As I see it: Audience got surprise viewpoint about A-bomb use

By Martin Mulford
Sep 16, 2010
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As a graduate student in history in the mid-1990s, I organized a talk at the State University of New York at Brockport by the now-late Dr. Sachio Ashida, an experimental psychologist and jujitsu master (twice coach of the U.S. Olympic team), on the atomic bombing at Hiroshima.

Dr. Ashida was eminently qualified to discuss this topic because, as a young man, he had been a cadet pilot in the Imperial Japanese Airforce and was training as a kamikaze pilot at the time of the bombing. Fortunately for us all, he was unable to complete his training.

In August of 1945, Dr. Ashida was stationed at an airbase on an island located just off the coast of Honshu near Hiroshima. On the afternoon of Aug. 6, 1945, he and his commander were sent to evaluate the destruction the bomb had wrought. Seven hours after the bomb exploded, they landed on the outskirts and bicycled the remaining distance into the city. He told a moving story of a woman whose skin was so burned it came off in his hands when he tried to comfort her. She died in his arms. His hushed audience listened with rapt attention to his every word. It was, to say the least, a moving presentation.

Most of the audience, including myself, had been active in the debate over whether or not President Truman had made a mistake in using the atomic bomb. So, even though tremendously moved, we were not completely surprised by what he said ... until the question and answer period.

Then, he dropped his own bomb.

When the inevitable question of whether he felt that the United States had been justified in using the bomb came up, Dr. Ashida professed that he believed it had been the right decision! Considering his background as a member of the Imperial armed forces, this came as quite a shock to the entire assemblage.

However, his explanation, eloquently presented, was that millions of Japanese, as well as millions of American servicemen, would have died had the United States not used the atomic weapons. He went on to relate that he adamantly believed that the Japanese people would have ceased to exist had the invasion taken place, because, he insisted, they would all have died in it, either fighting the Americans or by their own hand.

He averred that he knew elementary school children, as young as 6, who were being trained to meet the Marines on the beaches armed with bamboo spears and stakes and who accepted their assignment wholeheartedly, in the knowledge that they would die for the Emperor.

Even though his own father had been against the war, believing that the United States would out-produce and overwhelm his country, he still supported the war when it came. Dr. Ashida, himself, had been willing - indeed eager - to give his life for the Emperor (you could hear the capitalization of the word) as a kamikaze pilot.

He convincingly related his strong belief that the only thing that had averted the catastrophe that was about to befall his people was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, despite the horror of the aftermath that he witnessed firsthand.

The current, annual, and seemingly interminable, debate that rages across America over this question was set to rest for me that day.

Martin Mulford of Corvallis holds a doctoral degree in modern European history from the University of Rochester and is a self-described "independent curmudgeon and rogue scholar."