Hiroshima survivor remembers lost U.S. airmen

ERIC ADLER MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
Published: May 30, 2009

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Surely somebody, someplace, remembers 1st Lt. Robert C. Johnston. A cousin who remembers his face? A niece who heard his voice? Or perhaps there still exists a now-elderly brother or sister who, 64 years after the World War II death of the young Army Air Corps flier, would like a tangible remembrance of his sacrifice.

In Japan, 72-year-old historian Shigeaki Mori is waiting.

He is waiting to deliver what until recently was some of the long-hidden wreckage of the Taloa, the B-24 bomber in which Johnston died when it was shot down in heavy flak on July 28, 1945. More, he wants to deliver the little-known story of what eventually became of the three Taloa crew members who bailed out and survived the aircraft's plunge.

On Aug. 6, 1945, they, with nine other American prisoners of war, died along with 100,000 to 140,000 Japanese in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

"I lost a lot of friends," Mori said by telephone, speaking through a translator from Hiroshima. "Because of the way they died, I am sympathetic. . . . I want to give closure to the families."

Also, he said, he hopes to highlight how all people -- regardless of which side they were on -- were the victims of war. Few Americans likely realize that some of their countrymen also died on the day the B-29 bomber named Enola Gay detonated the atomic bomb known as "Little Boy."

Mori was 8 when the bomb incinerated his city. He stood on a bridge outside a Shinto shrine. The shock wave slammed him into shallow water. He submerged and lived.

Mori, as a child, knew vaguely of the prisoners who had been brought to the military police headquarters next to his grade school, about 1,300 feet from the blast's epicenter.

But it was as an adult, while doing research in the 1970s, that he came upon pictures of some of those who he eventually realized were among the 12 American POWs held at the police headquarters.

They included three crew members from the Taloa, six from a downed B-24 called the Lonesome Lady and three Navy fliers.

For 25 years, Mori has worked with some success to track down the relatives of the POWs and other crew members, and to get the names of the prisoners included in memorials in and around Hiroshima.

"I felt compelled that the story had to be told," Mori said.

more...
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/lifestyles/health_med_fit/article/I-HIRO0518_20090528-203612/270476/

To labor to help the families of the POWs who were in league with those who destroyed so many of his countrymen, and nearly killed him.

If only we were all so willing to show such kindness.

:hi:

:kick:

Hi WillyT :hi:

After the war, the remains of thousands of soldiers were recovered and returned to the U.S. to be buried in private or national cemeteries -- including the remains of the Americans who died at Hiroshima. A single grave at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis contains the collective remains of five of the six crewmen from the Lonesome Lady, one of the three Navy fliers, as well as Baumgartner and Molnar from the Taloa.

:cry:

sorry (hides)