Smithsonian Exhibit of the Enola Gay

Re “Ugly History Hides in Plain Sight,” by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin (Commentary, Dec. 17), on the display of the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: The critics, who consistently ignore the fact that they are allowed to research the matter and state their opinions freely, just as consistently ignore the fact that the Japanese government still refuses to acknowledge the crimes that the Japanese committed during the war. They consistently ignore the fact that Japan still refuses to open records that might help to learn what happened to our brave men after they were captured. The consensus is that most were murdered, usually executed by having their heads chopped off with a sword.

As a combat veteran of the Pacific theater, where a considerable number of my shipmates remain forever lost to their families, I challenge these people who complain about our policies to look at the policies of the Japanese government. I have spent years trying to learn more about the eventual fate of men who are missing and may have been captured, but the Japanese government refuses to open the records. The use of the atom bombs in 1945 very likely enabled me to be alive to write this letter today. God bless Harry Truman and the Enola Gay!

Thomas W. McCarthy

Chino Hills

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I wonder whether Bird, Sherwin and others who share their views think about the probability of their being around today if their fathers and grandfathers had participated in an invasion of Japan. The 140,000 deaths that occurred in Hiroshima would have paled by comparison with the deaths by both sides that occurred on Iwo Jima and Okinawa and would have occurred if we had invaded Japan.

It is probably true that the Japanese were seeking peace before the bomb was dropped. But how close were they to accepting our terms, which were crystal clear: unconditional surrender? Remember it took a second bomb to finally convince them to agree to our terms. As one who would have been there, I am indebted to Harry Truman for making the right decision.

Arnold Pellman

Orange

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Bird and Sherwin’s commentary was a revelation; “This controversy was initiated in 1945 by conservatives such as Time magazine Publisher Henry Luce, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, New York Times military correspondent Hanson Baldwin and David Lawrence, editor of U.S. News, who wrote in October 1945: ‘Competent testimony exists to prove that Japan was seeking to surrender many weeks before the atomic bomb came.’ ” I was a child and did not know of this distinguished company until I read this commentary. My father (Col. M.A. Snyder), chief liaison officer on Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s staff, told me that MacArthur was distressed to receive word from President Truman that the atomic bomb would be used, adding that MacArthur had received communiques from his field officers that the Japanese were ready to surrender.

This terrible act should be seen for what it was, as painful as it is for younger and uninformed “patriotic Americans” to admit. The Smithsonian’s display of the Enola Gay without a formal prelude of heartfelt repentance is as deceitful as it is coarse and places a dark shadow on the revered museum.

Americans should not demand that other nations tell the truth, the whole truth, to their children until we allow our own children, when they are able, to taste the bitterness of our own history.

Mary Gribble

San Marino