August 16, 2005
COMMENTARYDOW JONES REPRINTSTokyo Needs Its Dresden Moment
By FUMIO MATSUO
August 16, 2005; Page A16

TOKYO -- Although Prime Minister Koizumi renewed apologies to countries that theImperial Army had invaded and colonized, Japan observed the 60th anniversary of its
World War II defeat yesterday with great political unease: First, there were the tensions
caused by his gamble in dissolving parliament over the rejection of his long-cherished plan
to privatize the postal service. On the diplomatic front, Japan's isolation in the six nation
talks in Beijing continues -- as does China's opposition to Japan's bid for a permanent seaton the U.N. Security Council.
However, in my opinion the most important cause of the uneasiness -- though invisible andunconscious, especially in younger Japanese -- is a thorn deep in the Japanese psyche:
There has been no true closure with the U.S. over World War II. On the surface,
U.S.-Japan relations are at an all-time high: Prime Minister Koizumi and President Bushshare a strong friendship and Japan has been a loyal ally in the war on terror and has
deployed troops to Iraq. Still, the thorn of WWII has to be removed to cement a true
partnership for coming generations.
My conviction that we need a postwar settlement of accounts is triggered by memory of theway the city of Dresden marked the 50th anniversary of the Allied bombings that killed
35,000. I was surprised to see in attendance the military leaders of Germany's former
enemies and representatives of the British Royal Family. It was clear that everyone hadengaged in much back-stage diplomacy. Japan and the U.S., on the other hand, havenever engaged in any meaningful discussion of their wartime actions, even though far morepeople (conservatively, 83,793) were killed by the U.S. firebombing of Tokyo on March 10,1945, than in Dresden. This was the first of a series of indiscriminate bombings of 69 cities,
including Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs. According to Japanese government
estimates, about 510,000 civilians were killed. Yet Japan and the U.S. have never heldsuch a reconciliation ceremony.
I myself endured one of these raids as a 12-year-old. In July 1945, my family and I were
evacuated from Tokyo to the western city of Fukui, which came under attack by 127 B-29
bombers. We took refuge by lying low in a sweet potato field when a cluster bomb fell
towards us. Instead of dispersing above ground as intended, the bomb malfunctioned andsplashed unopened into the paddy, sending up a muddy gush.
That intense experience was my first encounter with the U.S. As a journalist covering
America, I have always wondered why Japan went to war with the U.S. and to what extent
we truly understood America. Now I am haunted by the even greater question of why
Japan and the U.S. have not properly reconciled their differences as Germany and its
former enemies have.
***With all this in mind, I have two proposals. First, a simple, humble observance, using theDresden precedent, to mourn the deceased and call for permanent reconciliation -- what
German President Roman Herzog referred to as "an expression of humane emotion datingback to the beginning of civilization" -- with President Bush laying a wreath at the Hiroshima
Peace Memorial on his next visit.
By having the U.S. president respect the dead at the symbolic center of all bombing deaths,
including the world's first nuclear attack, the thorn in our psyche might possibly be removed.
There would be no need for remarks -- the mere presence of the president at the Memorialwould speak for itself by opening a new page of true mutual trust and respect. In
reciprocation, Japan's prime minister should quietly lay a wreath at Pearl Harbor on theappropriate occasion.
Secondly, Japan should ask for changes in the placards on the restored B-29s thatdropped the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- Enola Gay at the Smithsonianand Bock's Car at Dayton's Air Force Museum. The placards explain that the aircraft
dropped the bombs toward the end of the war but do not mention the estimated number ofvictims -- 140,000 at Hiroshima and 70,000 at Nagasaki. Listing the number killed is theleast we can do to allow the dead to rest in peace.
Stating the number of victims is admittedly controversial. In 1995, the year of the Dresden
Reconciliation, the Smithsonian organized an atomic bomb exhibit on the 50th anniversaryof the end of WWII, but many Americans objected to any reference to the number of victims.
Today these displays should be of little concern to Americans since Japan and the U.S.
have become so much closer, particularly in light of the deployment to Iraq. Most
Americans believe the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives on both sides bybringing a swift end to the war. That stance is not incompatible with listing the number ofvictims or having Mr. Bush mourn them. In fact, those actions would be a minimal requiem
for the dead. I believe Americans will accept these facts.
Japan has much to do as well and Mr. Koizumi's actions yesterday may have begun theprocess. As the writer Max Boot pointed out in the Weekly Standard in December 2003,
Japan's lack of remorse over its wartime actions has provided fodder for China and North
Korea -- "who have caused far more suffering to their own people than the Japanese everdid" -- to stir up anti-Japanese sentiment that can be manipulated for domestic political
purposes. For Japan to gain the proper level of recognition from its Asian neighbors, Mr.
Boot urged it to "put to rest the ghosts of World War II."We must heed that advice. As a starting point, Japan must face up to its past and its
unfortunate war with the U.S. After we remove that remaining thorn, Japan will have tocontinue building a fitting sequel to our postwar success story -- the rejection of militarismand nuclear armament -- by admitting the simple truth to the rest of Asia that Japan started
the war. From that start, we can begin to remove the thorns, one by one, between Japanand its neighbors, just as we are asking the Americans to pay respects to our war victims,and bring closure to a sad chapter in our history.
Mr. Matsuo is a former Washington bureau chief of Kyodo News Service.