"A package of lies," said Brigadier General Paul Tibbets, Enola Gay's commander, said at the time. Veterans and their supporters in Congress alleged that a 50th anniversary exhibition - with the polished front section of Enola Gay as its star attraction - depicted the wartime Japanese "more as victims, not aggressors," wrote John Correll of the Air Force Association. Twenty years ago, during its restoration, Enola Gay found itself at the center of a firestorm between World War II veterans and a younger generation of historians who questioned the use of "The Bomb." "On August 6, 1945, this Martin-built B-29-45-MO dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan," its plaque simply notes, with no mention of the death or destruction it sowed. It's hard to miss in the vastness of the Udvar-Hazy Center, sharing hanger space with dozens of others planes including an Air France Concorde, the original Boeing 707 prototype and the Space Shuttle Discovery. Were it not for the atomic bomb, many Americans contend, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of American soldiers would have died in a US-led invasion of the Japanese mainland.Īt the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's vast public collection of historic aircraft near Dulles airport outside Washington, every display gets a succinct 150-word description, including Enola Gay. Using the atomic bomb, developed amid utmost secrecy, was hugely popular with war-weary Americans at the time - and 70 years on, a majority today still think it was the right thing to do.įifty-six percent of Americans surveyed by the Pew Research Center in February said using the atomic bomb on Japanese cities was justified, compared to 79 percent of Japanese respondents who said it was not.
Still no regrets for frail enola gay pilot plus#
It would be another 27 days - plus a second nuclear mushroom over Nagasaki - before Japan surrendered, ending a war that began with its 1937 invasion of China and stretched across the Asia-Pacific region. Hosokawa's regret, in fact, had prevented him from returning to that riverbank until the day he accompanied me there."They certainly don't care to have us drop any more bombs of atomic energy like this." I wish I could have given them water." Mr. "When I see students of the same age, I always think of those injured students on the riverbank," he said. Hosokawa noticed water gushing from a broken pipe near him, but he was wounded, too, and unable to offer them a drink. They were students of Sotoku Junior High School who had collapsed from their injuries on the riverbank. Even today, he remains haunted by the frail voices of students pleading with him for water on the bank of the Kyobashi River. Koji Hosokawa, 79, was 1.4 kilometers from the hypocenter when the bomb exploded. But if the victim was already dying, drinking water would have little relevance to his ultimate death." Thus, for the average person with no medical knowledge, it would have been difficult to judge whether water could be safely given or not. Dohy commented, "It really depends on the particular case, such as the seriousness of the burns or whether there were internal injuries. Because of this, he added, "Soldiers with experience of war may have passed on this instruction."īut in the case of survivors with less obvious bleeding, Dr.
He told me that taking in liquid typically increases blood flow, which can lead to heavier bleeding in the wounded. Hiroo Dohy, 62, director of Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital & Atomic Bomb Survivors Hospital. Naoe Takeshima, 79, who was a student in nursing school at the time, cared for victims of the bombing and recalls that she was taught, before the bombing even occurred, not to give water to the wounded. Hosokawa visits the bank of the Kyobashi River and remembers the students who begged for water that day. A soldier then surprised him by saying, "If you give water to the victims, they'll die." He gave water to a young woman, but her face turned pale and she passed out. Iwao Nakanishi, 77, was at the Army Clothing Depot when the bomb exploded and afterwards provided aid to the wounded. I then spoke with someone who actually gave water to a victim. It is commonly reported, from survivors or in writings about the bombing, that victims were pleading for water but people were warned not to give them any.įirst, I checked with Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and found a reference which suggested that permitting the gravely wounded to drink water could result in releasing their tension and hastening their death. Safely giving water depends on the state of injury