Greenfield Recorder, August 6, 2020:

Readers Write

My own father, who was in the Army and who was on a ship heading from California as a member of the forces expected to fight on the shores of Japan, expressed himself as thankful that before their ship arrived, the atomic bombs had been dropped, and the Japanese had surrendered.

But the Japanese were already prepared to surrender and were not able to defend themselves from any attacks from the Air Force that fateful day in August. The Enola Gay did not have any fighter escort. All the guns were taken out, but for the tailgun.

Many high-ranking officers criticized the use of the atomic bomb on Japan.

For example, Admiral William Leahy, White House chief of staff and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the war wrote in his 1950 memoirs, that “the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima andNagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.”

“Moreover”, Leahy continued, “in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”

Let us write to our legislators that we, the United States of America, should never, ever use nuclear weapons against others again. It is an evil action we should not repeat.

CAROL LETSON
Greenfield