Vets Speak Out About WWII Remembrances
I am appalled at the revisionist spin of the commentary, “V-E Day -- a Soiled Victory” (May 8). The writer gives the impression that he believes the Allies could have won without the assistance of Stalin and without bombing Germany’s industrial cities. Two ridiculous propositions. Niall Ferguson is naive, and his historical critique is a waste. I pray that people of his persuasion are never at the helm of our country in a time of national crisis.
Michael Baskin
Covina
I feel certain this will be only one of many letters from veterans questioning Ferguson’s conclusion that World War II was a “tainted triumph” for those who fought to save the world from German and Japanese barbarism.
As I joined my fellow Marines on the island of Guam preparing for an invasion of the Japanese mainland, I had little time to contemplate the moral niceties of saturation bombing and other devastating weapons of modern-day warfare. I did have time to fervently hope that the use of such weapons might make it unnecessary to hit Japanese beaches. Thank God it worked out that way. Not then and not now do I consider the Allied victory a tainted one.
George E. Miller
Los Osos
Ferguson’s commentary, like the articles and letters criticizing and defending the bombing of Hiroshima, touches upon an irony. Few would question that our campaign to defeat the homicidal Nazi regime was moral and just. Undoubtedly, the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo was, in part, motivated by a desire to achieve swift victory and to save the lives of American servicemen. But there was also a less noble temptation, the desire by scientists and American military planners to test the capacity of the technological terror they created in order to demonstrate to the world a military capacity that should never again be challenged.
Such was the case in April 1945 with the first use of napalm in the European theater, when the Americans bombed a straggling contingent of the German army in the French town of Royan. Howard Zinn, now a progressive historian but then a bombardier on the mission, noted in a recent “Democracy Now!” interview: “I did what most soldiers do, unthinkingly, mechanically, thinking we are on the right side, and they were on the wrong side, and therefore we can do whatever we want.... I was at 30,000 feet, six miles high, couldn’t hear the screaming, couldn’t see the blood. And this is modern warfare.” That is the problem with war. Even when in the service of a just cause, it can lead us to do terrible things.
Ernest A. Canning
Thousand Oaks
Please note that those of us who served in the Pacific during World War II knew the war did not end until mid-August, when the Japanese emperor surrendered. This week’s celebrations should refer to the end of the battle in Europe, not the end of that long and bloody war itself.
Muriel M. Shishkoff
Huntington Beach