"My Hitch in Hell" by Lester I. Tenney (1995)

Today marks 68 years since the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. It is only fitting to post this review today in honor of all those who suffered at the hands of the Japanese during the war. You can debate it all you want to, but the bomb did shorten the war and save lives. And when you read this book you will realize that it was probably the only way to avoid taking Japan one house at a time.

Some people lament that the Japanese had already made overtures to sue for peace just before the bomb was dropped, and therefore the bomb was unnecessary. But, that line of reasoning falls flat when you take into consideration that the Japanese were also negotiating “peacefully” with us while their ships were steaming towards Pearl Harbor.

From the very first line of the foreword by Admiral James Stockdale; Professor Emeritus at Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and a former POW himself; this book rings with all the truth and horror of war and the human consequences it engenders. It is the story of a boy, gone off to fight for his country, who returns home to live a full and productive life. It’s not that his life was perfect; after the horrors which he had witnessed nothing could ever be perfect again; the real story here is how he coped with that burden, both at the time he was experiencing it, as well as in its aftermath.

Enlisting just after the first peacetime draft in American history, the author joined the National Guard in 1940, over a year before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was determined to do his one year hitch and get it out of the way. He had no idea what the next 5 years held in store for him.

Stationed in the Philippine Islands at Clark Field, he was just in time for the infamous “Bataan Death March” to Camp O’Donnell, a distance of about 100 miles, which was the first prison camp in which he was interred. The brutality of the Japanese towards their prisoners began immediately, and with such unimagined cruelty, that it stretches the imagination to understand it.

Knowing he would not survive long in this environment, Mr. Tenney decided to set goals for himself in order to survive the war. He would focus on the present and only the immediate future in order to make it home someday. He had secretly married his girlfriend just before shipping out, and for the entire war, his wife did not know where he was. For the first few years she had no idea if he was dead or alive.

Escaping from the first prison camp was easier than one would expect, as the Japanese had no numbering system in place at the beginning. After his initial escape he served with some natives operating with the few Americans who had managed to form a guerilla group, fighting the Japanese in their own way, inflicting damage wherever they could, and in any way possible. Eventually, he was turned in by a local youngster who was starving and exchanged Mr. Tenney’s location for some rice. To his credit, the author holds the boy blameless for his actions, which would have severe consequences for himself.

After a second stint in Camp O’Donnell, the author is moved to a prison camp further inland, the infamous Camp Cabanatuan. There was no real hope of escaping this camp, as by now the Japanese had in place a number system, whereby the 5 men before you and the 5 men behind you would be killed if you did escape. So, in essence, escaping meant that you were condemning 9 other men to death for your decision.

After some time there he was among the prisoners who were shipped to Japan aboard freighters which were not identified as carrying POW’s. This meant that our submarines would sink the ships, not knowing that their own fellow countrymen were aboard. Japan had never signed the Geneva Convention and, as such, was not required to mark those ships. That was the excuse they used after the war to justify the barbaric treatment afforded our POW’s.

In Japan the author was assigned to work in the coal mines about 35 miles from Nagasaki, the site of the second atomic bomb drop in August 1945. The prisoners were actually able to see the mushroom cloud from their location. But before that day, they had to go through 3 and a half years of hell working in the coal mines with no proper equipment and no medical treatment to speak of.

The description of life in the POW barracks reads like James Clavell’s “King Rat”, with the prisoners trading and bargaining anything they could in order to survive. They even managed to put on a show, a sort of Ziegfeld Follies, to amuse themselves and keep sane. The author’s description of these shows and the help he received from some of the men who were homosexual is very touching, as he was initially disgusted by these men, but was able to overcome that feeling while working with them. This experience changed his entire view about homosexuality, making him realize that we are all human beings, something which is easy to forget when you are being treated like an animal.

Some of the prisoners would actually pay someone to break their hand in order to get a few days off from the coal minds. There were “breakers” in camp who, for some rice or cigarettes, would break whatever bone you wanted. These men were not considered to be evil in any way. They were merely performing a job for a set fee. Faking skin ulcers on the leg was another way to avoid work, and the author expertly describes how this is accomplished. I have stored this knowledge away for future use should it ever become necessary.

A breathtaking narrative of almost 5 years in hell, this book is a valuable record of what it was like to be interred by the Japanese during the war. It is also the story of one man’s journey into the darkness, and how the lessons he learned from his parents about integrity and hope, gave him the will to survive.

After his return home in 1945 the book really becomes almost heartbreaking, as the author faces the many struggles to regain the life he once knew, the least of which was to get back with his wife Laura. His ordeal in the Japanese coal mines fades into the past as he focuses on regaining his health, and his wife, as well as to find a place in the world for which he had endured so much. I am happy to report that, unsurprisingly, Mr. Tenney went on to achieve those goals, and much more with his life.

This is an extraordinary record of the experiences which thousands of men went through at the hands of the Japanese during the war. It is also the remarkable story of one man’s will to survive it.

"Shockwave - Countdown to Hiroshima" by Stephen Walker (2005)

Leo Szilard, a Hungarian-Jewish immigrant, sat stopped at a London traffic signal one day in 1933. It was there, as the light changed, that he first conceived of the idea for a nuclear bomb. He was horrified by the thought of the destruction it could cause to life as we know it.

  

That thought, just as with an atomic explosion, had a chain reaction which, by 1939, would have Germany trying to build an atomic weapon of her own, and Mr. Szilard lobbying the United States to build one first. After all, there was no doubt that Hitler would use it should he attain it first; while we could always make one and choose not to. At least, that was the plan.

This whole extraordinary set of events were the beginnings of what eventually became the Cold War, with its policy of Mutually Assured Destruction, which would last for decades. The shadow of that policy; along with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980’s; has been that there are now more nuclear weapons in the hands of more governments than could possibly be deemed “healthy” for the world’s future survival. But all that came later. First came “Trinity”; the test of the first atomic bomb; in the desert of New Mexico on July 16, 1945.

It seemed of little consequence at the time that the weapon designed for use against the Nazi’s in Europe, would now be used to end the war in the Pacific, which began, for the United States, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The Japanese had been at war in the Pacific since 1933 and the invasion of China and the Rape of Nanking, while the Germans had been taking over countries in Europe beginning in 1938. It was only after they invaded Poland in September of 1939 that the English went to war with her. We would not join in that effort until after the Pearl Harbor attack.

This is the most informative book I have ever read on the first atomic bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima on August 5, 1945. Where other books have focused either on the effects of the bomb on the ground; such as “Hiroshima” by John Hersey; or the myriad of books which talk of the morality of the event; and even the workings of the Manhattan Project; this book delves into the beginnings of the search for the technology to build the bomb, as well as the training of the men who would drop it. 

The book also covers the negotiations which the Japanese were seeking to hold with Russia as a way of suing for peace and an end to the war. The stalling by the Soviets, while pretending that they had no knowledge of the bomb’s existence, would be instrumental in the success of the Americans to end the war in the Pacific. It would also trigger a nuclear arms race which would color our lives forever after

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The author also explores the origins of the 509^th Bomber Group and their unusual makeup, which included a few felons with false names. They were given their criminal files and a match after the mission was over.

For all of the planning of the bomb’s construction and use, nobody was quite sure if it would work. On the other hand, there were some among the group of scientists, including Leo Szilard, who saw the possibility of igniting the entire atmosphere of the planet, killing us all. Up until the very last moment these men would lobby the President to discontinue the plan to use the bomb. The story of how their message was delayed, before it was relayed, will raise questions in your own mind as to the purpose of using the bomb at all. There was still the fear that the Germans would get one first.

Ironically, the Germans had all but given up on the development of a nuclear bomb by the close of the war. And the Russians had no interest in one unless we proved one could be made to work. And of course, both the United States and the Soviets would benefit greatly from the acquisition of the German rocket scientists at the close of the war with Germany in May 1945. At that point we were too close to finishing work on the Manhattan Project to stop.

The author has spared no subject in this comprehensive history of the final countdown to the actual dropping of the bomb, and an examination of the effects of that mission in the first 24 hours after it was accomplished. The book also examines the lives of the men who first conceived of, and then made happen, the single most important event which would change the nature of warfare in general, and the geo-politics that surround it.

With the countdown towards the final assembly and shipment of the bomb, part of which encompasses the story of the USS Indianapolis on its voyage to Tinian, the book also recounts the Japanese effort to start peace talks through the Soviets. At the same time as she was talking peace, Japan was also preparing to turn Japan into a veritable fortress which would cost almost a million American lives to invade. This was the same duplicitous process which she had used to buy time for the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. However, by this point, there was no turning back on the plan to use the bomb.

As a result of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there has not been a declared war since the end of World War Two. It’s almost as if declared wars, rather than police actions, could possibly escalate into full blown nuclear confrontation between “super-powers.” This was exactly what happened in Vietnam; the United States and the Soviet Union fought a war by proxy; using the Vietnamese as pawns in a game which can only have one ending; with both sides looking to avoid a direct confrontation with the other.

If you think you have learned all that you need to know about the history of the world’s first atomic bomb, then this book will quickly disabuse you of that notion, while providing the reader a ringside seat to one of the most important developments of the 20^th century. 

"The Untold History of the United States" by Michael Moore (2012)

I don’t give many bad reviews. As a matter of fact, in the 4 and a half years in which I have been doing this, there have only been three books which I have reviewed negatively. It is no coincidence that these 3 books were all written with an agenda to misinform. One was written by an Islamic, one was written by a Conservative, and now this one written by Michael Moore; no explanation of his agenda necessary. I offer this as proof on my consistency in reasoning.

As he takes us on a whirlwind tour of our American misadventures, concluding that we have met the “Evil Empire” and it is us, he neglects to position his arguments against the backdrop of history as he deplores, page after page, our imperialistic designs. His take on the acquisition of Hawaii is that we were bent on world domination. Completely ignored is the fact that Russia and Japan were already rattling sabers at one another, and would fight a horrific war between them over domination of the Pacific; its resources; and of course Hawaii. Had we not gained possession of Hawaii when we did, then Japan would have been able to launch her planes from carriers based there against San Francisco. But details have never bothered Mr. Moore before, so why was I expecting something different from this book?

Our domination of the Philippine Islands is fairly accurate, though he does seem to gloss over the fact that we did grant them Independence after helping them to defeat the Japanese. And although there have been problems with our still having troops and ships stationed there, for the most part, the people and government of the Philippines seem to regard our presence in the area as more of a positive than a negative.

This is likewise in just about every one of the 132 countries which Mr. Moore laments about, where we have troops stationed. His thinking seems parallel to that of most Conservatives, who continually lament that we cannot be the “world’s policeman.” This is odd reasoning for an avowed liberal such as Mr. Moore claims to be. It gives one pause to think about just why he writes what he does. Is it how he really feels, or just the lure of easy money? By the way, the lure of easy money is one of the things Mr. Moore complains about the most, blaming many of the world’s ills upon it.

Like a reverse image of Rush Limbaugh, Mr. Moore goes charging through the history of America with an agenda. Where Mr. Limbaugh would have you think us Gods; Mr. Moore paints us as devils. He even takes our country to task over the Cuban Missile Crisis, labeling us as the reckless aggressors, even while acknowledging the massive buildup of tactical nuclear weapons which we did not know about at the time. Had we invaded, we would have been wiped out. The policy Of Mutual Assured Destruction, often derided as MAD, is also something which Mr. Moore fails to realize actually saved us from coming to actual nuclear war. Had one side only been able to launch a first strike, there would have been a nuclear war.

Only the fact that neither side could afford to pull the nuclear trigger on the other saved us from catastrophe. Contrast that against today’s post-Cold War world, with rogue nations; and terrorists ones such as Pakistan; in possession of nuclear unarms. Do you feel safer now? Under the policy of M.A.D., there was never a nuclear confrontation after the bombing of Japan at the conclusion of the Second World War. This is something which the author fails to acknowledge, or even mention.

While taking careful and deliberate aim at the policies of the United States in the 1950’s, Mr. Moore paints a bleak picture of the hare brained schemes being considered by the scientific community. Some of these plans were outright wacky; such as the plan to use nuclear weaponry to hasten the melting of the Polar Ice Caps, raising the world’s temperature by 10 degrees; or the scheme to use the atomic bomb to change the course of hurricanes, regardless of the fallout which would occur. There was also thought given to Project Chariot, which would have had the United States military blast holes in Alaska to harvest the shale oil beneath the frozen surface. What he never tells you is that these plans were never implemented, just tossed about. In Mr. Moore’s world, even ideas are prohibited.

The book is not all negative. But even where his facts are correct, he never gives America the credit it is due for the good things she has done. For instance, what other nation in the world would go to the lengths which we did during the Bosnia-Serbian War, when we helped Islamic people from genocide at the hands of their Christian neighbors? And, we did that at a time when tensions were reaching an all-time high between America, which was being billed as the Great Satan, and most of the other Islamic nations of the world. Where was their help in the aftermath of 9/11, when they danced in the streets, while hiding Bin Laden for 10 years?

When it comes time to examine the Second World War, once again we are the evil ones who firebombed cities, which was even worse than the atomic bomb, notwithstanding that had we not done so, the world today would be desolate place as far as freedom is concerned.

In typical fashion, Mr. Moore laments that the bomb was built without necessity, since we already knew that the Germans had abandoned their efforts at gaining such a weapon in favor of further developing the V1 and V2 rockets which they were using to kill civilians in Britain. He seems not to realize that once the tide of the war had changed back in favor of the Germans, they would have continued the experiments towards obtaining a nuclear weapon, if only to subjugate the Soviets.

As a matter of fact; Mr. Moore inadvertently tips his hand here; as it was only the pressure exerted on Roosevelt by the 3 main scientists who had fled Germany, including Einstein, that the bomb was an absolute necessity if we were to win the war. They even corroborated the fact that Germany was then, indeed, working on such a weapon herself, thus fueling the Roosevelt administration’s decision to go ahead with the bomb. It was only Oppenheimer and Davis who slowed the pace down enough to ascertain that the bomb would not ignite the earth’s atmosphere and destroy all life on the planet before proceeding with the experiments. So, one might conclude that the German scientists on both sides were pushing their respective governments to obtain this new weapons technology. Therefore, it is absurd to place the blame for the resultant Cold War on any one leader’s shoulders. This whole section had me wondering about Mr. Moore squares this view of Roosevelt with his hero of the New Deal? Me, I don’t have that problem; I think he was right on both occasions.

As far as the decision to drop the bomb which ushered in the Cold War, without it we would have lost at least 100,000 more Americans in order to take the island fortress of Japan.

By page 392 it becomes apparent that this book will never cease to amaze me. The author blames the policies of Henry Kissinger for the ruin of America’s stature in the world, and uses that as a pretext for the failed Presidency of Jimmy Carter. He uses the logic that the same people were still calling the shots for the White House. Jimmy was a well-intentioned, but un-involved bystander. By this logic, Reagan was innocent of any wrongdoing during the Iran-Contra affair, and Bush was misled into the war in Iraq by faulty advisers with agendas of their own.

This is an interesting book, with a lot of information in it. As such, it needs to be read carefully. Facts are funny things, and in the hands of professional writers and movie makers such as Mr. Moore, can be bent to support whatever conclusion you care to make them support. But, in the end, this book is mainly an apology for being American, and though my government may be temporarily in the hands of idiots, being born American is one thing for which I will never apologize.

"Two Americans" by William Lee Miller (2012)

On the surface Presidents Truman and Eisenhower would seem to have little in common. One was a former artilleryman who saw combat in World War One, going on to become a failed haberdashery owner, before entering politics and becoming President of the United States. He was the last President to have not attained a college degree. The other was a product of the military academy at West Point who never saw combat, but went on to lead the Allied Powers to victory in the Second World War. Both of their Presidencies were bracketed by Harvard graduates. What makes this book so interesting, and the perfect companion to last week’s selection “Red Scare” by Griffin Fariello, is the time in which both men lived and how they handled some of the same problems in uniquely different ways.

These two men from the Midwest, both faced the challenges of their times in very different ways, yet both were deeply committed to a strong America. The differences in their views on dropping the Atom bomb; at a time when Eisenhower was preparing to move all his equipment to the Pacific for the final push into Japan; is fascinating. We had already had success with firebombing cities like Dresden and Hamburg in Germany, and done the same in Japan. As a matter of fact, with the incendiary bombing of Tokyo, as well as other cities, those bombings killed more people in one night than both of the two atom bombs combined. The real reason behind the decision to drop the bomb was that the Nazi’s were already working on a bomb of their own; making it imperative that we develop, and use, ours first.  Had we not, the whole face of post war Europe would have been changed drastically, with the Soviets taking over much more than just Eastern Europe.

Socially, both men were not that far apart. Although not a “New Deal Democrat” by any means, Eisenhower was concerned with the stability of the middle class in the same way as Truman. On the subject of Civil Rights Eisenhower was not as groundbreaking as Truman was. Although Ike favored the integration of the Armed Forces in 1947, he dragged his feet on the Little Rock integration issue, waiting for it to turn violent rather than use his leadership as a bully pulpit for change.

In an engaging and highly readable fashion, the author charts the course taken by both men, from their earliest days, through to the pinnacle of their careers as the respective leaders of the free world. And though there is much difference between the two men, they were more alike than either would ever admit. Ah, but to have the likes of these two running for office now…

Grief and Sorrow in Japan

Nothing that I can write will ever come close to the sorrow I feel for the people of Japan. The only thing I could think of doing here today was to express my sorrow in a way in which the Japanese people will understand my empathy for their pain.

The two calligraphy characters above are the Japanese symbols for "Aitou", which is the English translation for Condolence, Regret, Tribute, Sorrow and Sympathy.

Japan is one of the miracles to have come out of the 20th Century. In just one century, Japan went from a feudal warlord culture to a brutal tyranny, and emerged from the massive destruction of the world's first atomic bombs to become a world leader in economics and technology.

With all of the world, I join in offering my hopes for a speedy recovery to a nation bowed in sorrow.

"Hiroshima" by John Hersey

This week is the anniversary of the first, and only, atomic bombs ever used in war. The results of that use are widely known. The fact that they were used at all is still a topic which is highly debated. I will leave that debate for others to conduct. My focus here is on the book.

First written and released in 1946, this book has been around for as long as I can remember. The first time I read it was in 5th grade. In the late 1970's Mr. Hersey returned to Japan, and the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to see the long term effects of the use of the atomic bombs which were used in 1945, bringing an abrupt end to one of the worst wars in the history of mankind. This visit by the author led to the final chapter in the 1978 edition of the book, entitled, "Aftermath."

With the current state of world affairs and the crumbling of at least one
"superpower", the world is now in worse shape than ever in relation to the use of nuclear weapons. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, her nuclear arsenal fell into the hands of several different republics, some of whom don't like us very much.

With the advent of terrorism in the 21st Century, coupled with the cash starved former Soviet states, the situation is ripe for "rogue" nations and radical groups to attain/develop nuclear weapons of their own. Pakistan and India are poised to annihilate one another while Iran is doing all it can to develop her own nuclear weapons. And Israel is ready to retaliate at the slightest provocation.

I hope that this book is still being read in our schools. Using a very straight forward and narrative style, this 152 page book will cause you to think about the consequences of ever using nuclear weapons again.