Talk:First Into Nagasaki

Untitled

This should probable go into User:Ann weller tagge's userspace until it is cleaned up. +sj + 21:11, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

some background

This article and the bio on George Weller have been started by his daughter Ann, wikipedian Ann weller tagge. Her work on WP seems motivated in part by the work of his second child Andrew, a son by a companion whom he did not marry, who helped publish a 2006 work including some of his notes and photos. These two were engaged in at least one legal dispute over a bequest, which is used as one of the sources for the Weller bio. Some controversies and comments on this article are direct challenges to claims by Andrew, the editor of the recent work. Others are cynical assessments of original claims in Weller's dispatches. The related research that has been done belongs in an article on the aftermath of [Hiroshima and] Nagasaki... I don't know what it would be called, and we don't have one now, but see Nagasaki. +sj + 08:32, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

removed from article

Ann is adding a good deal of editorializing and original research which should perhaps be removed altogether. I am simply moving bulk text here, but don't really think this is appropriate for Wikipedia talk pages. +sj + 07:43, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

editorial about Weller & personal controversies

George Weller writes that on arriving in Nagasaki "My heart sang with an immense, selfish sense of possession. What happened from now on did not matter much. Even whether it was written did not matter much."[emphasis added] [First into Nagasaki page 12]

Although George Weller was employed by the Chicago Daily News the recently published dispatches datelined Nagasaki fail to mention that the bomb that ended the war was dropped by a crew that included two men from Chicago: Ray Gallagher, assistant flight engineer and Fred Olivi, co-pilot. They are portrayed in a book co-authored by fellow crew member Abe Spitzer, an account which includes eyewitness comparative descriptions of the missions to both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Sweeney crew had on August 9 1945 flown the strike plane Bockscar to Nagasaki and had on August 6 1945 flown the instrument plane The Great Artiste to Hiroshima. Typical of the awed, thoughtful words of eyewitnesses is Chicagoan Gallagher's: "I thought maybe the world had come to an end, and we'd caused it." A correspondent (Robert Shaplen of Newsweek, later a Nieman Fellow at Harvard in the same Class of 1948 with George Weller) flying with a patrol plane to within ten miles of Nagasaki saw the city twelve hours after the bombing and reported "It was like looking over the rim of a volcano in the process of eruption."

Weller datelines a series of dispatches: Omuta. None mentions two significant events which took place at this camp: 1. the party given for Allied officers by Baron Mitsui (owner of the coal mine at which POWs worked); 2. the Prisoner Recovery Team placing under guard Lieutenant Commander Edward Little who was later court-martialled for informing on POWs to the Japanese. See Photographs Australia's War-Behind the Wire "Albert Gonzales was one of many who later testified against Naval Lieutenant E.N. Little, mess officer at Fukuoka 17. 'He'd turn guys in for little things.'...'One guy that worked in the kitchen scraped some burnt rice to carry to his sick buddy. Little turned him in. They put him in a box - you can't stand up or lay down - and let him starve. We had to march by that box every day, until he died.'"

Also, Weller does not provide historical perspective on Japanese treatment of POWs, or even mention the contrast between Japan's practices in World War I and World War II. Japan had during WWI imprisoned thousands of German POWs who had surrendered in China. They were held in more than a dozen different camps in central and southern Japan, close to where many WWII camps were located. Japanese policy in WWI was one of respect and humanity to their captives. The almost idyllic arrangements led not only to amicable relations between prisoners and both guards and civilians, but also to many continuing German influences--political, commercial, and cultural. The first performance in Japan of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (by musicians from Bando Prison Camp) which took place Jun 1 1918 is still commemorated annually in Naruto and is portrayed in the recent film Baruto no Gakuen [Ode to Joy]. The necessity for context is illustrated by examples such as Hap's War.

Additionally, closest to the Nagasaki atom bomb hypocenter were prisoner camps Fukuoka #14 (in the city) and #2 (on island in the harbor) which held hundreds of Dutch POWs who had experienced the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), years of captivity, as well as nuclear war and its aftermath. Their full stories offer an important and unique part of the history of World War II.

Captain Ian Duncan, an Australian medical officer at Omuta has described the role of Baron Mitsui as well as that of Lt. Cdr. Little: "The mine was owned by Baron Mitsui, who tried his utmost to relieve our conditions,[emphasis added] but without much success. Our misery was compounded by two Americans, both subsequently court-martialled and acquitted, one a naval officer and the other a marine WO1. These two worked hand in hand with the Japanese and kept them informed of all the illicit activities in the camp." Weller's reporting, misleadingly incomplete, fails to cover either what Baron Mitsui tried to do for the POWs at Omuta or how certain Americans betrayed their starving fellow prisoners to the Camp Commandant, Lt. Fukuhara, described by Dr. Duncan as a "complete sadist who was ultimately executed."

The United States Marines in the Occupation of Japan Department of the Navy 1969 states that "Atom-bombed Nagasaki, which has one of Japan's finest natural harbors, was chosen as the evacuation port for men imprisoned in Kyushu. Mine-sweeping of the approaches to the port began on 8 September, and the RAMP [Rescued Allied Military Prisoners] evacuation group was able to enter on the 11th." In stories George Weller datelined Nagasaki September 8 and Nagasaki September 9 (six in total), Nagasaki harbor is described, but the presence of the United States Navy is omitted.

In 1945 the experiences of prisoners of war were important to the American public; they still are today, as attested to by the many print and online accounts as well as archival and oral history sources about this topic . No Time for Geishas by Geoffrey 'Pharaoh' Adams of the Royal Army Service Corps is a revealing portrayal of several POW camps (in Singapore, Thailand, Japan, and Manchuria). Far more candid than First into Nagasaki, Lt. Adams' account details many individual personalities, Japanese, British, Dutch, and American, and, notably, the politics of prisoner life, i.e. the "repellent clique" of Americans with a "ruthless talent for self-preservation." which made Omuta, Adams writes, into "the worst, least well-fed, most corrupt and harrowing POW camp in our ever-widening experience."[page 152; page 160]

Prisoner of War recovery teams developed evidentiary materials such as prisoner affidavits, questionnaires, and photographs which were later used by prosecutors of Japanese war criminals.

another removed section, no sources

In accounts published more than twenty years after his visit to Nagasaki, George Weller writes that he pretended to the Japanese to be a U.S. Army Colonel. "I...awarded all members of my command spot promotions,....I became Colonel Weller....Harrison rose from sergeant to major....The three Dutch privates became lieutenants in an inter-Allied working party....We removed all our tabs that were detachable,...I took off my brass shoulder tabs, lettered "War Correspondent," and put them in my back pocket." [First into Nagasaki page 11] "Colonel Weller and his staff were transferred to a villa of their own where we bathed and lived on lobster, rice and sweet little slices of canned tangerine." [First into Nagasaki page 14] Weller writes that he claimed to the Japanese to be a military officer on an official U.S. Government mission sending reports to Washington. Weller writes that he gave his dispatches to a series of unnamed Kempetai [Japanese military police] personnel who were to carry his dispatches to MacArthur's General Headquarters in Tokyo.

No corroboration has been presented of Weller impersonating an officer, or of Weller falsely claiming to Japanese authorities that he was a U.S. Army Colonel on an official U.S. Government mission sending reports to Washington, or of Weller using Kempetai as couriers to carry his dispatches to MacArthur's General Headquarters in Tokyo. No corroboration has been presented of any Kempetai personnel actually delivering any dispatches or succession of dispatches from Weller to MacArthur's General Headquarters in Tokyo. No corroboration has been presented of George Weller's dispatches written in Nagasaki existing in any government archive. United States military censorship procedures/regulations governing logging, review, and retention of reporters' articles and photographs are fully described in the comprehensive and detailed A history of field press censorship in SHAEF World War II. There were requirements of, for example, submission in duplicate, time date stamp, maintenance of log books recording all action (passed, cut, stopped), resulting in a full record and retention of one copy by the military authorities. Similarly, accredited photographers as well as all other persons taking photographs were subject to equally comprehensive requirements.

editorial about photo credits and location of notes

In George Weller's newspaper article "20 Years Later---A Reporter Remembers: First Yank in Nagasaki--After the Bomb" Chicago Daily News August 14 1965, which has been omitted from the book First into Nagasaki, Weller does not claim to have taken any photographs related to Nagasaki or to have submitted any such photos to government censorship.

In First into Nagasaki these two photographs Exhibit A and B described above are credited to George Weller. [copyright page: "All photographs by George Weller, copyright 2005 by Anthony Weller/Polaris Images."] However, in the Chicago Daily News these photographs are not credited to George Weller and are not identified as "Daily News Photo." For Chicago Daily News photographs with Credit line: "Daily News photos" see among others May 27 1946 Headline: 'Marshall Center of Chinese Puzzle' / 'by George Weller. Daily News Foreign Service' / Caption: 'George Weller, Daily News foreign correspondent, talks with Gen. Chow-Pao-chung, deputy commander of the Communist "Democratic Unity" Army at the Changchun airport after his [George Weller's] release from "protective custody." Later Weller and the other American correspondents were flown out of the city.' Thus this 1946 photograph has been credited to "Daily News Photos"[there are 3 photos] whereas the above referenced photos Exhibit A [1945] and Exhibit B [1945 and 1964] are not credited to either George Weller or "Daily News photos."

However, George Weller himself does not describe his dispatches as lost or mislaid, nor does he mention efforts, if any, to trace or track down his Nagasaki writings, in any of the following sources, in all of which he furnishes detail concerning his Nagasaki writings: [emphasis added] 1. newspaper article by George Weller "20 Years Later---A Reporter Remembers: First Yank in Nagasaki--After the Bomb" Chicago Daily News August 14 1965 2. interview of George Weller by Jeffrey Donovan published in Metropolitan fortnightly review January 8 1993 cover story special report title "George Weller: Dateline History" 3. piece authored by George Weller published as "Back in Nagasaki" in Overseas Press Club of America volume How I Got That Story 1967 [pages 209-227] and as "First into Nagasaki" in First Into Nagasaki: the censored eyewitness dispatches on post-atomic Japan and its prisoners of war [pages 3-22] 4. story for Geo Magazine "Confessions of a Temporary Colonel" 1984 excerpt published in First into Nagasaki pages 312-3] 5. interview of George Weller for Radio Bayrak "Magazine North" by Bertil Wedin 1990 [pages 268-269 First Into Nagasaki] 6.1 telephone conversation with George Weller from 1978 quoted in book Shadows of Hiroshima 1983 by Wilfred Burchett [pages 267-268 First Into Nagasaki] 6.2 "dictated over the telephone from his Paris hotel what had happened" [page 116 At the Barricades: Forty Years at the Cutting Edge of History 1981 by Wilfred Burchett]

In fact, in #1 George Weller states: "The original notes and the original stories are buried in a family attic in New England."[emphasis added] As to George Weller's custodial protection of his writings, Weller during his retirement spent several years touring World War II sites in the course of which an incident occurred involving his notebook writings. Weller conducted a protracted lawsuit in New Guinea seeking damages and receiving forty cents from the Court. The newspaper of record of Martha's Vineyard Island in Massachusetts in its Things Insular column printed the following, based on information supplied by George Weller about the entire episode: "George Weller, correspondent in many places afar in war and peace--mostly in war or semi-war--Pulitzer Prize winner, and still a lover of the Vineyard and of Gay Head [town since renamed Aquinnah] where for some years he maintained an outpost, has had what were apparently his strangest adventures yet. He is now 67, though it seems only yesterday that he was the young novelist who had just written Not to Eat, Not for Love, and in Buka Island which is in New Guinea his notebook was confiscated some time back when he was making notes about the coast watchers, unsung heroes of the war. 'Their praises were unsung because the censors wouldn't let us sing them.' Mr. Weller had spent several weeks in research and interviewing when Joseph Hapisiria, a prominent Hahalis figure, overpowered him at the Tsunono Club which overlooks the Buka Passage. Joseph had the help of his supporters. They pinioned and beat Mr. Weller and almost shredded his notebook. Mr. Weller sued for damages, waited nine months at a cost to him of $5,000, and eventually a trial was held in an improvised saloon bar. According to the Melbourne Herald, 'Mr. B.A.Besasparis, R.M., refused to value Mr. Weller's notes at more than its blank pages.' He ordered Hapisiria to pay 40 cents damages. Hapisiria's defense was that Mr. Weller was interviewing John Teosin at the Tsunono or Big Shots Club, and that he had asked Mr. Weller to wait until Teosin was sober. During the trial the improvised courtroom was girdled with barbed wire by the police. 'Mr. Weller had made requests to assign neutral observers to the courtroom to the Chief Minister, Mr. Somare, the High Commissioner of Papua, New Guinea, Mr. Johnson, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Tei Abal, and the American Embassy.' Somare declined, the Australians were non-committal, the Americans did not reply, and neither did Mr. Abal. That's how things are in New Guinea." [Vineyard Gazette March 21 1975] The subject of the coast watchers referred to above as the subject for Weller's notetaking had been definitively presented by the leader of the operation Commander Eric Feldt, O.B.E.[Order of the British Empire]in the authoritative and comprehensive book The Coast Watchers. With a Foreword by General Douglas A. MacArthur editions 1946, 1959 "the story of the men of Ferdinand, and of Ferdinand itself. ["the coast watchers' code name, Ferdinand, was chosen from the child's storybook"] It is the story of a secret and highly unorthodox military unit which, out of the foresight of the Australian Navy and the determination of a handful of enemy-surrounded planters, missionaries, government officers, and miners, grew into the organization that supplied information from the heart of Japanese-occupied tropical islands in the Southwest Pacific, to the two Allied Headquarters of the Pacific Theatre." "They are officially credited with having been a crucial and decisive factor in the Allied victories of Guadalcanal...."[pages 1;2;viii]

asides about Nagasaki and related topics

Kempetai

As for the Kempetai, Nicholas Tarling [University of Auckland, New Zealand], among many historians, has noted that the Kempetai, founded in 1881 as a semi-independent branch of the Japanese Army was notorious for being "a law unto itself" with a "well-earned reputation for ruthlessness" . Responsible for suppressing subversion in Japan, Kempetai operatives were feared and despised within the Japanese Empire for their cruel treatment of prisoners and civilians. United States air crews bailing out over the Japanese home islands had direct experience of the Kempetai who designated them as "special prisoners" destined for trial as "war criminals" and execution. These survivors of bombing missions were subject to treatment even worse than in ordinary Prisoner of War Camps. Lieutenant Fiske Hanley, Flight Engineer on the B-29 The Stork Club Boys shot down on a mine-laying mission over the Shimonoseki Strait separating Kyushu from Honshu, parachuted from his flaming aircraft on the night of March 27 1945 and was taken into Kempetai custody in northern Kyushu. He survived while most "special prisoners" were murdered or died from their burns and injuries; Kempetai policy was to single out air crews for starvation, mistreatment, denial of medical aid and execution. Lt. Hanley was taken by the Kempetai from Kokura (in the far north of Kyushu) to Tokyo, a continuous train journey which took them three days and two nights.[emphasis added] [emphasis added] Nagasaki is situated well to the south of Kokura; therefore for anyone in 1945 travelling between Nagasaki and Tokyo, the one way train journey would require even more than three days and two nights. Lt. Hanley remained in Kempetai custody until Japan was defeated. He has described his experiences in a book that reveals Kempetai methods and the role of the Kempetai in Japanese society: "This was my introduction to the brutal and feared Japanese Kempei Tai who were to make my life a living hell. They were military police who specialized in brutality. They arrested, tortured, interrogated, and murdered enemy and Japanese alike. They were a law unto themselves.[emphasis added] It was obvious they hated Americans. Kempei Tai, sometimes known as 'thought police,' were the Japanese equivalent of Hitler's SS. I learned the hard way that they were more expert at torture than Hitler's Gestapo. They were dreaded by all Japanese, both military and civilian. I was to be a prisoner of these sadistic killers until V-J Day.' United States air crews were beheaded, even after the surrender of Japan.

revenge attacks after Hiroshima and Nagasaki

In addition to this official policy of treating air crews as "war criminals" to be executed (rather than as prisoners of war) Americans who bailed out and were captured describe attacks by groups of Japanese civilians seeking revenge. Lieutenant Walter Ross, Bombardier usually in the B-29 Sad Tomato but on August 8 1945 instead flying the B-29 Nip Clipper bailed out on a mission over Yawata, a steel manufacturing center. His crew drifted on small rafts in the seas between Honshu and Korea; they were then taken aboard a fishing boat after six days. The fishermen treated them kindly but after landing the crew were attacked by hundreds of villagers, before being removed by local military forces to Iwakuni on August 15 1945. Lt. Ross and his crew were saved from execution by Lt. Nobuichi Fukui, a Christian taught by Dartmouth College (Hanover, New Hampshire; USA) missionary Samuel Bartlett in the 1920s. Lt. Fukui not only rescued the American crew but arranged their transport to Hiroshima POW Camp #1. Lt. Fukui took Ross and his crew to the city of Hiroshima, arriving by train on August 16 and remaining until August 19. They were thus shown what no other outside observor or journalist had yet seen, the city first destroyed by an atomic bomb. Ross describes Hiroshima as it looked on August 18 1945, before the arrival of any foreign correspondent: "The place looked like a giant steam roller had rolled over it, like a vacant lot in the U.S. when all the buildings had been torn down and then bulldozed. I was viewing what remained of a city destroyed by an unknown bomb, to me. There was no noise, not even a dog barking, not a sound, only quiet. Silence. There were no people. No fires, except one here and there. Nothing green. Just complete desolation as far as the eye could see in the darkness of night. There was destruction everywhere." Lt. Fukui told them "'You are the first Americans to see the city from ground level.'" [emphasis added] Lt. Ross also was with two Americans (Ralph Neal and Norman Brissette) who were suffering the effects of radiation sickness after their POW camp had been destroyed. They died August 19 1945. Ross is therefore an early eyewitness of the effects of radiation, and reactions of Japanese to the bombing of Hiroshima.

References

"other reports" sectoin

The last part of the article is a set of sourced observations and comments from other reports on the aftermath of Nagasaki from the first days after the bombing. This section doesn't belong here since it's not directly related to the book, but it does belong somewhere in the WWII history of Nagasaki... +sj + 08:44, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I've just removed the section as it's clearly not about this book. I actually doubt that it's usable on Wikipedia, but I'm posting it here as someone may be able to use it. Nick-D (talk) 07:22, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Other reports on the aftermath near Nagasaki

Major General Charles Sweeney, who flew the strike plane which dropped the 10,000 pound "Fat Man" bomb on Nagasaki and had commanded the instrument plane for the Hiroshima bomb mission, later visited Nagasaki accompanied by a party of twenty which included Brigadier General Paul Tibbetts (the commander of the aircraft which dropped the bomb on Hiroshima), describes their visit in early September in the book War's End: An Eyewitness Account of America's Last Atomic Mission 1997 by Major General Charles W. Sweeney and Attorneys James A. & Marion K. Antonucci . "As our C-54 set down, we were the first Americans to arrive in the area of Nagasaki."[page 252] "On the outskirts of Nagasaki, we came upon a small resort inn nestled among ancient trees....We decided to spend the night there before pressing on to Nagasaki....I watched as Paul walked up to the desk, swiveled the register around toward him, and in a clear hand wrote, 'Colonel Paul W. Tibbets USAAF.' I stepped right up after him and signed 'Major Charles W. Sweeney USAAF,' and in turn each of our party registered."[page 254] "The next morning we proceeded to Nagasaki....From a distance, the destroyed armaments plants looked like erector sets a child had twisted and bent and carelessley tossed away. We had driven through the verdant hills to a wasteland. As we descended into the valley, we were the first Americans to set foot in Nagasaki and survey the damage. United States naval personnel were waiting on board vessels anchored in the harbor until scientific survey teams were sent in first to test for radioactivity."[page 255] "Standing amid the rubble, I felt a sadness that so many had died on both sides, not only there but in all the horrible places where the war had been fought....I took no pride or pleasure then, nor do I take any now, in the brutality of war, whether suffered by my people or those of another nation. Every life is precious....My crew had flown to Nagasaki to end the war, not to inflict suffering. There was no sense of joy among us as we walked the streets there."[pages 257-258]

Charles Sweeney and his crew members Kermit Beahan and Don Albury were interviewed about this visit to destroyed Nagasaki and gave this description: "At the medical center on the hill, the main building [Nagasaki Medical Institute Hospital] was still standing, but its interior had been burned out....In one of the operating rooms, a patient lay on the operating table where he had been when the bomb burst. The skeleton waited as though hoping to be repaired. Around the room the remains of doctors and nurses sprawled in the positions they assumed at death. The room was a dreadful tableau, suspended in time by that awful brilliance which had touched everyone in Nagasaki."

Brigadier General Paul Tibbets in The Tibbets Story by Paul W. Tibbets with Clair Stebbins and Harry Franken 1978 Chapter 32 "End of the War" also gives a report on this same visit to Nagasaki. "After the signing of the peace treaty aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo harbor on September 2, scientists from the Manhattan Project were anxious to get into Japan to check the results of our bomb drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They wanted to find out the levels of radiation and determine how long it would linger. What was the most dangerous result of the new weapon: the explosive force, the intense heat, the radiation? We secured the approval of General MacArthur to accompany the occupying forces to Tokyo immediately, and from there to visit the bombed cities. In my security detachment were six Nisei who were born in Hawaii of Japanese parents. Because they spoke the Japanese language fluently, we took them along as interpreters."[page 240] Tibbets notes that the group was accompanied from Tokyo to Nagasaki by Masao Tsuzuki, professor of radiology at Tokyo University medical school. "Flying to Nagasaki, we landed at a naval base [Omura] about 16 miles from the heart of the city." [page 241] Tibbets provides a full description of the group's accommodations, use of special 'invasion currency' as well as the civilian attitudes encountered. Tibbets writes: "...I walked around the city during the three days we spent there...." [page 242] and states that the group were "leaving behind a number of scientists who would probe the rubble and make measurements and study the health of the survivors....All of us were deeply impressed by what we saw at Nagasaki and what we knew had occurred at Hiroshima. Chuck Sweeney went on a lecture tour after returning home, describing the bombings. He sent the profits to an orphanage in Hiroshima." [page 243] "The brief visit left me with considerable respect for the people who had been our enemies such a short time before." [page 242]

In 1985 Sweeney stated: "I love the people, the beauty and the culture of Japan..."

Dr. Johannes Stellingwerff, a Dutch prisoner of war from Camp 14 situated in the city of Nagasaki, twice reports in his detailed chronicle that the first American journalist to visit the city did so on September 9. Dr. Stellingwerff reports that there were a couple of journalists, and that they were with a pair of men in protective clothing measuring radioactivity. Further, Dr Stellingwerff reports that on September 3 1945 three Swiss and one Swedish national, representatives of the Red Cross, arrived in Nagasaki to visit the ex-prisoners of war. "Op 3 september arriveren drie Zwitters en eed Zweed van het Rode Kruis in Nagasaki om de ex-krijgsgevangenen te bezoeken. Pas op 9 september brengen de eerste Amerikaanse journalisten een bezoek aan de stad....De eerste Amerikanen kwamen waarschijnlijk pas op 9 september, t.w. een stel journalisten die meer over de atoombom wilden weten en een paar man in beschermende kleding om de radio-activiteit op te meten." This book is carefully researched and sourced, i.e. based on interviews with other prisoners of war as well as his own eyewitness memories. Dr. Stellingwerff is also the author of (The deep waters of Nagasaki: Dutch-Japanese relations since the founding of Deshima), and was the Director of the Library at the Free University of Amsterdam from 1960-1987.

Doctor Tatsuichiro Akizuki in his book provides the following testimony: "It was probably on 4 September that two foreign officers visited the burnt-out remains of our hospital. I was in the basement when a nurse approached me and said: 'Some American officers want to see you, sir.' 'Well, I'm sure they're not going to kill me,' I said, and went out without any ceremony, dressed as usual in my dirty, dark-blue suit. I came across the two officers, standing in a corner of the ruins. One was an American naval officer, more than six feet tall; he was a slender, handsome man, like a movie-star, with very bright eyes and a prominent nose. The other seemed to be Chinese. He may have been an NCO [Non-Commissioned Officer]....The American was apparently a naval surgeon;....For a while the American walked around the ruined hospital, gazing with sympathy and concern at the survivors who lay here and there in the ruined wards. He seemed to be an eye specialist, for he began eventually to examine the patients' eyes with an opthalmoscope, which could only be used by him putting his face close to that of a patient. Dropping on to his knees, he examined the eyes of those patients whose faces had been burnt and were badly inflamed and suppurating. In the case of those who were unable to sit up, he peered into their retinas, getting down on all fours to do so. At first the wounded were uneasy about his intentions. But soon they began to relax, reassured by his kind but businesslike attitude."[page 131] "From the day the Americans came to Nagasaki, they brought in large quantities of medical equipment and opened a relief station in the ruins of Shinkozen Primary School.... [emphasis added]Before this, at Yamazato Primary School, and then at Ibinokuchi, first-aid stations were also set up. But the one at Shinkozen Primary School was the first full-scale relief hospital....I was much impressed by the good-looking officer who had come on his own initiative to our hospital and inspected the eyes of the injured. He made me aware of what was good in America."[pages 132-133] Dr. Akizuki is also the author of the Foreward to another Japanese physician's eyewitness account, that of Masao Shiotsuki Doctor at Nagasaki: My First Assignment was Mercy Killing 1987 [translated into English].

Michael Gordin of Princeton University in his book states: "As of 5 September, after the first troops and scientists had already begun to examine the two target sites,...." [Nagasaki and Hiroshima][page 55] [emphasis added] Professor of History Gordin's source for this information confirming the date of arrival of Manhattan Project scientists in Nagasaki is "the cable that relayed a report from the Tinian field base to the Pentagon." [see Tinian Files located at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland]

Dr. Marcel Junod of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) writes that General MacArthur provided "fifteen tons of medicaments and hospital material" to be distributed under the control and responsibility of the Red Cross for Hiroshima. Junod also relates that the Red Cross had been authorized to collect for the benefit of Japanese victims of the war, the supplies remaining from what had been parachuted in to prisoner of war camps.

Beginning September 8 Dr. Junod confers at length with Dr. Tsusuki [sic spelling] who had already been to Nagasaki (with Colonel Tibbetts--see above). Dr. Tsusuki led the group of doctors visiting many hospitals filled with atomic bomb patients. Dr. Junod's account includes a medical analysis provided by Dr. Tsusuki, using his own pre-war published radiation studies. Dr. Tsusuki outlines "aplastic anemia with leucopenia" [page 271] and "White corpuscles almost entirely destroyed. Gamma rays. Nothing to be done about it." [page 270] Professor Tsusuki recalling his long ago experiments on rabbits, comments "Yesterday it was rabbits; today it's Japanese." He notes the prevalence of delayed deaths due to the effects of radiation. As a knowledgeable scientist, Tsusuki says to Junod "We must open our minds....We must try to understand everything." [page 269]

Japanese in the academic medical community were well able to understand and study the effects of the atom bombs. Dr. Masao Tsuzuki delivered a lecture to an audience of Hiroshima physicians on the afternoon of September 3 1945. Dr. Tsuzuki, who was an expert on radiation as well as an admiral in the Japanese Navy, "began by discussing the theory behind the development of the bomb and then proceeded to talk about its power and the kind of casualties its detonation would produce. He spoke of the blast effects, the injuries due to heat, and the effects of radiation. Finally, he discussed radiation absorptivity." "Today [September 8 1945] I received several newspapers all of which contained articles on radiation injury. One had been written by Dr. Tsuzuki." The full text of Dr. Hachiya's own manuscript 'Atom Bomb and A-Bomb Disease' is taken to be printed on September 9 1945.

In 1976 Dr. Shields Warren (Professor Emeritus of Pathology, Harvard Medical School; Consulting Pathologist-Cancer Research Institute, New England Deaconess Hospital) wrote a retrospective essay on his experiences soon after the Occupation began: "...our Naval Research team of medical investigators was gathering information as to the results of the bombings of August sixth and August ninth and was helping the Japanese medical teams in their efforts to aid the injured.... Our investigative teams, made up of personnel from the medical department of the Army, the Navy, and the Manhattan Project, arrived in Japan shortly after the formal signing of the Japanese surrender, five weeks after the bombings, and joined efforts with the Japanese medical teams already present.... In 1946 in response to a directive by President Truman the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission was established by the National Academy of Sciences, and in 1948 the National Institute of Health of the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare officially joined in the studies...."

Dr. Kodo Yasuyama, in 1945 Director of the Omura Naval Hospital (treating the largest number of atomic patients in the Nagasaki area) near Nagasaki, has written at length and with many examples of "the praiseworthy conduct of the American surgeons who studied our atomic patients." Dr. Yasuyama notes especially the gift (among other medical supplies) of 3000 vials of penicillin to his hospital in September 1945, which was "the very first sample of the antibiotic to be brought to Japan. It was a wonderful drug, and saved countless Japanese lives which might otherwise have been lost." Dr. Yasuyama singles out a number of American military doctors (officers of the Occupation) for their individual contributions to Japanese medicine (including one who gave his own blood to an atomic patient needing blood type AB). However, Dr. Yasuyama's most extended expressions of gratitude, along with a photograph and quoted correspondence are directed to Major Herbert 'Trader' Horne Jr. of Boston, a friend of George Weller and his wife Charlotte. "Dr. Herbert Horne joined the U.S. Army as a young doctor on the outbreak of the Pacific War and was assigned to the U.S. 2nd Marine Division which was detailed to the Solomon Islands as an expeditionary force. After engaging in the battles of Guadalcanal, Leyte and Okinawa, which brought brilliant victories to the U.S. Army and decisive annihilation to the Japanese Forces, he entered the Nagasaki area with the Headquarters of the Marine Division of the Occupation Forces in the middle of September 1945. He was charged with the restoration of health conditions in the devastated district of Nagasaki and he executed his duty with great energy...." Dr. Horne is seen by Dr. Yasuyama as a particularly strong representative of the Occupation policy of re-establishing Japanese medical practice and medical education. An article of 1952 November 24 Boston Globe reports that "he [Dr. Horne] has been spending much of his spare time in the last five years lecturing in the Greater Boston area and elsewhere on his observations of the Nagasaki bombing. He illustrates his talk with slides, made from some of the 500 photographs he himself took in the area." Obituary September 15 1995 Boston Globe: "After his return to the United States, he got his training in obstetrics and gynecology at Boston Lying-In Hospital, where he became director of the fertility clinic. As a fertility specialist, he said he helped infertile couples produce more than 5,000 'very wanted children.'"

In 1995 Dr. James Yamazaki (first Physician In Charge of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission after stating that: "Teamwork between Japanese and American physicians was our standard practice." writes: "Dr. John Bugher, then deputy director of the AEC's [Atomic Energy Commission] Division of Biology and Medicine, asked me to present the perspective of the work of the ABCC in Nagasaki as seen from my position as physician in charge. I held nothing back. In my presentation, I outlined the extraordinary findings that were just beginning to come from our painstaking work. I reminded the AEC members of the remarkable staff of Japanese doctors who had become part of the ongoing research program. Ultimately, the decision was made to continue the work, all of it, on a permanent basis....I later learned that the strongest advocate for continued research had been General Douglas MacArthur...." [page 81; page 95]

The destruction of hospitals within Nagasaki itself necessitating that atomic patients go to outlying area hospitals such as Omura and Ureshino is recounted in the detailed book by Dr. Martin Kawano .

An excellent survey which covers Japanese language materials in addition to those materials which have been translated into English is "Prompt and utter destruction: the Nagasaki disaster and the initial medical relief" International Review of the Red Cross June 2007 pages 279-303. Author Nobuko Margaret Kosuge worked at the Centre of International Studies, Cambridge University [England], as a visiting scholar, and is Professor in International Relations/History at the Faculty of Law, Yamanashi Gakuin University. Her book Postwar Reconciliation won the 2006 Ishibashi Tanzan Prize.

In The Last Bomb: A U.S. Marine's Memoirs of Nagasaki 2001, author Corporal Milam writes: "At first no one seemed to suffer from radiation poisoning....An organization called the National Association of Atomic Veterans was later to fight the U.S. government for years to help men who suffered from the effects of radiation poisoning. I felt at the time that Lady Luck had spared me, but years later, after medical tests, I discovered that the radiation had made me sterile."[page 23][9]

Haugland of The Associated Press writes: "We were most eager to get to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to study the effects of the atomic bomb. Stormy weather kept our press planes grounded for the first days of the occupation, however; we busied ourselves with other tales. Homer Bigart of the New York Herald-Tribune and I teamed up on several stories [e.g. Hiroshima]. Together, near Japan's motion-picture industrial center at Ofuna, we stumbled upon a prison camp which the Japanese had never registered with the International Red Cross. The men of Ofuna had never been listed as prisoners; they had never been allowed to communicate with the outside world. Survivors of early naval battles, men captured on Corregidor and Bataan, fliers who escaped death in the loss of their superfortresses or carrier aircraft, they were literally the living dead. And the way they greeted us, the first friendly visitors they had seen, was a testimonial of their joy at the prospect of becoming human beings again. Poor starved men, still bearing the scars of brutal treatment, they hugged us, wept, clung to us, while the Japanese guards stood back, nervous and apprehensive. It was the most emotional experience of the occupation for us. They said that Japanese treatment had improved suddenly only within the past few days, and that now they were receiving every attention. While we interviewed the men, solicitous Japanese brought chairs, a writing table, paper, pencils, tea, and later an excellent dinner. 'They can't do enough for us now,' one sailor remarked. When we left, we promised to telephone headquarters and see if transportation couldn't be sent out to them the very next day. 'All we want is to get out away from these walls,' said one....The atomic destruction wrought upon Japan has been described in the press in such detail that it is sufficient here to say only that it is hard to conceive of such utter devastation having been caused in each case by one small bomb....The Nagasaki story Lawrence and I had more or less to ourselves, McGlincy, Lee and the other correspondents having decided to try to get to Korea. They failed, and the next day tried to join us at Nagasaki. Weather blocked them out again; we returned to Atsugi [airport near Tokyo] that night to find them disgruntled over two wasted days." These two war correspondents upon landing at the Nagasaki airfield of Omura were told by a Japanese officer: "'An American P-51 pilot crashed in the bay near here day before yesterday. He was flying low, and suddenly his plane dove into shallow water. Our men swam out right away but found the pilot drowned. His clothing seemed to have caught on something and held him beneath the water. The plane was not badly damaged; we removed it and placed it in the hangar here. The body is in that building over there. It is now two days and we must dispose of it. We should like your permission to cremate.' We splashed over to the house where the body lay. It was now completely dark; our flashlights guided us past mudholes. In the building, in a bare room, two candles flickered at either end of a raised coffin. The long, plain box was swathed in black cloth, with a white cross painted on top. A thin wreath, woven simply of wild flowers, rested upon the cross, there were more flowers in a vase near by. Dimly discernible in the room were two Japanese soldiers with bayoneted rifles, standing stiffly at attention. We stood there awkwardly in the wavering light, heads bared, listening to the rain beat its requiem against the walls....Back in Tokyo, things were becoming uncomfortable. From Chungking came a thunderous wire,...threatening McCrary with court martial....In Yokohama, Gen. Diller ["Killer" Diller: MacArthur's press relations officer] raked McCrary [pre-war job: chief editorial writer New York Daily Mirror] over the coals on...our visit to Hiroshima. ...'You went without permission, you risked the lives of the men with you, and had you encountered trouble with the Japanese, you might have jeopardized the smooth course of the occupation,' the general declared."

Associated Press (Haugland) datelined Nagasaki September 9: New York Times headline: "First Americans View Effect Of Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki" "More than half of this city, comparable in size to San Antonio, Tex., or Providence, R.I., was wiped from the map with one fell explosion from an atomic bomb a month ago, the first Americans into this city of devastation found today. Now it is clear what the War department meant when it said that the second atomic bomb that hit Nagasaki made the first one dropped on Hiroshima obsolete, for the havoc wrought is far greater than that we saw at Hiroshima a few days ago. In this city of 250,000 population, nothing remains of the municipal area three miles long and two miles wide save debris. Eighteen thousand buildings have vanished from the earth and every one of the 32,000 that remain has been damaged. Not even the protecting canyons and hills, offering far more shelter than Hiroshima's plain, could save buildings and people from the desolating blast of atomic energy. Smoke Still Rises It has been a month since that day of destruction, yet smoke still rises from some of the ruins and the smell of death is heavy over part of the city. Nagasaki officials estimated 26,000 persons perished, 40,000 were wounded and claimed that an average of 10 to 20 victims still were dying daily. They expect the death toll to reach 40,000. American scientists are due here shortly from Hiroshima, where they are seeking an answer to the question: Do the effects of released atomic energy linger on, causing more deaths? The Japanese insist they do, but some Americans think this is a bid for sympathy. Lt. Jacob Vink, Bandoeng, Java, medical officer for a prisoner of war camp here, declared that 'although we were very close to the center of the atomic blast only four of our 200 prisoners were killed.' He reported, however, that two others died 20 days after the bombing from peculiar symptoms--jaws locked as in tetinus, throats swelling, skin hemorrhages, high fever and pulse--after their burns had seemed nearly healed. Cites Symptoms Vink said he visited hospitals and found Japanese patients with decreased blood counts, internal bleeding, swollen eyes, falling hair and other symptoms like those from an over-dose of X-ray but expressed belief this was caused at the time of bombing and not from subsequent radioactivity started by the bomb, as the Japanese have claimed. In several cases, he said, the victims seemed quite healthy until a few days ago. Now you can see how conservative were the first reconnaissance reports that one square mile had been destroyed. A mile across the valley from where the bomb exploded wrecked buildings lean drunkenly, pushed out of line by the crushing force that mushroomed out. Over the spot where the bomb exploded there is a patch of bare ground perhaps half a mile square which was swept almost entirely free of any object. Contrary to some reports, the Japanese said the bomb did not hit the ground but exploded at an altitude of about 1,500 feet. Certainly there is no crater. The bomb fell about 11 o'clock in the morning and exploded over the heart of the Nagasaki factory district, less than a mile from the giant Mitsubishi steel works. The tangled, twisted steel ribs of this quarter-mile long factory leans outward, away from the blast force. Gen Shiro Mizogoshi, prefectural police superintendent, said the center of the blast was little more two miles from the water front. Nagasaki is built along two valleys that form a 'V' with about half the city in each valley. Buildings Wiped Out The bomb struck the industrial half, which also contains most of the business buildings, wiping out nearly every store, hotel and office building. There is little left in that valley now, although hundreds of people still thread their way through the debris. In the other valley guarded by the hills, hundreds of buildings were wrecked. The scorching blast killed off great areas of trees on the surrounding wooded hills, which now stand brown and dry. In the lesser damaged half of Nagasaki where the municipal and prefectural offices and the like are located, streetcars and buses run and electric power is available. But the extensive docks were destroyed in previous bombing raids, there is no motor transport, the railroad is unable to meet the supply demands, and food is distributed on a ration basis. Nagasaki was the target of the first incendiary raid of the Pacific Aug. 10, 1944, and almost a year later was hit by the atomic bomb. Mizogoshi said that in a half dozen raids previosly only about 300 Japanese had been killed, and then came the atomic bomb spreading death and destruction. 'According to our measurements,' he said, 'the area completely destroyed is three kilometers from north to south.' Blast damage was suffered, however, by every building within six miles of the center. 'Families were preparing the noon meal. When the houses collapsed one caught afire. Fires raged almost 48 hours.' Nagasaki had an estimated 30,000 Japanese members of the Roman Catholic church, and the Japanese estimated 10,000 of them were killed. Cathedral in Ruins Urekami cathedral, largest in the city, is in ruins with only part of the front entryway standing. A mile away a second and smaller church is gutted. A third church in the other valley was little damaged. The Japanese had imprisoned 200 Australian and Dutch near the steel works, and eight were killed outright. The prisoners declared the Japanese had stored ammunition in Urekami Cathedral. In this valley of death a few families have begun to move back, and are putting up rusted tin shacks where their homes once stood. But most of the survivors just put up signs where they used to live, telling relatives and friends where they can now be found. These signs look like headstones in this cemetery of a valley that once was Nagasaki." [The Associated Press News Research Center, New York City] William Lawrence of the New York Times[not William Laurence, science correspondent of the New York Times "Atomic Bill" who reported on the development of the bomb and then was an eyewitness (flying in the instrument plane) of its drop on Nagasaki] dateline Hiroshima September 3 "I was among the first few foreigners to reach the site of this historic bombing and walked for nearly two hours today through streets where the stench of death still pervades and survivors or relatives of the dead, wearing gauze patches over their mouths, still probe among the ruins for bodies or possessions." "Japanese announced that the death toll had passed 53,000....This accounted for approximately one-third of Hiroshima's pre-war population...." "Japanese doctors told us they were helpless to deal with burns caused by the bomb's great flash or with other physical ailments caused by the bomb. Some said they thought that all who had been in Hiroshima that day would die as a result of the bomb's lingering effects....As a war correspondent in Europe and the Pacific I have never looked upon such scenes of death and destruction....A visit to Hiroshima is an experience to leave one shaken by the terrible, incredible sights....This has been the most unusual press trip this correspondent has ever participated in....He [Dr. Taira, Japanese naval surgeon] said he believed the report that the radioactivity created by the bomb would make sterile those who were not killed....We asked him [the person who telephoned the first report of the atom bomb from Hiroshima to Tokyo]his opinion of the use of this type of bomb. He replied that he believed we had in our possession the ability to destroy every living thing of the civilization established by the gods."

Nagasaki September 9 "In the course of the last two weeks this correspondent has walked through both Hiroshima and Nagasaki and has had a good look at both from the air." "We talked today with Lieut. Jacob Vink [a 1936 graduate of the University of Utrecht Medical School in the Netherlands]....[who] did confirm, however, Japanese reports that some persons who suffered only minor burns or apparently had recovered from more serious burns get a mysterious relapse and weeks after the bombing die from an acute shortage of both white and red blood corpuscles." Vern Haugland was the first civilian to receive the Silver Star, a military decoration, awarded for gallantry. This Associated Press reporter begins and ends his War Correspondent's Trip, 1945 as follows: "...now we're the happiest kind of war correspondents: war correspondents without a war....We hope and pray that never again will there be a need for war correspondents to exist."

Notes on other texts about Nagasaki

The official United States narrative of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki downplayed civilian casualties and dismissed reports of the deadly lingering effects of radiation. Reporters whose dispatches conflicted with the official version of events sanctioned by the U.S. were silenced. However, for example, see New York Times and Chicago Daily News, supra.

Furthermore, censorship by Occupation authorities was ended as of October 6 1945 of foreign correspondents reporting for publications outside Japan including of course the Chicago Daily News. [emphasis added] "One of our best censors, in the Leyte landing, passed a story identifying the cruiser on which General MacArthur had his headquarters. The censor was in a fog when he passed that, what with working twenty-four hours a day in a tiny stateroom on the Apache, with raid warnings coming as frequently as the sound of the ship's bell. Locating the General's floating headquarters was not considered healthy on account of an excess of Jap bombs and kamikaze planes in the air. A Navy ship monitored the outgoing story and all radio traffic in Leyte Gulf ceased while that awful question crackled over command channels: WHO PASSED THAT? The censor, prepared to smile bravely and to ask that the customary blindfold be omitted, was brought to the General's headquarters. General MacArthur listened briefly to the story. 'All right,' he said. 'Forget it.'...Well, it's ancient history now, and this ex-censor is relaxing in a home into which even my small children dare not bring a blue pencil. I have one cherished memory of the job. It was in October 1945, in Tokyo, and the Jap Army had been demobilized to an extent that made it safe for General MacArthur to discontinue censorship. I went down to the censorship office and whispered the glad news to the censors, and we waited happily for the first correspondent to enter with a story. Two minutes later, in came Ralph Teatsworth of United Press. 'Take it away,' we yelled. 'We don't want to see it.' Ralph smiled. He is a nice guy and was always patient with censors. 'I want it censored,' he explained. 'Take it away,' we howled. 'We're out of business. Censorship has just ended!' Ralph looked at us for a few moments without speaking. He was adjusting his ideas to a world in which there were no military press censors. We waited for him to grin, to laugh, to shriek, to taste the joys of freedom. Ralph didn't. 'Then, who,' he said mournfully, 'is going to catch my mistakes?' All right, tell me he didn't mean it. Somebody is always trying to make censors unhappy. Nobody loves them." ["Nobody Loves a Censor" Infantry Journal March 1946 page 20. Written by Colonel Richard Powell, MacArthur's chief censor, later the author of The Philadelphian, False Colors, Shell Game, and Whom the Gods Would Destroy.]

Prior to this date, descriptions of the atom bombed cities had been published widely outside Japan.

Since this date, numerous writers have published on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as George Weller himself could have done. [For example Nine Who Survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Personal Experiences of Nine Men Who Lived Through Both Atomic Bombings Robert Trumbull (New York Times) 1957; "Letter from Nagasaki" E.J. Kahn The New Yorker July 29 1961; A Reporter at Large: "From MacArthur to Miki" Robert Shaplen The New Yorker August 4 1975].

Moreover, First into Nagasaki includes a lengthy quotation [VII The Weller Dispatches by Anthony Weller pages 246-7] from George Weller's dispatch on radiation with the statement that: "But the newspaper never ran it." In fact, nearly all of this atomic bomb material is included in a page one August 31 1945 story.

Additionally, the Chicago Daily News also printed another dispatch by George Weller which reports the medical effects of the bomb datelined "Nagasaki, Japan, Sept. 24.--(Delayed)--" on September 29 1945. The report which contains particularized and technical medical detail, is based on information from American Navy doctors' fieldwork in Nagasaki and describes their findings as well as the medicines being provided from American supplies to Japanese doctors. This reporting on the effects of radiation on platelets, bone marrow and other symptoms of exposure was not censored. The version of this article printed by the Chicago Daily News does not contain the following published in the book version: 1. "...--as first revealed in the Chicago Daily News' original series from here a fortnight ago." 2. "...at the time of the writer's first series of dispatches...."[First into Nagasaki page 133; N.B.: this article is omitted from the enumeration of Weller dispatches printed in 1945. See page 291 VII The Weller Dispatches by Anthony Weller]

John S. Knight, Editor and Publisher of the Chicago Daily News was during World War II the London representative for United States censorship authorities, liaison with British censorship which was headed by Rear-Admiral George P. Thomson C.B., C.B.E.; Chief Press Censor. Knight witnessed the signing (MacArthur's first pen went to General "Skinny" Wainwright) of the surrender of the Japanese on board the Missouri September 2 1945 following a visit of several weeks with a group of American newspaper executives as guests of Secretary of the Navy Forrestall and Secretary of War Stimson "to observe military operations at first hand to familiarize themselves with the war's background." [New York Times '7 News Executives End Pacific Tour' September 6 1945 page 3] During this period, with access to high-ranking personages, Knight wrote articles and commentary ("THE PUBLISHER'S NOTEBOOK") printed in the Chicago Daily News. The Chicago Daily News also printed joint byline Knight-McGaffin. CDN Foreign Service correspondent William McGaffin later covered Occupation Japan plus Far East (Korea/China). [10] [knightfoundation.org assets: 2billion$$ "Knight Foundation's signature work is its Journalism Program....We define journalism excellence as the fair, accurate, contextual pursuit of truth."] Frank Knox, previous publisher of the CDN was during World War II Secretary of the Navy. Wallace Deuel, CDN Foreign Service correspondent, was during World War II "a special assistant to William J. 'Wild Bill' Donovan, OSS director."[Office of Strategic Services, predecessor of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)][Chicago Daily News August 31 1945] Before the war Deuel had been based in Washington covering the extradition of Samuel Insull, and from 1932-41 stationed in Rome and then Berlin. Immediately upon his return from Europe the Chicago Daily News reprinted his booklet Hitler and Nazi Germany UNCENSORED which contained articles originally run in the paper under extra-large heavy bold all capitals headline: "UNCENSORED STORY OF NAZIS" [emphasis added] and also "Deuel's answers to many of the questions submitted by readers of his 11 uncensored articles."[Foreward] Pages 46-60 are responses to "the great flood of letters,...." Beginning Saturday September 1 1945 Deuel wrote a series of articles published in the CDN under the headline "Here's the inside story" and introduced with "The most secret bureau ever operated by the U.S. government is the Office of Strategic Services, which combines Army, Navy, State Department and presidential reports sent in by men and women frequently working behind the enemy lines. This world-wide, highly complex organization of secret service, spying if you will, may disappear. In this article, the first of five, Mr. Deuel draws the veil from the fight being made to preserve it." After the end of World War II Deuel was at the Chicago Daily News and then the St. Louis Post-Dispatch before returning to the OSS's successor organization, the CIA.

During World War II and the post-war Occupation each correspondent signed a standard accreditation document agreeing to provisos including those regarding the legal status of the correspondent. These accreditation agreements applied equally to all members of the press corps. [See example at Legal Documents in Haugland Papers; Montana Archives] Accreditation to MacArthur's Command as well as to Japan during the Occupation was withdrawn if a correspondent was known or suspected to be working for the OSS [Office of Strategic Services] (later the CIA). As John Roderick (Associated Press [AP] and OSS) points out, "China was the best it [OSS] could do, and Kunming was its [OSS'] headquarters,...." Kunming was where George Weller was stationed before and after his September 1945 visit to Japan.

The Chicago Daily News, in addition to photographs, used its own Staff Artists' work to illustrate George Weller's 11 part Hellship series. The Chicago Daily News did not hesitate to include Weller's portrayal of the most shocking aspects, such as prisoners stealing water from each other, drinking the blood of other prisoners, and killing fellow prisoners. The series was heralded with a banner across the top of page one above the name of the newspaper 'Exclusive: 49-Day Death Cruise to Japan.' The first article runs under a story headline comparing the hellship to the "Black Hole of Calcutta" quotes a U.S. officer: "The first fights...[among prisoners]began when men began to pass out." A companion story printed the same day (November 9 1945) focuses on one Death Cruise participant in particular, the "One-Man-Army" Wermuth, who testifies that "many of the men wasted away to 75 and 80 pounds." The second article (November 10 1945) is headlined "Yanks Go Mad in Agony Ship" and describes the deliberate murder of "Denny" by other prisoners, from fear of Japanese reaction to Denny's noise. Chicago Daily News artists provided a picture of the ship's dark hold above a caption describing how Americans "suffocate in dark recesses....Men were driven mad by the heat, darkness and fetid air...." The text had explained that in the darkness because of identical buckets, "a man could not tell what was being passed to him, food or excrement." Chapter 3 is headlined "Hell Ship Cluttered By Yanks' Bodies some slain by their fellows; American planes attack vessel" and narrates how "If they could not have water, they would have blood to drink." The accompanying Staff Artist drawings for this and Chapter 4 depict the U.S. planes attacking the ship. 4 also supplies a diagram of the ship showing bomb hit site, and a map outlining the ship's route along the Philippines coastline is provided complementing one in Chapter 1 tracing the entire voyage. Chapters 5 and 6 and 7 feature detailed drawings of the shore area where the POWs fled from U.S. strafing and the tennis court prison. The text describes amputation without anesthesia (he later dies), dysentery. The Staff Artist pictures are of one faucet with a trickle of water at the tennis court for hundreds of men, and Americans used as living shields sitting on the tops of train cars. It was Christmas and the prisoners are "thinking of Christmas at home" as they were again put on ships for Japan. Chapter 8 is a sea-going stage of the journey in which "a man died almost every hour." When they reach Taiwan they are again victims of friendly fire. Chapter 9's illustration shows prisoners hauling the dead ashore. Chapter 10 contains a catalogue of desperate men trading their last and most valued possessions for food. Chapter 11 makes a comparison to the Armenian genocide, tells of the death of a priest who had led the men in prayer, ("Father Cummings, who saved so many lives smuggling food in") and notes a suicide. There is also: "It was not all heroism. Not only was clothing stolen from the dying, but water from the healthy and well." The Chicago Daily News not only included the most extreme and terrible aspects of the hellships, but showed at the close of the final installment that surviving prisoners knew why they had survived. One is quoted "telling his story to an American rescue party after Japan surrendered, listened in silence as his hearers said what they thought of the Japs. 'Yes, the Japs are as bad as you say. But we, the 300 or so living, we are devils, too. If we had not been devils, we could not have survived. When you speak of the good and the heroic, don't talk about us. The generous men, the unselfish men, are the men we left behind.' (The end.)" Far from obscuring, minimizing, or censoring these facts and this survivor's unromantic assessment of the American prisoners, the Chicago Daily News was willing to publish, and to illustrate.

The Chicago Daily News Foreign Service Director Carroll Binder himself lost a son [Carroll Jr. "Ted"]. One Crowded Hour: The Saga of an American Boy 1946 by Jenane Patterson Binder concludes "...the month that brought the beginning of peace to Europe, carried the end of hope to me. What a great transition it is,...to give up dreams of a lifetime...!...At first nothing made sense; that you were dead, that I was alive—....No matter how I felt, I couldn't let you down....you have gone, and with you the "Teds" of aching hearts throughout the world. Grief, which knows no national barriers, must weld a lasting bond before Ivan, Cheng, Cecil—and Jack,...can say, "It was worth it. We wanted it this way." Only then can the Teds and Pats of tomorrow come into their own."[pages 170-1]

On September 8, 1945, Weller wrote, "The atomic bomb may be classified as a weapon capable of being used indiscriminately, but its use in Nagasaki was selective and proper and as merciful as such a gigantic force could be expected to be.[First into Nagasaki page 29] Later that same day when he visited Nagasaki hospitals, and saw civilians, including women and children, lying on the floor, with their hair falling out and covered in red blotches, one month after the nuclear bombing, he grasped that the people were in terrible shape and called what they were experiencing "Disease X." In 1945, most people outside the nuclear industry did not understand the enduring effects of radiation disease. Greg Mitchell, the editor of Editor and Publisher, trade magazine of the newspaper industry, said in a radio interview that Weller's later accounts varied greatly from the first sentence of his first story about the atomic bombing. But all of his stories on the effects of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki were suppressed and did not turn up for 60 years, when they were found after his death by his son in an Italian villa where George Weller had lived.

Mitchell's view on atomic weapons is characterized as follows: "the destructive power of nuclear weapons invalidates their use under any circumstances." [Columbia Guide to Hiroshima and the Bomb 2007 page 113]

The Nagasaki stories along with POW accounts and other writings (some previously published) are in First Into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War.

The opening line of George Weller's 1965 essay "Back in Nagasaki" is: "Whenever I see the word "Nagasaki," a vision arises of the city when I entered it on September 6, 1945, as the first free westerner to do so after the end of the war." In recalling his 1945 visit Weller omits the fact that he had revisited Japan fifteen years afterwards. Weller's revisiting Japan is omitted from the entire book First into Nagasaki.

References