🚀 go-pugleaf

[Moderator's Note: This article was cross-posted to several groups. It was
 rejected for posting to soc.history.moderated and was not posted to
 soc.history.war.misc since soc.history.war.world-war-ii is the USENET
 newsgroup for discussions of wwii. The cross-posting to duke.general and
 bit.listserv.history have been honored....HOWEVER.....followups have been
 set to soc.history.war.world-war-ii only since it is being discussed in
 this group already and the group is the best location for the thread.

 Also, this is a press release and was not edited down. It is my decision
 to not edit this.....rhm]


 Brought to you as a service of the Duke University News Service,
Box 90563, Durham, NC 27708-0563, Phone: (919) 684-2823, Fax: (919)
                        684-5760/681-7334.

    This and other stories and information can be found on Duke
  University's gopher server DIABLO.  Point your gopher client to
 DIABLO.DUKE.EDU.  The user ID is DIABLO.  No password is required.

===================================================================

For immediate release                       Contact: Kathy Pitman
Feb. 13, 1995                               (919) 681-8061
                                            PitmanK@
                                                 mail01.adm.duke.edu

Note to editors: To obtain a scanned photo, a black-and-white or
color photo of professor Biddle, call Kathy Pitman, (919) 681-
8061. Audiotape is available by calling the Duke Newsline,
1-800-442-DUKE.


ON 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIROSHIMA,
DUKE HISTORIAN QUESTIONS NECESSITY OF BOMBING


     DURHAM, N.C. -- The controversy over the Smithsonian
Institution's commemoration of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima
indicates the reluctance of many Americans to examine troubling
historic decisions, says Duke University historian Tami Biddle.
     Calling the bombing one of the most significant decisions in
modern history, Biddle said that Americans shouldn't let fear of
debating a sensitive issue stop them from discussing it.
     "It's so important because what we think and what we say
about this decision cuts right to our interpretation of ourselves
as a nation; it speaks to our self-identity as a people."
     Biddle says it's unfortunate that the Smithsonian
Institution's exhibit on Hiroshima was scaled down. The exhibit
was to be a major display but veterans groups opposed the exhibit
as scripted, saying it failed to consider the full context of the
bomb decision, and that it would portray the United States as a
heartless aggressor. Now the exhibit will feature only the
forward fuselage of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the
atomic bomb, with minimal accompanying explanation.
     "It's not a good outcome for the American people, or for the
museum, or for the study and practice of history. It ought to be
possible -- indeed we must find ways to make it possible -- to
examine even the most difficult and troubling historical
questions in ways that are both fair and illuminating," she said.
     History is dynamic, Biddle says, and every generation asks
new questions about the past.
     "There is a sense among people, especially those whose
experience has been shaped by the Cold War and by the pervasive
presence of nuclear weapons in the world, that we need to ask
ourselves some hard questions about the use of atomic weapons
against Japan in World War II," said Biddle, a military and
diplomatic historian.
     Were there other options? Why did we drop the bomb when we
did? What was our motivation? Biddle asks.
     "One of the things that is so vivid for veterans and others
of the World War II generation is the mood of the time, and the
sense of urgency felt about winning the war as soon as possible,"
she said. "American soldiers were dying in the Pacific every day
and the American people lived in dread of the Western Union man.
But it's hard for subsequent generations to fully understand that
mood -- that overwhelming desire to just end it."
     In her history classes, she tries to help students
understand the decision to drop the bomb in the context of that
time. She points out to her students questions that later were
raised by historians.
     "I can't tell my students that we exercised every possible
diplomatic and military option before going ahead with the
bombing. We didn't," Biddle said.
     Biddle recounted the events that occurred 50 years ago this
year, leading up to the decision to use the bomb.
     As the clouds of war darkened over Europe, there was the
possibility that the Germans might be able to harness this newly
understood phenomenon of atomic energy and produce a bomb, Biddle
said. Early in World War II, scientists began working on an
American atomic bomb project. Los Alamos, N.M., was home to the
scientists who actually designed the bomb.
     "Suddenly great physicists across the country were getting
these one-way tickets to this remote station in New Mexico. The
project demanded vast resources and required the combined
intellectual power of many of the finest minds in the world at
that time," she said.
     Attempts to bomb Japanese industrial and military targets
had been largely unsuccessful because of constant cloud cover.
Also, the effects of the jet stream made it nearly impossible for
bombers to hold formation while approaching targets.
     In February and March 1945, the allies tried new tactics.
Bombers flew low level at night and dropped incendiary bombs on
Japanese cities. A naval blockade of the islands also was
underway.
     "We were trying everything we could think of to end the war
militarily," Biddle said.
     On the ground, American soldiers engaged in an island-
hopping campaign were approaching the main Japanese islands. In
April, the battle of Okinawa led to vast casualties on both
sides: 50,000 for the Americans and 117,000 for the Japanese.
     Decision-makers saw that as the dress rehearsal for an
attack on the main islands. The Japanese were seen as a
relentless, fanatical enemy willing to fight to the last man and
woman.
     "There was a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment in this country
before the war, and during the course of the war itself --
including the attack on Pearl Harbor," Biddle said. "Treatment of
Allied prisoners by the Japanese heightened and exacerbated that
hostility."
     The feasibility of the bomb was proven in a test in
Alamagordo, N.M., in mid-July. Special bombing crews had been
training in the Pacific in anticipation of a successful test, but
they didn't know the details, Biddle said.
     "The weapon was so secret that not even the crew of the
Enola Gay really understood what was in their bomb bay.
     "When people look back on the war, one of the hardest things
for them to understand is just how little discussion and debate
there really was about the decision to use the bomb. Basically,
Truman and his advisers just wanted to get the war over with as
quickly as possible, and the bomb seemed to offer a way of doing
that," Biddle said.
     "Their decision can only be understood, completely, in the
context in which it was made. We can't recreate that context, but
we have an obligation to try to understand it."
     The invasion of the first home island, Kyushu, was scheduled
for November, but the bomb was dropped in August. Historians have
focused a great deal on the timing of the bomb and the tricky
question of American insistence on unconditional surrender,
Biddle said.
     "Some historians have asked why other things couldn't have
been tried in the interim, including further negotiation on the
question of the fate of the emperor. Some revisionist historians
have argued that we used the bomb to impress the Soviets with
atomic power and to keep their armies, which were scheduled to
enter the war at that time, from playing any significant role in
the victory," Biddle said.
     "The lead-up to the use of the bomb was simultaneous with
the unravelling of the Yalta accords, and I think it's true to
say that we weren't interested in any more real estate deals with
the Soviets. After the bomb was successfully tested in July we no
longer wished to see the Soviets in the war with Japan, and that
may have helped to push things along," Biddle said.
     But Biddle believes the Soviet problem was a contributing
cause more than it was a central issue.
     "When we look at ourselves in wartime, we may not like what
we see. But I think that makes it all the more essential that we
reflect on these issues in times of peace, and ask ourselves some
very hard questions about what our obligations are to enemy
civilians as well as to our own soldiers," she said.
     "It's unlikely that any consensus will ever be achieved
regarding the decision to drop the bomb, but I think it's
important for us to continue to think about it. I'd be a lot more
worried about us as a people if we didn't wrestle so hard with
the atomic bomb decision."
                                  ###