Fear of U.S. explained

Jeff Sims’ letter, “A-bomb spared millions,” requires a response. A million or more Allied and tens of millions of Japanese would be killed? Speculation, not facts. How could anyone know what would happen?

We were already fire-bombing Japanese cities, killing countless people in their paper homes. But we couldn’t wait for surrender. Our A-bomb incinerated 140,000 people and wounded 75,000 more, some maimed for life. Forty-one square miles demolished. So many bodies floating in the rivers that water couldn’t be seen. And, before Japan had time to surrender, we dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki three days later, slaughtering another 54,000, plus countless more humans crippled and radiated.

Read John Hersey’s “Hiroshima,” the only account released by an American publisher. Photos, film, documentation had been confiscated and censored almost immediately after the Japanese surrender, keeping citizens uninformed.

Many of my friends and relatives were serving in the military at that time, but I couldn’t condone our country’s actions. To me it was unconscionable, unnecessary overkill, which unleashed unspeakable horrors upon humanity. No wonder other countries want to defend themselves against us. I’ve heard that Einstein, upon learning of Hiroshima, declared, “I wish I had become a shoemaker, like my father.”

Bernadine Van Thiel

Spokane