Price for Peace Page #6

for the bomb at Hiroshima.

It came up out of the pit right here

and then Tibbets flew that mission.

I put out of my mind anything

that had to do with morality,

religion or anything like that. War is hell.

I wanted to get the killing over

as fast as I could.

The airplane was quiet.

Normally, the crew would be telling

dirty jokes and all that.

There was dead silence

because they were all determined,

just as I was,

to get that bomb on the target,

for what good we thought it might do.

The first day I heard of that weapon,

I thought if we could do that

we'd help the war effort.

I could see over the instrument panel,

it was Hiroshima.

I didn't see it. All I saw

was the sky light up in front of me.

Beautiful pink and red colours.

In the end, there was 3 square miles

of Hiroshima devastated in one blow.

That's how terrific it was.

Rest of the trip going back, everybody

was relaxed, tension was over with.

I told Bob Lewis, my co-pilot,

"You take it over. Let autopilot fly it.

"I'm going to get some sleep."

And that's what I did.

All of a sudden a report came in

about the bomb over Hiroshima

and we just sat in stunned silence.

Of course, we cheered

and had our little rejoicing.

Next day we were training,

like we were gonna keep going,

because nobody said, "It's over."

There was a feeling in Japan,

"The Americans dropped this bomb,

"but we'll continue.

"Hiroshima is not a military target.

They didn't weaken our military strength.

"We'll continue to fight on."

And Truman decided

to go ahead with the second bomb.

I could hear the distant hum of planes.

About 500 metres above, I saw a large

red fireball as large as the sun.

And from this fireball, multicoloured

sparkles flashed everywhere.

And these sparkles

came down like rainfall.

This light pierced my face

and I immediately felt pain and heat.

I touched my face with my left hand

and slid it down my face.

The skin on my face peeled off

and was hanging down to here.

For as far as I could see, houses

and other buildings were destroyed.

The town was in ruins.

And at that point, the Japanese

military just had to give up.

"We can't do anything

against atomic bombs.

"We can meet marines at the beaches.

"We've got an air force that, with the

kamikazes, can sink a lot of ships.

"We can force them to pay a terrible

high price if they want to invade Japan."

But what could they do

about an atomic bomb?

Many have debated

the use of that bomb over the years.

I'd say, probably it was

the best decision ever made

because we would've lost many men,

over a million, probably,

in trying to invade Japan.

The atomic bomb

surely made the war end quicker.

But I think the Japanese

would have surrendered without it.

The treachery that Japan

had thrown upon us...

I had no pity, and still don't,

for the Japanese.

The Americans, I'm sure, felt that

casualties are a result

of a long fought battle, like in Vietnam.

But I wish the Americans

had come up with something different

instead of the atomic bomb.

Tell him if there'd

never been a Pearl Harbor,

there'd never have been

a Hiroshima and a Nagasaki.

We did that to save not only

American lives, but Japanese too.

I think it was a mistake.

I think it could've been demonstrated

elsewhere

without harming people.

A demonstration bombing with

the atomic bomb would've been futile

because I don't believe

the Japanese nature

would've yielded to anything less

than the holocaust we put on Japan.

The pilots of the Enola Gay

should go to Hiroshima and Nagasaki

to apologise for what they did

and never speak of the positive

effects of the atomic bomb.

I've been asked time and again,

"Don't you feel terrible

about killing all those people?"

No. I'm sorry they were there

and had to be killed.

But what had to be done was bigger

than those people, bigger than me.

It ended the war.

And it brought us home.

What was left of us. Yeah.

The surrender took place in Tokyo

harbour on the battleship Missouri.

Let us pray that peace

be now restored to the world...

...and that God will preserve it always.

The end of the war was like a load

taken off your chest.

Everything was going to be OK now.

We'd won the war.

VJ-Day, as it was called, Victory over

Japan Day, when they surrendered,

led to the biggest celebration

America has ever known.

Crowds were filling the skyscrapers

and throwing out confetti.

I was trusting that my husband

would get to come home.

And what a great day

when he did come in.

We pulled into San Diego harbour,

and there was a huge, huge sign

that said, "Welcome home."

For the next seven days,

they fed us like kings.

I'd been injured and when I came home,

Mom grabbed me

and felt me all over

to see if I had any missing parts.

She was so happy

that I was in one piece.

My dad met me at the train station,

and I was brown as a brown paper sack.

I saw my dad and he was

looking around trying to find me

amongst all the other passengers.

I walked up to him

and looked him in the eye,

and he looked around me, you know.

I said, "He don't know me.

He just doesn't know me."

So I walked around behind him

and tapped him on the shoulder.

I said, "It's me."

He grabbed me and gave me a big hug.

My brother came back from the service.

He wanted to see his parents, of course.

So he came to the internment camp

and it was after hours.

And he could only touch my mother

through the barbed wire fence.

My father and mother remained

in camp until the end of the war.

They didn't know where to go,

what to do.

They heard that a few who tried to

get back had a very bad reception.

Their homes were burned down

or they were chased out.

I received the Navy Cross

in San Francisco, California.

That night, they came and

took the document from me

because I was black

and black stewards' mates weren't

supposed to get Navy Crosses.

The Medal of Honor

is the highest decoration

awarded by the US government.

The President of the United States

decorated me at the White House.

I stepped forward to, "Jack Lucas."

Harry Truman

hung that medal around my neck.

He said, "I'd rather have this medal

than be president."

I said, "Sir, I'll swap you."

He just laughed.

So it was great to be

in the United States of America.

And to be welcome.

And for them to tell us, "Job well done."

When the war ended,

I was disappointed

that I hadn't died for my country.

I thought I would have to

live my life in dishonour.

This was my fear.

I was more afraid of living

in dishonour than dying at war.

TOKYO:

Japan immediately became part of

the American anti-Communist alliance.

The Americans went into Japan

with Douglas MacArthur as the head

to bring about a democracy in Japan,

to reshape Japan.

I was able to overcome

my feelings of hatred.

I suffered immensely

from radiation poisoning

and was hospitalised many times

with many surgeries.

A few times a year I get the urge

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