As for the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the American justification is that they saved millions of GI lives, with sadism, racism, worship of technology and the desire to browbeat the Russkies playing no significant part. As the shocking-and-awesome proof of American supremacy, the atomic bomb had to be used! You can buy a T-shirt with a mushroom cloud, "MADE IN AMERICA / TESTED IN JAPAN."
Many will say the Japanese had it coming after their Bombing of Chongqing, Rape of Nanking, Bataan Death March and Unit 731, etc. For over a thousand years, Japan only invaded a neighboring country once (Korea in 1592-98), but after being bullied by whites, it tried to outwhite whites by unleashing the worst barbarity against other Asians. It is as if in doing so, Japanese proved they weren't really yellow.
The chief planner of the firebombing of Tokyo and 64 other Japanese cities was General Curtis LeMay, "There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore." "Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time [...] I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal." LeMay's most famous statement, though, concerns the Vietnam War, "My solution to the problem would be to tell [the North Vietnamese] frankly that they've got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going to bomb them back into the Stone Ages." In any case, if entire cities must be destroyed to atone for war crimes, then Washington D.C., New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia, etc., should have been vaporized yesterday.
In the heart of Berlin is a vast and, frankly, hideously clunky Holocaust Memorial, while in the middle of Tokyo is the sublimely beautiful Yasukuni Shrine. Built in 1869, it's a memorial to Japanese war dead, dating to the Boshin War. After walking half a kilometer and passing through three enormous torii, I finally arrived at its magnificent main building. Exploring its grounds, I stumbled upon monuments to the Kamikaze pilot, war widow, military horse, dog and even carrier pigeon. Elegantly sculpted, these honor any Japanese being that had suffered on behalf of the nation. Like most people, I never made it to the Chinreisha, a shrine dedicated to war dead of all nations, but it is tiny and tucked away, an afterthought erected only in 1965.
At Ueno Zoo, there's a memorial to animals deliberately killed in anticipation of American bombing, but nothing to indicate a B-29 pilot had been displayed, naked, in a tiger cage. Ray "Hap" Halloran remembers:
Over dinner, I said to novelist Hideo Furukawa, "Everything here is so exact. The Japanese are so attentive to each detail, and that's why just about everything here is so beautiful. This kind of care and love, I've also seen in Germany and Italy."
Hideo smiled, "They're all Fascist countries!"
"Fascism is only a blip in their history, and it's seven decades ago! Why should Germany and Japan be singled out as particularly evil? Do Americans ever apologize? They're killing people right now, as we're talking!"
Lafcadio Hearn wrote in 1895, "A Japanese city is still, as it was ten centuries ago, little more than a wilderness of wooden sheds,--picturesque, indeed, as paper lanterns are, but scarcely less frail. And there is no great stir and noise anywhere,--no heavy traffic, no booming and rumbling, no furious haste. In Tokyo itself you may enjoy, if you wish, the peace of a country village."
Even with 16 million people and skyscrapers everywhere, Tokyo is still tranquil, thanks to its cozy side streets, with their intimate bars and restaurants, and because its people are always mindful of others. No one jostles, or hogs a sidewalk or seat. Unlike in urban America, there's no public display of aggression, and the very rare homeless don't pester anyone for anything. Street crime almost never occurs, and only foreigners yak loudly on cellphones.
Signs on sidewalks, "No Smoking While Walking!" Venturing out, my wife observed, "No one eats while walking either! There is no activity on the sidewalk, and there's not a trash can anywhere. They are so uptight!"
Seeing nearly everyone on the subway staring at his cellphone, my wife whispered to me, "They're even lonelier than Americans."
In Yaesu, I stared up at a multi-storied karaoke business. In a purple, red and green lit room, a man appeared to be singing by himself. I kept waiting in vain for another person to appear.
Always nearby, there's a pachinko parlor where men, mostly, spend hours feeding steel balls into childishly colorful machines. Although the nominal aim is to win prizes, trifling mostly, the real attraction is oblivion. In Tokyo-Ga, Wim Wenders comments:
Many will say the Japanese had it coming after their Bombing of Chongqing, Rape of Nanking, Bataan Death March and Unit 731, etc. For over a thousand years, Japan only invaded a neighboring country once (Korea in 1592-98), but after being bullied by whites, it tried to outwhite whites by unleashing the worst barbarity against other Asians. It is as if in doing so, Japanese proved they weren't really yellow.
The chief planner of the firebombing of Tokyo and 64 other Japanese cities was General Curtis LeMay, "There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore." "Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time [...] I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal." LeMay's most famous statement, though, concerns the Vietnam War, "My solution to the problem would be to tell [the North Vietnamese] frankly that they've got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going to bomb them back into the Stone Ages." In any case, if entire cities must be destroyed to atone for war crimes, then Washington D.C., New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia, etc., should have been vaporized yesterday.
In the heart of Berlin is a vast and, frankly, hideously clunky Holocaust Memorial, while in the middle of Tokyo is the sublimely beautiful Yasukuni Shrine. Built in 1869, it's a memorial to Japanese war dead, dating to the Boshin War. After walking half a kilometer and passing through three enormous torii, I finally arrived at its magnificent main building. Exploring its grounds, I stumbled upon monuments to the Kamikaze pilot, war widow, military horse, dog and even carrier pigeon. Elegantly sculpted, these honor any Japanese being that had suffered on behalf of the nation. Like most people, I never made it to the Chinreisha, a shrine dedicated to war dead of all nations, but it is tiny and tucked away, an afterthought erected only in 1965.
Almost miraculously, our prisoner of war camp survived a massive fire raid by B-29s on nearby Tokyo that took place on March 10,1945. Much of Tokyo burned to the ground that night, with more than 100,000 people killed, more even than those killed at either Nagasaki or Hiroshima after an atomic bomb was dropped on these two cities.
The wooden stable--where I was held captive in a steel cage--was surrounded by a huge fire that night. Again, I don't know how I endured the heat or the smoke. After I survived the firebombing, I was removed from my own cage and put on exhibit (naked) in a tiger cage at the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo, where Japanese civilians, mostly women, looked upon me in sad silence.
Over dinner, I said to novelist Hideo Furukawa, "Everything here is so exact. The Japanese are so attentive to each detail, and that's why just about everything here is so beautiful. This kind of care and love, I've also seen in Germany and Italy."
Hideo smiled, "They're all Fascist countries!"
"Fascism is only a blip in their history, and it's seven decades ago! Why should Germany and Japan be singled out as particularly evil? Do Americans ever apologize? They're killing people right now, as we're talking!"
Lafcadio Hearn wrote in 1895, "A Japanese city is still, as it was ten centuries ago, little more than a wilderness of wooden sheds,--picturesque, indeed, as paper lanterns are, but scarcely less frail. And there is no great stir and noise anywhere,--no heavy traffic, no booming and rumbling, no furious haste. In Tokyo itself you may enjoy, if you wish, the peace of a country village."
Even with 16 million people and skyscrapers everywhere, Tokyo is still tranquil, thanks to its cozy side streets, with their intimate bars and restaurants, and because its people are always mindful of others. No one jostles, or hogs a sidewalk or seat. Unlike in urban America, there's no public display of aggression, and the very rare homeless don't pester anyone for anything. Street crime almost never occurs, and only foreigners yak loudly on cellphones.
Signs on sidewalks, "No Smoking While Walking!" Venturing out, my wife observed, "No one eats while walking either! There is no activity on the sidewalk, and there's not a trash can anywhere. They are so uptight!"
Seeing nearly everyone on the subway staring at his cellphone, my wife whispered to me, "They're even lonelier than Americans."
In Yaesu, I stared up at a multi-storied karaoke business. In a purple, red and green lit room, a man appeared to be singing by himself. I kept waiting in vain for another person to appear.
Always nearby, there's a pachinko parlor where men, mostly, spend hours feeding steel balls into childishly colorful machines. Although the nominal aim is to win prizes, trifling mostly, the real attraction is oblivion. In Tokyo-Ga, Wim Wenders comments:
This game induces a kind of hypnosis, a strange feeling of happiness. Winning is hardly important, but time passes. You lose touch with yourself for a while, and merge with the machine, and perhaps you forget what you always wanted to forget. This game first appeared after the lost war, when the Japanese people had a national trauma to forget.
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