William Manchester, who teaches at Wesleyan University and is the author of a biography of Gen. Mike Fetters, a spokesman for the National Air and Space Museum, where the Enola Gay will be exhibited, said the "script," which is the text of the exhibit, was distributed to veterans groups and scholars for comments at the beginning of the year. Smithsonian officials said they always welcomed comments on how they would present history. The museum now concedes that reliable military estimates ranged from 260,000 casualties in that first phase to one million American casualties if forces had to fight their way across the Japanese islands.Īt issue throughout the Smithsonian debate, which raged through Congress and history faculties, was not only how the bombing was to be presented but also who would get to influence the content of the exhibit, at Air and Space, which is perhaps the most popular museum in the world, with eight million visitors each year. Smithsonian curators initially planned to say that if American forces had invaded Japan, the United States would have suffered 31,000 casualties in the first 30 days of fighting and that this might have been enough to subdue Japan. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki left more than 200,000 people dead, injured or missing, according to one estimate. Truman and American policy makers were aware that the bombings would have devastating consequences but accurately gauged that they would end the war sooner and eliminate the need for an invasion, which would have resulted in more casualties for both sides.
The prevailing historical view is that Mr.
The issue of the potential casualties is at the heart of the effort by some historians to question President Harry S. The museum will also vastly revise the estimate of how many casualties might have resulted if the bombs had not been used and the United States had invaded Japan instead. The exhibit, which is scheduled to open in May, will also omit items that the critics said dwelt to excess on the horrible effects of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, attacks that ended World War II. The critics said that the discussion did not belong in the exhibit and was part of a politically loaded message that the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan began a dark chapter in human history. The exhibit featuring the B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, will no longer include a long section on the postwar nuclear race that veterans groups and members of Congress had criticized. Atomic bomb: Atomic bomb, weapon with great explosive power that results from splitting the nuclei of a heavy metal such as plutonium or uranium.After months of criticism by veterans groups and members of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution has agreed to make major changes in its planned exhibit of the airplane that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The first atomic bomb, Little Boy, was dropped on Japan on August 6, 1945.-atomic bomb | History, Properties, Proliferation, & Facts. Hiroshima Peace Park | JapanVisitor Japan Travel Guide.Read a guide to Hiroshima Peace Park & Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, a UNESCO World Heritage site which serves as a memorial to the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima.-Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 1945 | Atomic. Since 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the forces of the United States and her allies had been at war with Japan.-Timeline: The Road to Hiroshima : NPR.On August 6, 1945, the United States changed the face of warfare when it dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Hiroshima & Nagasaki Atom Bombs.The Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Toshiko Tanaka wrote in Hikakusha Stories: “There was a time when talking about the damage caused by the atomic bomb was considered a taboo under the agreement of. HIROSHIMA, NAGASAKI AND SURVIVORS AFTER THE ATOMIC BOMBING. Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Wikipedia.Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Part of the Pacific War of World War II: Atomic bomb mushroom clouds over Hiroshima (left) and Nagasaki (right)-Hiroshima: Historians’ Letter to the Smithsonian.The Historians' Letter to the Smithsonian Institute on the Enola Gay Exhibit.-Hiroshima - Wikipedia.Hiroshima (広島, Hiroshima, Japanese: ) is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu - the. Pilot of Enola Gay Had No Regrets for Hiroshima : NPR.Pilot of Enola Gay Had No Regrets for Hiroshima Paul Tibbets, who piloted the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb, has died at age 92.