Truman's grandson visits Hiroshima

I missed the 67th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima three days ago (today is the 67th anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing), but this year's news surrounding the commemorations include a visit to the Peace Park by the grandson of Harry S Truman, the US president who authorized the unprecedented attacks on those two cities, a move credited with ending World War II in the Pacific.

From the Washington Post:

Truman’s grandson, Clifton Truman Daniel, and the grandson of a radar operator who was on both of the planes that dropped the atomic bombs, joined in the memorial. Ari Beser’s grandfather, Jacob Beser, was the only person who directly took part in both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

In a news conference after the memorial, Daniel declined to comment on whether his grandfather’s decision was the right one.

“I’m two generations down the line. It’s now my responsibility to do all I can to make sure we never use nuclear weapons again,” he said, according to Japan’s Kyodo news service.

Daniel, 55, said earlier that he decided to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki because he needed to know the consequences of his grandfather’s decision as part of his own efforts to help achieve a nuclear-free world.

The U.S. government sent a representative — the American ambassador — to the annual commemoration for the first time two years ago. Ambassador John Roos attended the Hiroshima ceremony on Monday.

Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui said Japan must take a bolder role in leading global disarmament efforts and called on world leaders to come to his city to “contemplate peace.”

He also said the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant struck by a tsunami last year has shown the dangers of nuclear technology, even for peaceful purposes, and urged the government to create a mix of energy sources for Japan that is safe and secure.

While we're at it, I'll (re-)skewer the old chestnut that Koreans thought two atomic bombs were not enough. South Koreans are keenly aware that a large portion of those killed in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were Koreans working there (many of them forcibly so). You can read about one unlucky group here.

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"The unluckiest town on Earth."

I encourage anyone I know who travels to Japan — be they Koreans, Americans, etc. — to be sure to visit two places: Yasukuni Shrine's Yushukan Museum, which lays out with pride and frankness the all-excuses-no-apologies version of modern Japanese history, and Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Museum, which starts out by doing nearly the opposite. The two are like bookends for the contemporary Japanese mindset.

The displays in Hiroshima make the case why the Americans should not have dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of course, but they also make crystal clear that the war of aggression itself was ultimately the fault of Imperial Japan, and that millions of innocent people across Asia suffered or died as a result. 

It is keeping within that spirit that about half a dozen of the displays specifically go into detail about the Koreans who died alongside Japanese on August 6, 1945. As many as twenty percent or more of the victims in Hiroshima and, three days later, in Nagasaki were Koreans. Some were forcibly mobilized there while no small number were there by choice (many Koreans, ironically, had more educational and economic opportunity outside Korea than in it).

It is faulty revisionist fiction to say that most Koreans thought that two atomic bombs dropped on Japan was not enough. Koreans in 1945 knew that Japanese cities were full of Koreans; more bombs would have meant more of their uncles, aunts, siblings, cousins, and even parents dead. The American-made Fat Man and Little Boy may have killed more Koreans in the first half of August 1945 than the Japanese did in the entire four decades of colonial rule.

Many Japanese in Hiroshima are keenly aware that their neighbors across the strait suffered along side them. Japanese media carries stories of those who were affected. It's no surprise, then, that some of the displays in Hiroshima tell of efforts to help the Korean hibakusha (被爆者/피폭자; i.e., "explosion-affected people"). These include efforts by citizens groups in Japan to build the Korean Hibakusha Medical Center in Hapchon-gun County (함천군/陜川郡, hap•ch'ŏn•gun; also spelled Hapcheon-gun).

Hapchon-gun was a farming community in South Kyŏngsang Province that was especially badly affected by the atomic blast. Shipped to Japan to work in munitions factories, thousands were killed at the moment of the blast or in the hours or days afterwards. 

It is the people of Hapchon that are the focus of a moving piece in the Los Angeles Times. The catalyst for the story is the 300 Hapchon residents who will join other hibakusha from South Korea and elsewhere in a lawsuit against the Japanese government asking for wartime reparations. 

The article goes beyond just the legalities of the case, telling the sad story of suffering and prejudice that the atomic survivors have had to endure, both in Japan and in South Korea (the plight of North Korean survivors isn't particularly rosy either). Among them are the man at left, Shin Jin-tae (신지태, shin chin•t'ae), the head of a group of survivors in Hapchon. 

The story goes into too much detail for me to give it justice here, which is why I chose instead to focus on my own take above. This is one of those stories where the good guys are Japanese and South Koreans, but so are the "bad" guys, particularly those in government who have neglected these largely powerless people.