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"Speak for yourself!" interrupted another Japanese, who had overheard the conversation. "Nagasaki was murdered! You can't call it anything else. There was no military need to strike again within three days. The fires in Hiroshima hadn't even gone out when they killed again like raving beasts. It took us longer than three days just to realize what had happened. The impact was so great! It was bigger than war!"
"Why, then, did we not surrender after Tokyo was firebombed?" asked the man who sat next to Frank. "The Tokyo bombing happened several months prior to Hiroshima. The loss of life was far worse in Tokyo. Most of Japan's cities had been firebombed, in many cases repeatedly until there was nothing left worth bombing."
"You asked why we did not surrender," said the man from in front of them. "The fact is, Japan had offered its surrender through the Vatican several months before Hiroshima was bombed. The surrender wasn't accepted. America kept the war going until the bombs were ready and had been used. Then America accepted our surrender. As you can see, the atomic bombing had served a totally different purpose. It had nothing to do with World War II. The bombing had been required as a demonstration show to terrorize the nations of the world into surrendering their sovereignty into the arms of a single, imperial world-government. They had been lobbying for that for years. They killed a quarter of a million people just for that. That was not war. That was murder. And the driving force behind that wasn't America. America was used for that. It played the role of a useful fool. Japans was in a similar position. "The Emperor saw himself as a divinely appointed ruler, destined to bring 'the eight corners of the world under one roof;' Japan's roof that is. The Americans would have done better to have killed him instead of our people."
The man next to Frank just shook his head. "America was duped into this, just as we were duped into becoming a fascist empire," said the man quietly. "That is true. Unfortunately, not many people see it that way."
"That is why I must strongly advise against your coming to our country at this moment," said the man from the row in front.
"Actually, we have no choice," said Frank. "If Japan is where the plane goes, we'll be going there too. If it is dangerous, well, so be it."
"No, no, you'll be all right, you'll see," commented one of the aircraft service people who had scrambled on board in Seattle.
The mechanic was a husky man. He had found standing room in the isle not far from Frank. "I was in Germany after the war," he said. "It was terrifying to see what our bombings had done to their cities. Some cities had been completely leveled. But no one hated us for it. No one attacked us. We were exceptionally well treated. And the same happened in Japan. After Germany collapsed I was assigned to the Pacific. MacArthur was received like a hero, and for us GIs the red carpet was rolled out. We were welcomed with open arms when the people saw that we weren't the savage barbarians the Emperor had made us out to be. Some of the Japanese girls, when they saw that we weren't raping them after all, offered themselves freely for a small consideration of course, but largely out of gratitude that somehow that terrible war had ended. I could feel no hatred there, either. And let me tell you, the bombings were most vividly in everyone's mind at this time."
"Ah, but that was a difficult period for our nation," said the Japanese who was leaning over the back of his seat. "The Emperor had defined the end as 'enduring the unendurable.' We had lost everything. Our honor, or national image, everything had been torn from us. By the hundreds, people had committed suicide, so great was the void. The MacArthur euphoria temporarily filled this void. Today the situation is no doubt different. The Hiroshima experience is seen in a distorted light as it has been passed down through history books, with a strong nationalistic taint added. Still, the history books say nothing about why it all happened. We were a part of a grand alliance to form a world empire. The alliance included the leading circles of Germany, Italy, France, Spain, end England. The plan was to quickly defeat Russia, and then, with the combined naval forces, defeat America. America was weak and corrupt. Japan was to be the center of Asia. We were destined for greatness. That's how the bill was sold to us. People were made to believe that. The war still stands in people's minds as a symbol of a time when Japan's dignity was trampled under foot. The history books are silent as to who was really behind this grand betrayal. But it all happened, and who can estimate what consequences may be drawn from issues that involve insulted honor. The truth should have been told. There is contempt today against the bomb, even more now than ever. It also spills over against those who continually threaten the world with it. I fear that especially the youth may feel that today's tragedy was invited to happen as the result of sheer stupidity. We've boxed ourselves in with our dogma of mutually assured destruction. And that's what we got, assured destruction, nor have we seen the last of it yet. But again, nobody will tell the people the truth as to who carries the blame."
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Stories about
War
from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche
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