Tomorrow is Pearl
Harbor Remembrance day, which is a day to remember
and honor the 2,403 victims who were killed in the attack on Pearl
Harbor on December 7, 1941.
I was too young to remember the beginning of
The United States
involvement in WW2, but, I do have some memory of the war years, and I
definitely remember when it ended.
I have heard it
said that just about everybody can remember where they were and what they were
doing when they heard the news that Kennedy was killed…I honestly have no idea
where I was when I heard that news, but I do remember where I was and what I
was doing when I heard WW2 had ended, and I was only 6 years old at the
time.
For me, those
were the “good old days” because at that age I was oblivious to just how bad
things really were. Looking back, I now
realize that this was actually the “bad old days”, not just for our family, but
for the entire world. I mention this
because this August is the 70th anniversary of ending of that war.
During that
summer in 1945, I lived with my family in Stillwater Oklahoma.
We lived about a block and a half south of the fire station. If I remember correctly, the address was 1016 South Lewis Street.
It was a very old house, and it was also quite small, and it had an
outhouse in the back yard instead of an indoor bathroom. (Does that sound like “white privilege” to
you?) The house is no longer there, it was torn down years ago and you can no
longer tell there was ever even a house there.
Every time the
siren sounded at the fire station, my brother and I would run out to the street
to watch the fire truck go by. With no
TV, or video games, a fire truck going by with siren blowing and lights
flashing, was the highlight of the day.
So on one summer day in 1945 we heard the siren and ran out to the
street and waited, but the fire truck never came. Eventually, our Mom came out and explained
that the fire truck wasn’t coming. The
siren was sounding celebrating the news that WW2 had just ended.
My brother and
I were too young to fully appreciate the news at that time, but in the weeks
and months and years to come, we learned to appreciate just how important that
day really was.
As everyone
knows, or should know, the war ended because the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan.
The first was on August 6, 1945, when an American B-29 bomber dropped
the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed
80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure.
Three days
later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000
people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito then announced his
country’s unconditional surrender on August 15, citing the devastating power of
“a new and most cruel bomb.”
In recent
years, I have heard many American citizens, as well as citizens of other
countries, criticizing America’s decision to use such inhumane
tactics. They seem to be convinced that
the war was almost over and the use of nukes was unnecessary. The truth is, the war was not almost over,
and using the bombs not only saved untold thousands of American lives, it quite
possibly saved many Japanese lives as well.
Perhaps these
people are unaware that the Japanese were guilty of many war crimes far greater
than anything most Americans can even imagine.
Most of which, I have been aware of for many years, but I recently read
about a very disturbing incident I had never before heard about. You can read about it here: http://universalfreepress.Com/Japanese-dissected-us-bomber-crew-while-they-were-still-alive-in-wwii-photos/
Just in case the article is
no longer on that site, here are a couple more links.
It explains how downed American airmen were subjected to
horrific medical experiments and were actually dissected while they were still
alive during World War Two.
Also, I found
this on the Internet: http://WWW.consciouslyenlightened.Com/graphic-video-amputated-limbs-organs-removed-frozen-body-parts-no-anesthetics-unit-731/
I recently watched a
very good movie entitled “unbroken”.
It’s a true story about American POWs during WW2. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it. It shows a little of what the POWs had to
endure, but these are just a few examples.
Many American POW’s were used as slave labor, and some were
beheaded. Many American POWs starved to
death. You can learn much more if you
Google “Japanese war crimes world war two”.
I realize all these
events occurred a very long time ago, and I’m not trying to create resentment,
or bring back bad memories for anyone, but before people call President Truman
a murderer and a war criminal, they should know all the facts.
I sometimes feel
like our children today are being taught history with a very biased slant which
tends to depict America as always being the “bad guys”. I’m not saying America has never made mistakes. I’m just saying that the manner in which we
brought an end to WW2 was not one on them.
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