Fly over itand you notice a slash across its north end of uninhabited bush, a long thinline that looks like an overgrown dirt runway. If you didn't know what it was,you wouldn't give it a second glance out your airplane window.
On theground, you see the runway isn't dirt but tarmac and crushed limestone,abandoned with weeds sticking out of it. Yet this is arguably the mosthistorical airstrip on earth. This is where World War II was won. This isRunway Able:
On July 24,1944, 30,000USMarines landed onthe beaches ofTinian.... Eight dayslater, over 8,000 of the 8,800 (from the aerial photo, they hadnowhere to hide.)Japanese soldiers on the islandwere dead (vs. 328 Marines), and four months later the Seabees had built thebusiest airfield of WWII - dubbed North Field - enabling B-29 Superfortressesto launch air attacks on the Philippines, Okinawa, and mainland Japan.
Late in theafternoon of August 5, 1945, a B-29 was manoeuvred over a bomb loading pit,then after lengthy preparations, taxied to the east end of North Field's mainrunway, Runway Able, and at 2:45am in the early morning darkness of August 6,took off.
The B-29was piloted by Col. Paul Tibbets of theUSArmy Air Force, whohad named the plane after his mother,Enola Gay.The crew named the bomb they were carrying LittleBoy.6 hours later at 8:15am,Japantime, the firstatomic bomb was dropped onHiroshima.
Three dayslater, in the pre-dawn hours of August 9, a B-29 namedBockscar(a pun on"boxcar" after its flight commander Capt. Fred Bock), piloted byMajor Charles Sweeney took off from Runway Able. Finding its primary target ofKokura obscured by clouds, Sweeney proceeded to the secondary target ofNagasaki, over which, at 11:01am, bombardier Kermit Beahan released the atomicbomb dubbedFatMan.
Here is"Atomic Bomb Pit #1" whereLittle Boywas loaded ontoEnola Gay:
There arepictures displayed in the pit, now glass-enclosed. This one showsLittleBoy beinghoistedintoEnolaGay's bomb bay. A
And here onthe other side of ramp is "Atomic Bomb Pit #2" whereFat Manwas loaded ontoBockscar.
Thecommemorative plaque records that 16 hours after the nuking ofNagasaki, "On August10, 1945 at 0300, the Japanese Emperor, without his cabinet's consent, decidedto end the Pacific War."
Take a goodlook at these pictures. This is where World War II ended with total victory ofAmericaoverJapan. I was there allalone. There were no other visitors and no one lives anywhere near for miles.Visiting the Bomb Pits, walking along deserted Runway Able in solitude, was amoment of extraordinarily powerful solemnity.
It was amoment of deep reflection. Most people, when they think ofHiroshimaandNagasaki, reflect on thenumbers of lives killed in the nuclear blasts - at least 70,000 and 50,000respectively. Being here caused me to reflect on the number of livessaved- howmany more Japanese and Americans would have died in a continuation of the warhad the nukes not been dropped.
Yet thatwas not all. It's not just that the nukes obviated theUSinvasion ofJapan, OperationDownfall, that would have caused upwards of a million American and Japanesedeaths or more. It's thatnukingHiroshimaandNagasakiwere ofextraordinary humanitarian benefit to the nation and people ofJapan.
Let's go tothis cliff on the nearbyislandofSaipanto learn why:
Saipan isless than a mile north ofTinian.... The monthbefore the Marines took Tinian, on June 15, 1944, 71,000 Marines landed onSaipan.... They faced31,000 Japanese soldiers determined not to surrender.
Japanhad colonizedSaipanafter World War Iand turned the island into a giant sugar cane plantation. By the time of theMarine invasion, in addition to the 31,000 entrenched soldiers, some 25,000Japanese settlers were living on Saipan, plus thousands more Okinawans,Koreans, and native islanders brutalized as slaves to cut the sugar cane.
There werealso one or two thousand Korean "comfort women" (kanjiin Japanese),abducted young women fromJapan'scolony ofKoreatoservice the Japanese soldiers as sex slaves. (See The Comfort Women:Japan's BrutalRegime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War, by George Hicks.)
Within a weekof their landing, the Marines set up a civilian prisoner encampment thatquickly attracted a couple thousand Japanese and others wantingUSfood andprotection. When word of this reached Emperor Hirohito - who contrary to themyth was in full charge of the war- he became alarmed that radio interviews ofthe well-treated prisoners broadcast to Japan would subvert his people's willto fight.
Asmeticulously documented by historian Herbert Bix in "Hirohito and theMaking of ModernJapan", the Emperorissued an order for all Japanese civilians onSaipanto commit suicide.The order included the promise that, although the civilians were of low caste,their suicide would grant them a status in heaven equal to those honouredsoldiers who died in combat for their Emperor.
And that iswhy the precipice in the picture above is known as Suicide Cliff, off whichover 20,000 Japanese civilians jumped to their deaths to comply with theirfascist emperor's desire - mothers flinging their babies off the cliff first orin their arms as they jumped.
Anyonereluctant or refused, such as the Okinawan or Korean slaves, were shoved off atgunpoint by the Jap soldiers. Then the soldiers themselves proceeded to hurlthemselves into the ocean to drown off a sea cliff afterwards called BanzaiCliff. Of the 31,000 Japanese soldiers onSaipan, the Marineskilled 25,000, 5,000 jumped off Banzai Cliff, and only the remaining thousandwere taken prisoner.
The extentof this demented fanaticism is very hard for any civilized mind to fathom- especiallywhen it is devoted not to anything noble but barbarian evil instead. The vastbrutalities inflicted by the Japanese on their conquered and colonized peoplesofChina,Korea, thePhilippines, and throughouttheir "GreaterEastAsiaCo-ProsperitySphere" was a hideously depraved horror.
And theywere willing to fight to the death to defend it. So they had to be nuked. Theonly way to put an end to the Japanese barbarian horror was unimaginablycolossal destruction against which they had no defence whatever. NukingJapanwas not a matter ofjustice, revenge, or it getting what it deserved. It was the only way to endthe Japanese dementia.
And itworked - for the Japanese. They stopped being barbarians and started beingcivilized. They achieved more prosperity- and peace- than they ever knew, orcould have achieved had they continued fighting and not been nuked. Theshockof theirgetting nuked is responsible.
We achievedthis because we were determined to achievevictory.Victory without apologies. Despite perennial liberal demands we do so,Americaand its governmenthas never apologized for nukingJapan...Hopefully,Americanever will.
Oh, yes...GuinnesslistsSaipanas having the best,most equitable, weather in the world. And the beaches? Well, take a look:
. Althoughwe do not forget, history fades into the shadows of our mind and we seldomthink about it. But, we should remember and we should be constantly reminded ofour history, where we came from and how we got here. Kind of interesting.
