, who lived in pennsylvania. Im sorry to say i dont foe if mr. Mitchell is with us any longer. His was like your uncle. He never wanted to kill anything. As a child growing up on a farm, he couldnt shoot deer when he went hunting with his father. He couldnt do it. He didnt like to kill anything. He wound up fighting in the war in the pacific. I think he was a Radio Operator on a destroyer. Two kamikaze planes hit his destroyer. He was very lucky to survive. He lost most of his friends. He wound up in the water for hours. He was traumatized. He was treated for ptsd. For decades afterwards, hated the japanese, just kept that hatred. It got so bad that his wife and hi parents didnt know what to do. They were a rentalous family, they attended church every sunday, but he could not shake this. They were worried. If he saw someone that even looked as though they were of asian descent, it didnt matter, he got angry. Finally he watched a program on television about a group of former marines who fought on okinawa, and a group of former kamikaze trainees, who had gotten together. They met in japan, talked to each other, and put it behind them. Through one thing or another, he did something similar. He traveled to japan, met with former trainees, and he said we were just a bunch of old men talking to each other. They were just like me. Finally he was in his 70s by the time this happened, but he finally put the hatred away. You talked to many, many of the survivors of hiroshima. I assume knack saggi as well. Have you ever spoken to former crew members of the planes that dropped the bombs . No, i have never spoken to anyone who was on the enola gay. Well talk to gary in new mexico. Caller good morning. Ive with the navajo nation. I wanted to saying a little piece here regarding the navajo code talkers, the late haired austin, sr. , which was my father, served in the islands, iwo jima, nagasaki. But the code talkers were informed there was going to be they heard the term fat cat and big boy that the and a half rho navajos were work the headquarters company, and they were told something would you happen, in the wind. Thats the message they sent out. After all the events of the bombing had happened, the bulk of the Occupation Forces were broken down, and some of the navajo code talkers were sent into nagasaki and hiroshima confiscating weapons, guarding the streets, distributing foot and clothes. That was their role and message they sent after the occupation, they were back to San Francisco through the navajo code. So we dont know who the navajo code talkers who sent that code, but thats part of history, what was said on the buildings, no vegetation left, how many people were deceased. So thank you. Maybe you can Say Something about the American Indians and their role in the occupation of japan. Thanks, larry. I dont know the history of native americans in the navajos in the occupation, but i know someone who was also there with the code talkers. There was its the late orville ahmdahl, who fought his way across the pacific. Prior to the expected invasion, was looking at maps of nagasaki. They were supposed to land near the port area. Nats saki is a steep area, and japanese gun implacements were just going to be able to rain shells down on orville and the other members of the force. So he was very worried they were not going to make it through that initial assault. Then the bombs were drop, the war ended. Orville, of course, was hugely relieved they did not have to land at nagasaki. They landed there anywhere as part of the occupation source, and he was heartsick at the destruction. The wounds on the civilians. He said the hillsides were just bare, nothing standing, no trees, no buildings. The u. S. Army had disarmed the japanese officers, taken their weapons, taken their swords, and there was a huge pile of swords, sermonian swords in a warehouse up the coast from nagasaki. Orville and the other american were urged to take them as souvenirs. Orville wasnt a souvenir taker, but he chose a sword, and sent it home. He over the years afterwards, he didnt put it over his man te tel. He kept it in the closet, but over the years, he kept it clean. He oiled it. He kept the blade clean, he took care of it. Finally after 67 years all the time he wondered who it belonged to, and how would he give it back. He tried on and off through the years. He never had any success. Finally after he retired, 67 years after the war, through the st. Paul minnesota n nagasaki sister city found this tag was wooding, and it had a name and address. And through sheer luck and a lot of phone calls, they found the son of the owner of the sword,ed officer who had to give it up. He was a japanese newspaper executive in nagasaki. Mr. Amdahl wrote to him, told him he wanted to give his family back his fathers sword. He came to the u. S. With his wife and two sons to receive the sword back from orville. The ceremony was packed, and it was very emotional for everybody around. There was a writer, karen stelson, who had helped around this. She writes about survivors. I called karen two weeks asp the ceremony, i said, how are you doing . She said, i cant get any work done, because i keep getting calls from people who want to return swords and flags. Joe, go ahead. Caller im a son of a world war ii veteran who worked all the way up to czechoslovakia, and seeing in a nazis were use the Young Children and old people at the end, which killed a lot of americans, too. My father was a 21yearold staff sergeant. They went down to naples where they were building a fleet of troop ships. Then they released them and said a great bomb had been dropped upon japan. So i certainly may not have been born if my father had gone. I served 30 years in the military, and used to see and talk to a lot of people who were p. O. W. S, and survived different batt battles. When i was stationed in new mexico, i met a couple of the navajo code talkers, which more shows should be talking about that element as well. Very interesting, but the fact if there was no pearl harbor, there would be no issue of talking about that, but, of course, japans Imperial Force was in china in the 30s. Joe, thanks for your call. You mentioned the code talkers. We want to remind our viewers, we have had covered several programs on it go to our website cspan. Org, you can find plenty of information about that. Our guest, Clifton Truman daniel, talking about the 75th anniversary of the bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki. Mr. Daniel is also the honorary chair of the board of trustees of the harry s. Truman library institute. You also wrote a couple books about your grandparents. Did you ever ask your grandmother about the bombing of hiroshima . No. No, i did not. Again, going back to whether i asked my grandfather or my grandmother they were gamey and grandpa. We saw them on family vacations, and they were vacations from schools, so the last thing i was looking for was another history. My grandmother the same way. That said, i dont think that my grandfather certainly, or my grandmother would have told me anything differently than they would have told you or anybody in the audience. My grandfather was remarkably open and consistent in hi views. There was nothing that family would have learned that the public would not know that he had either written or spoken. Let me go back two seconds to say to joe in wilmington, it was nice to hear from somebody there, since i lived there. I worked on the star news. It was in wilmington, and they were trying to get ahold of my mother, margaret truman. They were trying to snag her sleeve and talk to her. They didnt get her. She got pulled away, but my wife and i stayed behind and asked if there was something we could do, and both men had tears in their ice, and we want, whats wrong . And they said, we wanted to thank her. And you were vocal about president obama to visit japan. Why was that . Again, in the interest of being open and honest about it, decisions were made, horrible decisions in a war, dan carlson, a historyian and podcasters, i listened years ago, and one of the things struck me. He said the atomic bombings were certainly astrosity, but it was the last astrosity in a ward with many atrocities. So if were going to learn from this, you have to by open and honest about it. What do you think president obama accomplished . I thought he did exactly the right thing. He went and listened. He laid a wreath. He visited the peace park. He spoke to survivors. One of the survivors that i believe he gave a hug to, and mr. Mori was a survivor of the bombing, but also spent about 25 years of his life and a lot of his own money finding out exactly what happened to the 12 americans who were killed in hiroshima. They were prisoners, airmen, i think navy and army, a mixed group, in prisoners in the basement cells in the police headquarters. Nine of them died immediately from the explosion, but three survived, severely poisoned by radiation, but not much was known about what happened to them, and their families back here in the states didnt know. Mr. Mori discovered that a lot of the people he was interviewing for other survivors for other stories, were drawing pictures, so they tracked down every lead, was able to find out what happened to the men. Both to let their families know, and also to memorialize them with the other victims. About ten more minutes left with our guest. Well get to your calls. Mickey, good morning. Caller good morning. My father and four search of my uncles were in world war ii. They fault in all the theaters from europe all the way through the pacific and all of this. In fact, my father was at normandy, fought in the battle of the bulge. He walked into germany into a concentration camp in germany, and he told me even though he had fought two of the biggest battles in history, he never realized how terribly a human being with treat another until he walked into that concentration camp, but about the atomic bombing, i would like to put that in perspective. What the atomic bombs dropped on japan did was it ended a war, where there was an estimated 70 to 85 Million People were killed during that war, and those atomic bombs put an end to it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, mickey. Yeah, again, the debate goes on. I find myself, as i think i had earlier in the middle of this. I cannot, will not tell a pacific war veteran that those bombs were not a good idea. They had been through so much already and had fought for their country and had endured a lot. But i also cant tell a survivor of hiroshima and nagasaki that the bombs were a great idea. They too suffered. Its thats what i try to look at, the human suffering, you know, the sacrifice on both sides. You have to look at the human stories and understand what happened, what that means. Heres carol. Good morning. Caller yes, hello. I just want to tell another side. My father was an air corpsman in new guinea. I wont say anything negative about the japanese of today, but my father i wont say anything negative about the japanese of today, but my father was in new guinea, was in three different groups, and every Single Person but him was the only one that was left. He never talked about the war at all. When he got married to my mother, he used to get up in the middle of the night and have his arms around her neck. The only good was a good one and he was attempting to kill them. My father died at 56 years old because of it. And they have to realize that had they not dropped these bombs, we would still be in war because we werent fighting my father died in 76, so the last year of his life he talked to me constantly about the war. I knew a lot about it. This was protecting their god. This wasnt, you know, protecting their president , protecting their country. This was protecting their god. And if we had not dropped those bombs, we would still be in war today. Unfortunately. But my father died with severe posttraumatic stress disorder, having a nervous breakdown and died at the age of 56 because of all of this. Okay, carol, well get a response. Clifton Truman Daniel, any thoughts. Thank you, carol. You have to you just said it yourself. You separate the japanese from today from and i think you have to separate the japanese civilians in 1945 from the Japanese Military. Certainly there was a wide range of emotion among the japanese for all for fighting to the last man committing suicide, going down fighting. And there were those who were just browbeaten into that, people who just wanted to live their lives and have peace, just wanted the war to be over. I did a program in new york some years ago with someone who survived the bombing of hiroshima. And she was 12 years old when the bomb exploded. She was badly burned. She came to this country in 1955 as one of the hiroshima maidens for reconstructive surgery. We were with a grouch international students. And when the time for questions came around, one of the students stood up and said im chinese, what about what you want sympathy, you want understanding for the bombings, what about what the Japanese Military did to my people, did to china . And she said very quietly, we had no idea. We did not know what was going on. She didnt. Some japanese did. Some understood fully what the Japanese Army was doing in china. But you have a broad range of emotion over the war on both sides. The headline we showed you earlier from the Associated Press, survivors mark the 75th anniversary of the worlds first atomic attack. Mr. Daniel, your visit in 2012, what was your initial reaction into that peace park in hiroshima . And how was your visit received by the both the media and the public . My reaction, my the initial reaction in both hiroshima and nagasaki stuck and it was it shouldnt have been a surprise to me but it was. Both cities are very much like being in a surge or a synagogue or a mosque. Its Hallowed Ground. Thousands of people died there. In hiroshima in the peace park, their ashes are three feet down in the layer of soil that one japanese survivor called the sad layer of soil, a white layer of bone and ash. So, you are on Hallowed Ground and you feel it. And the survivors contribute to that through their kindness. So, there is a feeling in both hiroshima and nagasaki, a feeling of peace. Both cities are dedicated to peace. So that was my initial reaction. Thats what stuck. Overall, the reaction to my visit was positive. It was positive before we went. A couple of japanese journalists came to chicago and wrote positive articles about the upcoming visit. People were polite and kind, the japanese media was respectful. The overall positive the one hitch and i should have been expecting it but i wasnt. I got a question from the first interview that i did in tokyo before we even went to hiroshima. The reporter got two questions in to the interview and then said have you come to apologize . And i as i said, it caught me off guard. It caught me flat footed. And i said no, thats not what this is about. This is about honoring the dead and listening to the living. And she kept rephrasing it, if you didnt come to apologize, why bother. She kept going back at it to the point that my translator, guide and translator, was half out of her chair getting ready to intervene and stop the interview because it was rude in a Japanese Point of view. And i worried about that question all that afternoon and at Tokyo University all the way to hiroshima on the train. All that night i thought am i just going to wind up defending the apology question, putting it off, doing this for the whole trip. And i walked into the peace park the next morning and a throng of reporters around the peace monument, sudoku peace monument. And he came out of the throng. I had not seen him in two years. I had not seen him since we met in 2010. He came out of the throng and put his arms around me and hugged me and all of my well, most of my worries evaporated at that point. Because masahiro was reassuring me, showing me, and showing the japanese media and the japanese people that we were in this together. Were going to bonnie next up in marion, ohio. Caller yeah, i had two uncles that was in world war ii. And one had got captured by the japanese and him and part of his squad. And they threw him down in a pit and covered him up. Well, every time they tried to get out of the pit, the japanese would take their boots and kick them in the face and knock them back down. And then after they would come home, they would never talk about it. Then i found out my moms first husband was one of the guys that helped drop the bomb on hiroshima. And when he got home, he died a few months later. Before he died, he told mom, dont ever want to see that again. You dont ever want to see it in your lifetime. He said it was very, very, very nasty look. Thats all ive got to say. Thank you, bonnie. Yeah, it there is, again, the last atrocity in a war full of atrocities. Let me ask you what from this point out what youve been doing in staying in contact with some of those victims, some of the survivors and their families. Does that work continue . It does. Not as intensely as it did at first. When i first came back from japan, i spent four years working on and off with a nonprofit in new york called hibakusha stories, a japanese word for survivor, bomb affected person. Over a period of eight years, they brought survivors to speak to more than 30,000 High School Students in the new york city area. And i work with them for four years doing exactly that. We would one of the founders, Kathleen Sullivan or robert croonquest would get up and talk about the Current Nuclear arsenal, all of them, hundreds if not thousands of times more powerful than the bombs that destroyed hiroshima and nagasaki. Talk about the fact that so many of them are on hair trigger alerts, still aimed at old cold war targets. And now were both our government and the soviet and the russians are talking about modernizing the nuclear arsenal. So, we feel like were on the edge of another arms race. At the same time you have many countries working against nuclear proliferation. I think more than 120 countries have signed a treaty banning Nuclear Weapons on their soil. But you have so you have this still going on. And i spent four years talking to these students, and i would get up and tell pretty much the stories that im telling you now and then introduce the survivor, and he or she would tell his or her story about the day of the bombing. And students were very representative to that. Receptive to that. You know, High School Students can be tough to reach. They slouch in their chairs. They look at their phones. None of that was going on here. They were paying rapt attention. And afterwards, they wanted selfies, they wanted to talk to the survivors further, they wanted hugs and they got them. It was a very emotional and i think effective program. See if we can get a call or two more. Daryl in east point, michigan, good morning. Daryl in michigan, youre on the air. All right. Well going to cameron in nevada, missouri. Good morning. Caller yes, hi. I just wanted to say i think that cameron, can you do us a favor and take your phone off speaker . Its a little hard to hear you. Go ahead. Caller i apologize. Is that better . That is better. Yes. Caller okay. I would just like to say that fighting in a war has been something that we have done for years, i know, in the past. Without war, we cannot find peace. And here recently as the protests have gone on in america and we have been combatting this virus, and looking back in our history, i realize that maybe theres a time coming where we dont have to fight war anymore, where we can just come to peace and live in that peace and live in that sort of peace and not have to go back to fighting anymore. If we can come to that time, i think we would all be better off and we wouldnt have to worry about which country is going to nuke what country and what have you. Its all nonsense. Its a big chaotic mess. If we continue to fight war, all were going to do is end up hurting each other or damaging our neighbors. Its just not good. Its not an effective way of living i dont believe. Okay. Clifton, if you can hold your thought for a minute, i want to see if we can get one more call from hawaii. Caller thank you so much. Good morning. Caller ive been up from 3 00 or 2 30 in the morning trying to see this program. Im so happy to meet with you, the grandson of truman. And i am a postwar 1946 birth. And i just happen, two days ago, from nagasaki who was a professional photographer. He just passed away at the age of 96. He was also a survivor from the nagasaki bomb. And he and my father were very, very good friend to each other. My father also passed away several years ago. Anyway, it must have been a coincidence. He passed away, but i really wanted to see this program on nagasaki atomic bomb. And today we live in 2020, ai, Artificial Intelligence era. And we have internet. What we need to know out of all the tragic human killing each other, war call it, we should put an end to it. What we all have to do is learn to appreciate and study languages. If you can only each other to the deep of understanding, language is a cultural understanding. Japanese people have a long history from modernization era and every time we have all the change. So really appreciate you waiting on the line and calling in early there in hawaii. Well get some last thoughts from our guest. Thank you. Thank you sachiko and cameron. And i know it was nevada, missouri, not nevada, missouri. I only know that because ive been there. Thank you. Yes. For both of you, the story that brings to mind is out of his son who sur voiced nagasaki in caves that had been dug into the hillside. She lost her entire family. She wound up homeless afterwards, living under a bridge. Her sister was so sick and so disheartened that she committed suicide by stepping in front of a train after the war. So she went through a lot. She speaks out. She tells her story. She speaks out in the name of peace and disarmament. But she had, i think the quote that sums up about war, she said very simply, she said, i think peace, the basic idea of peace is to have some understanding of other peoples pain. I think thats very true. Well, Clifton Truman daniel, it has been a pleasure to have you share time with us on this 75th anniversary of hiroshima. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. Youre watching American History tv covering history cspan style with event coverage, eyewitness accounts, archival films, lectures in College Classrooms and visits to museums and historic places. All weekend every weekend on cspan3. 75 years ago in the summer of 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on japan, one on hiroshima august 6th, another nagasaki august 9th. In this history recorded 2012 by world ii museum, ugenes talked about the bomb dropped over nagasaki. The World War Ii Museum provided the video. I was born in wilmington delaware. Basically i grew up in wilmington delaware. My family had a Construction Business in delaware, which was quite old and still in business. I went to school in delaware. I went to the university of delaware. So my history basically was in delaware before i went into the