Robert Bersten, who now lives in Florida. The personnel aboard the plane who scattered the flyers was Mr. It was a newspaper of three sheets in a tabloid size. During the daytime on August 5, 1945, a great number of Parachute News was dropped from the B-24 bomber Contrary Mary, which flew over Hiroshima City. They also appeared in Asian countries, reporting the news of the war situations and posting agitation. They were quite similar to newspapers, and were designed for Japanese soldiers and citizens in Japan proper. planes distributed tens of millions of copies of the “Parachute News” in the Japanese language. Towards the end of the Pacific War, the U.S. had naturally grasped the facts, which they reported back to their country. However, news of this incident was never announced through the Press Club, and it was only after the war that the extensive damage became known to the general public. Navy and Army Air Force on July 24 and 28. I have already mentioned that the Japanese Naval airplane carriers, battle ships, cruisers, and destroyers had been anchored in the various corners off the shore of Kure, trying to hide themselves and that they were fiercely attacked by the planes of the U.S. Only those articles that the military authorities had censored and permitted were posted in the papers. However, the reporters could not write freely as they do today. At the Chugoku Area Army Headquarters, the group leaders of the Publicity Section were to distribute the military news to the reporters 2nd Lt. In those days, each prefecture was permitted to have just one newspaper. The Chugoku Newspaper stationed two, covering a wider area that consisted of five prefectures of Yamaguchi, Shimane, Tottori, Hiroshima and Okayama. The Press Club was established in the Chugoku Area Army Headquarters, and the newspapers such as the national Asahi, Mainichi, and local Chugoku, Nishi-Nihon (Western Japan), Godo ( Sanyo), and Osaka usually stationed one reporter there. During the war, news reporters were stationed at the Press Club to gather material.
This is where many newspapers and TV stations have registered, and reporters actively gather news. Today, a Press Club exists in the City Government Office, the Prefectural Government Office, and also other offices in Hiroshima. ☆ The “Parachute News” Scattered by Planes Instead of 12 men on the Enola Gay, people would think there were only nine.Chapter 6 The Eve and the Day of the Atomic Bombing Jeppson was worried that without some addition, the importance of his role, along with that of Navy Capt. Jeppson was concerned because he learned his name, along with two others, would be absent from a list of crew members long-ago stenciled on the side of the infamous B-29 bomber by the military. The new Udvar-Hazy Center at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum was about to open with the Enola Gay on display. It was 2003 when Jeppson felt compelled to come forward. Today he lives in Las Vegas with his wife, Molly, retired after a career spent at the helm of a handful of high-tech companies and working as consultant for the Department of Energy. Jeppson turned to graduate studies at University of California, Berkeley, after leaving the military. Now 90, Tibbets lives in a modest brick home in a well-kept neighborhood in Columbus and travels occasionally for air shows and veterans’ ceremonies. Most of the lives saved were Japanese,” the 84-year-old said from his suburban Atlanta retirement home near the base of Stone Mountain, where a large relief memorial carved out of the bare rock depicts Confederate heroes Jefferson Davis, Robert E. “I honestly believe the use of the atomic bomb saved lives in the long run. The 9,000-pound bomb fell down toward the city as the Enola Gay banked away, the crew hoping to escape with their lives.ĭespite decades of controversy over whether the United States should have used the atomic bomb - which left some 140,000 dead in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki three days later - Van Kirk remains convinced it was necessary because it shortened the war and relieved the Allies of having to mount a land invasion that might have cost far more lives on both sides. Under cover of night, he guided the bomber nearly exactly as planned - the plane was just 15 seconds behind schedule. It was a perfect mission, Van Kirk recalls. Van Kirk, then 24, was the navigator on the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped “Little Boy” - the world’s first atomic bomb - over the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Aug.