Dropping The Big One

Next Saturday will mark the 60th anniversary of the flight of the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped a single bomb on Hiroshima that had, all by itself, the destructive power of 2,000 fully loaded B-29's dropping conventional explosives. Three days later a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, and shortly thereafter the Japanese surrendered.

In the ensuing 60 years there have been several attempts by revisionist historians to claim that the atomic bombings were unnecessary and that Japan would have collapsed on its own had we just waited them out. Richard B. Frank writes today in the Weekly Standard that we now have the secret intercepts that indicate just how wrong this revisionist approach is, and that the fanaticism of the Japanese military leaders was driving them to an all-out Armageddon-type battle for the home islands. You need to read the entire article to get the appropriate context, but I'll reprint the summary paragraph here:

There are a good many more points that now extend our understanding beyond the debates of 1995. But it is clear that all three of the critics' central premises are wrong. The Japanese did not see their situation as catastrophically hopeless. They were not seeking to surrender, but pursuing a negotiated end to the war that preserved the old order in Japan, not just a figurehead emperor. Finally, thanks to radio intelligence, American leaders, far from knowing that peace was at hand, understood--as one analytical piece in the "Magic" Far East Summary stated in July 1945, after a review of both the military and diplomatic intercepts--that "until the Japanese leaders realize that an invasion can not be repelled, there is little likelihood that they will accept any peace terms satisfactory to the Allies." This cannot be improved upon as a succinct and accurate summary of the military and diplomatic realities of the summer of 1945.

I was recently at the Smithsonian Institution where the Enola Gay appears in a very understated display, given the historical nature of that aircraft. When it first went on display, there was a significant controversy over the way it and WWII were represented by historians. You can read Charles Krauthammer's August 1994 piece in the Washington Post here which details the distortion of history which was proposed for the original display.

The display today consists pretty much of just the airplane, crowded in with many other historical aircraft in the main hall, and a small sign on the bridge overlooking the cockpit. Maybe that's the way it should be.