Atomic bombs on Japan

Press, 2 April 1985, Page 16

Atomic bombs on Japan

Sir, — I cannot agree more with Elsie Locke, about her abhorrence of the atomic bombs. I was in Japanese concentration camps in Java during the war. My feelings are, “a Japanese girl died for me.” I went through the inner experience as described by Stefan Zeveig in his novel about Oueen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. It did not make Elizabeth a nicer person to have Mary killed, but it took her a lot of courage to live. It takes more courage to live than to die. We can ask our dead forgiveness and turn our thoughts on their culture and country, their people. Love is something we can learn. — Yours, etc., H. E. VANDENBERG. March 29, 1985.

Sir, — It is not Group Captain Cheshire, but Elsie Locke who has shirked a good look at the truths of wartime. The Japanese would never have surrendered; they were fortifying cities . and outlying areas. Reserves and civilians were armed and buildings packed with high explosives, to make a stand on home soil. As for Nagasaki being a Christian City, did the Japanese realise that the people at Pearl Harbour were Christian? Thousands died without seeing the cause of their destruction. Thousands died in prison camps or on forced marches and construction work. Friends still suffer mental torture and show physical signs of abuse. They are Christians too. Elsie Locke should consider the outcome if Japan had dominated the whole Pacific area. Every sane person rejects war and killing, but those two big bangs saved countless Allied lives which would have been lost in battles for scattered islands as well as the Japanese mainland. — Yours, etc., E. MARTIN. March 29, 1985.