Charles W. Sweeney (1919–2004)

Nice book. Never a dull moment for 6-7 hours of reading.
Though I felt disappointed that author didn't vocalize about the tens of thousands of Japanese civilians that got evaporated put of existence with Atomic Bomb blasts. With all the "we prayed to god" instances, author seemed to have disconnected himself emotionally with the direct mortal consequences of his actions. In contrast, in Mahabharata, Krishna talks about the plight of people who were gonna die in the war, calling them a unwanted but necessary sacrifice for the greater good. I guess these American bombers had none of those human traits.… (altro)

Sweeney flew on a support aircraft at the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, and piloted the aircraft that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki. At one level this is a combined biography and an account of the dropping of those bombs. At another level, though, it is an argument submitted to the judgement of history. Did anything justify the use of those nuclear bombs? Sweeney, to his credit, doesn't dodge the question.

He puts the case for their use, and lambastes the sensitivity of those in the US who in 1995 were (in his assessment) ashamed of what the US had done. He makes it clear he understood the consequences of what he was doing at the time and questioned what they were doing - and still came up with the answer that it was the least awful alternative at the time. It was clear then, and still with hindsight, that the invasion of Japan that would otherwise have occurred within the next couple of months would have resulted in the death of millions of soldiers and civilians. He makes the telling point that if the US sometimes went too far in regretting what it had done, or not enough, the greater moral failure - with far more dangerous consequences - was Japan's continuing refusal to acknowledge the terrible atrocities it committed during the war.

In the end this book won't persuade or dissuade, but it is a book that anyone who want to understand and form a view should read. And read it alongside John Hersey's 'Hiroshima' - possibly the greatest and most influential news article ever written, and also with John Toland's 'The Rising Sun', the Pullitzer Prize winning account of the war from the Japanese perspective.… (altro)