Killing the Rising Sun

by Bill O'Reilly

  2. Niigata was ultimately removed from the list of bombing sites. Its location in northwest Honshu was too far from Tinian, allowing little room for error in terms of fuel for the B-29s.

  3. Only Tibbets, Parsons, and bombardier Major Thomas W. Ferebee are allowed to know that the bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima is atomic.

  4. Tibbets’s speech is paraphrased, taken from an illegal diary of the meeting kept by radio operator Sergeant Abe Spitzer.

  Chapter Twenty

  1. The seldom-used name “Enola” is the word “alone” spelled in reverse. It is believed that Enola Gay Tibbets’s parents were inspired to give her the name by the 1867 Laura Preston novel In Bonds, in which Enola is the name of a special place to a main character. When Enola Gay Tibbets later learned that her name was painted on the aircraft that dropped the Hiroshima bomb, her face displayed no visible emotion. However, her stomach would often jiggle when something made her happy. “You should have seen the old gal’s belly jiggle on that one,” Tibbets’s father told his son of the moment it was announced on the radio.

  2. The Oneida are an Iroquois tribe living in upstate New York who gave their name to counties in New York, Wisconsin, and Idaho as well as to the ship. The USS Oneida from World War II was actually the third ship bearing that moniker, the first being a brig of war in the War of 1812. The second was a storied sloop of war that served gallantly in the American Civil War from 1862 to 1865 and sank off the coast of Yokohama, Japan, in 1870 when she collided with a British steamer. Seven crew members of the ship’s second incarnation were awarded the Medal of Honor for their courageous actions.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  1. Akira’s painting will become one of the iconic images of the Hiroshima bombing, frequently to be seen on display at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

  2. Eyewitness Testimonies: Appeals from the A-bomb Survivors, Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation. Decades after the blast, at the age of forty-five, Akiko was diagnosed with a tumor on her spine, which was successfully removed. In 2012, at the age of eighty-six, she was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a blood anomaly that is often a precursor to leukemia. Both of these conditions are common in survivors of the atomic bomb. At the age of eighty-nine, Akiko currently carries out the duties of the head priest’s wife at the Hoonji Temple in the Asa Kita ward of Hiroshima.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  1. Quoted from a postwar interview with journalist Norman Cousins later published in the book The Pathology of Power.

  2. The editorial was written by journalist Hanson Baldwin, military editor of the New York Times.

  3. The United States News would later become the U.S. News & World Report.

  4. Article 22 of the Hague Convention reads, “The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited.”

  5. It is difficult to get exact statistics regarding Hiroshima casualties. The transient nature of the military population and the number of civilians evacuated to the country in the days leading up to the bombing skew precise population numbers, but it is estimated that Hiroshima’s population was 255,000 at the time of the bombing. More than 50,000 people are thought to have died instantly, and another 70,000 were injured. One Japanese study later showed that burns accounted for approximately 60 percent of all deaths, falling buildings and flying debris made up 30 percent, and gamma radiation accounted for 10 percent. By November 1945, three months after the blast, the estimated death toll had climbed to 130,000 due to lingering infection from burns and radiation poisoning. Seven decades later, the residual effects of the atomic bomb—such as cataracts and leukemia and several other forms of cancer—still plague the people of Hiroshima. Statistics at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum put the death toll at 200,000.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  1. The Soviet Union’s invasion of Manchuria was the last epic battle of the Second World War. While often overlooked, the clash occurred on a scale comparable to the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944; 1.5 million Russian soldiers faced off against 713,724 Japanese troops. The Soviets routed the Japanese within a matter of weeks, losing an estimated 12,000 men killed and 24,000 men wounded. Japanese casualties were 22,000 killed and another 20,000 wounded, but just as debilitating was a historical rarity: mass desertion in the ranks. As in so many Russian conquests throughout Europe, rape and looting in Manchuria quickly followed. The joy many Chinese felt upon being liberated from their Japanese captors was soon replaced by fear and loathing for the Soviets.

  2. The radioactivity caused by the fission of uranium most severely affected those within two miles of the blast center, causing vomiting, diarrhea, hair loss, damage to the bone marrow (which affects the body’s ability to produce blood), and large bumps on the skin known as keloids. The lack of white blood cells in victims led to sepsis and infection. Delayed effects included the abnormally high mortality rate among fetuses subjected to high levels of radiation and high levels of mental impairment for those in utero who survived birth. The radiation poisoning was caused not just by the initial blast but also by the highly radioactive black rain that began falling twenty minutes later. Even those who visited Hiroshima’s hypocenter in the weeks after the explosion were subjected to extremely high levels of radiation and began displaying symptoms. Most victims (90 percent) of radiation poisoning die within the first sixty days after exposure; those who live more than five months are still subject to a higher rate of cancer mortality than the general population.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  1. The Mae West was a personal flotation device worn on the outside of the aircrew uniform. In the event of a forced water landing, the vest could be inflated by blowing into a small tube to provide buoyancy. Made of highly visible rubber-coated yellow fabric, the Mae West was nicknamed for the buxom film actress because the wearer appeared to assume her physical endowment.

  2. Laurence was born in 1888 in Lithuania, then emigrated to America in 1905. He graduated from Harvard Law School but chose to pursue a career as a journalist. In September 1940, he wrote an article about the potential of atomic explosion as a means of waging war. Laurence was so prescient in his observations that General Leslie Groves later insisted that anyone who checked the article out of a library be investigated. Thanks to this expertise, the Times and the Manhattan Project formed an alliance that would allow Laurence to witness the Trinity explosion and the launch of the Enola Gay from Tinian, and ultimately to fly over Nagasaki as an observer on the second atomic bombing run.

  3. Nagasaki’s population at the time of the attack was estimated to be more than 200,000. Eight weeks after the blast, the total number of dead stood at 140,000. One hundred sixty-five individuals were “double survivors”—nijyuu hibakusha, or “twice bombed person”—having been present in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the time of their bombing. In addition to Japanese citizens, some 20,000 Korean slave laborers were killed in Hiroshima and an estimated 2,000 more in Nagasaki. The hibakusha (those men and women who survived the atomic bombs) and their relatives are still discriminated against in Japan, as many believe that radiation sickness is hereditary and possibly contagious.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  1. Those present at the meeting were Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, scientists Vannevar Bush and James B. Conant, Special Assistant to Secretary of War George L. Harrison, and Manhattan Project supervisor Major General Leslie Groves.

  2. The sign bearing Truman’s famous motto, “The Buck Stops Here,” was not given to the president until October 2, 1945, and so would not have been on his desk during World War II. The reverse side of that sign, seen only by Truman, featured the words “I’m from Missouri.” The phrase “the buck stops here” derives from poker as played on the American frontier: a buckhorn knife was passed around the table from player to player depending upon whose turn it was to deal. If a player chose not to take his turn as dealer, he could “pass the buck.”

  3. Planning for the Pearl Harbor attack was already und
er way when General Hideki Tojo became Japan’s prime minister in 1940, but it was Tojo who ultimately led the country into war. In addition to advocating the abuse and even death of prisoners of war, Tojo instituted new pro-military curricula for Japanese schools, ordered the sterilization of individuals deemed to be mentally incompetent, and aggressively pursued the war effort on several fronts at the same time—fighting the Chinese in China, the British and Australians in Burma and on the Malay Peninsula, and the Americans throughout the western Pacific. He was extraordinarily popular in the early days of the war, but as the tide turned and US forces began creeping ever closer to Japan, it was Tojo who bore the brunt of the criticism. The fall of Saipan in June 1944 put American bombers in range of Tokyo for the first time, forcing Tojo to resign.

  4. This stretch of train tracks was also known as the “Death Railway” for the many POWs and civilian laborers who died during its construction, which began in October 1942 and lasted a year. The 250-mile length of track ran from Ban Pong, Thailand, to Thanbyuzayat, Burma. Allied forces successfully bombed the railway’s pivotal bridge, destroying three sections; this span became legendary in 1957 with the release of the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai, starring Alec Guinness and William Holden. Loosely based on actual events, it has long been considered one of the great motion pictures of all time. The Bridge on the River Kwai went on to win seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

  5. There are various figures pertaining to the number of American prisoners of war in Japanese hands. This reputable statistic is provided by the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. It should be noted that the Japanese maintained roughly five hundred POW camps in Asia, stretching from Burma all the way across the Pacific to the Philippines. The first prisoner captured by the Japanese was a British pilot, Flight Lieutenant William Bowden, captured on December 8, 1941, after crashing in the Gulf of Siam. He survived the war. The last POW to be captured was another Royal Air Force pilot, Sublieutenant Fred Hockley, shot down over Japan nine hours after Japan surrendered. He was executed. The officers responsible were tried for war crimes in 1947, found guilty, and hanged.

  6. Many of Unit 731’s barbaric medical procedures were committed against the Chinese, but a medical research facility was also maintained in Tokyo. Excavation of the remains of those buried outside the facility did not begin until 2011, thanks to the Japanese government’s ongoing denial that the war crimes of Unit 731 ever took place. The United States is complicit in this silence, having granted Unit 731 commander General Shiro Ishii and many of his subordinates immunity from prosecution in exchange for the data harvested from their experiments on human subjects. This agreement was personally approved by General Douglas MacArthur.

  7. Hirohito’s speech was transcribed by Prime Minister Suzuki’s chief cabinet secretary, Sakomizu Hisatsune, who knew in advance that the emperor would speak.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  1. Despite President Truman’s discontinuation of the Lend-Lease assistance to the Soviet Union, the Soviets asked for, and received, five hundred Sherman tanks, almost a million tons of dry goods, and more than two hundred thousand tons of fuel. All this for the Manchurian invasion about which the United States was largely kept uninformed.

  2. Pu Yi ascended to the Chinese throne at the age of two, only to endure a tumultuous time of change that saw him gain and lose his title several times over the course of his life. This man who knew a life of luxury in his youth, with concubines and forty-course dinners, eventually lost power altogether and died in Beijing at the age of sixty-one while working as a gardener. His life story was the subject of the 1987 Bernardo Bertolucci film The Last Emperor, which won nine Academy Awards.

  3. After a devastating electrical fire on Christmas Eve, 1929, which severely damaged the West Wing, President Herbert Hoover ordered that air-conditioning be installed in the West Wing and in the White House living quarters. Two years earlier, the Carrier Corporation had installed air-conditioning in the House of Representatives. These simple technological additions changed the way business was done in the nation’s capital, which had previously emptied out in August due to extreme heat and humidity.

  4. The Soviet Union remained in Manchuria after the war to bolster the spread of global communism, using the region as a base of operations for Chinese revolutionary Mao Tse-tung. The Soviets began to withdraw in 1946. Mao’s ultimate triumph in the Chinese Civil War of 1946–1950 would have been a triumph for Stalin were it not for the fact that Mao’s popularity and control of China soon rendered him strong enough to oust the Soviets. The Russians eventually dismantled entire factories and relocated them to the Soviet Union. That which they could not transport they simply destroyed, not wishing China to become a stronger commercial nation.

  5. Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai translates to Japan Broadcasting Corporation.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  1. General Patton was openly critical of America’s Soviet allies, believing the United States would be better served by continuing World War II until the Soviets were beaten back within their own borders. Ultimately, Patton’s comments and actions, which favored his former Nazi enemies over the Soviets, led to his being removed from command of Third Army. He would die just before Christmas in 1945, after a fatal traffic collision on the day before he was due to return home to America and resign his commission. Some believe the accident was a revenge murder staged by the Soviets, a theory advanced in the book Killing Patton.

  2. Former British prime minister Winston Churchill will write of being shocked by MacArthur’s arrival in Japan, surrounded not by a superior military fighting force but by a handful of senior officers without so much as a pistol among them: “Of all the amazing deeds in the war, I regard General MacArthur’s personal landing at Atsugi as the bravest of the lot.”

  3. The plane struck the Missouri on the starboard side, just below the main deck. While cleaning up the wreckage, the crew of the Missouri came across the body of the kamikaze pilot, nineteen-year-old Setsuo Ishino. Believing that the young pilot had been carrying out his military obligation to the best of his ability, Captain William M. Callaghan of the Missouri ordered that he be given a burial at sea with full military honors. The body was draped in a Japanese flag sewn by members of the Missouri’s crew. After a funeral service and rifle volley, the crew saluted as Ishino’s body was dropped into the deep.

  4. The flag stored on the Missouri flew over the US Capitol when Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941.

  5. None of the Japanese wanted to be there, fearing that the humiliation would stick to them personally. They were: Major General Yatsuji Nagai (army), Katsuo Okazaki (foreign ministry), Rear Admiral Sadatoshi Tomioka (navy), Toshikazu Kase (foreign ministry), Lieutenant General Shuichi Miyazaki (army), Rear Admiral Ichiro Yokoyama (navy), Saburo Ota (foreign ministry), Captain Katsuo Shiba (navy), Colonel Kaziyi Sugita (army), Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, and Chief of the Army General Staff General Yoshijiro Umezu.

  6. Other ceremonial pens were distributed to the United States Military Academy at West Point; the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland; and to his wife, Jean. MacArthur used the latter pen to write the “Arthur,” in his last name, knowing she would treasure it because he shared the name with their son. There is a notable gap between “Mac” and “Arthur” in the general’s signature on the surrender documents.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  1. Wilpers will be awarded the Bronze Star for his actions at Tojo’s farmhouse on September 11, 1945. However, the army will lose his paperwork, so he will not physically receive the honor until he is ninety years old.

  2. There were no survivors, making it the worst peacetime aviation disaster in history.

  3. Maroon is the color reserved for imperial vehicles. Hirohito has long had a passion for the Rolls-Royce, and this is one of many he has owned.

  4. “Dai ichi” means “number one” in Japanese. In addition to its proximity to the Imperial Palace and the fact that it is one o
f the few prominent buildings in Tokyo still standing after the American bombings, this linguistic symbolism is a prime reason Douglas MacArthur chose this insurance office as the epicenter of America’s almighty control of Japanese life and culture.

  5. Twenty-five of the twenty-eight men charged as Class A war criminals in the Tokyo trials were convicted. In addition, Allied prosecutors will hold tribunals against Japanese generals, diplomatic officials, soldiers, and camp guards at several other locations throughout Asia and the Pacific. The British were particularly vigilant in prosecuting those men who killed so many thousands in the construction of the Burma-Siam Railway. In addition to the 25 defendants convicted at the Tokyo trials, another 4,300 Japanese soldiers were found guilty of rape, abuse of POWs, and murder. One thousand of these men will be sentenced to death. The rest will be given life imprisonment, although many of these sentences will be commuted.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  1. The Soviet Union successfully exploded its first atomic weapon on August 29, 1949.